Posted on 06/23/2005 7:30:08 AM PDT by Helmholtz
U.S. Supreme Court says cities have broad powers to take property.
They are laws everyone is subject to. That includes gov, unless exempted explicitly.
We're all paying rent to the government for our so-called property, in the form of property taxes, so why is this so shocking or surprising?
It seems to me that this would be the time for the people of New London to stand up for their rights. Take up whatever arms they can find and do NOT let the government drive them from their homes. Issue a call for others to join. Bring the media in and let them see how the government is driving them from their homes to put up a shopping mall and a health club. This battle MUST be fought...it is only going to get harder to win down the road.
Since this isn't up on the Supreme Court website yet, does anyone have a link to this opinion?
The Court, dividing 5-4, clarified the power of federal courts to decide lawsuits that involve some parties who do not satisfy the basic requirement that their claims must be worth more than $75,000. In an opinion written by Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, the Court ruled that, if one party satisfies that amount minimum, the claims of others in the case may be decided even if those are for less than $75,000. The ruling came in the consolidated cases of Exxon Corp. v. Allapattah Services (04-70) and Ortega v. Star-Kist Foods (04-79).
Thanks.
BTTT
They are out of control and those who sit on it no longer bother to read the Constitution.
We need term limits on judges.
LOL ... hadn't seen all the other responses when I hit 'post reply.' I'm just so fed up with our court's interpretation of what was once the law of the land.
Correct.
There is a distinction. During the debates there was a great deal of mixing and matching terms and of the evolution of meaning. They were not in agreement, not most of the time, not on most of the issues. The final wording was enacted by vote and not all who voted for it liked it--as evidence the eventual secession of several states. We tend to treat the document as sacred when it suits our ends and as something to be interpreted if it doesn't say exactly what we want it to say based on our somewhat nebulous concepts of natural law, etc.
I haven't only wondered, I've spend several years researching it!
To answer your question, they do it by creating an artificial *legal entity* (without knowledge, consent, OR full disclosure).
They ASSUME jurisdiction, and because no one REFUTES that jurisdiction, or the legal entities existence, they are prosecutable by our 'legal system'.
I actually have a partially completed paper on the subject...mostly because it makes me too damned angry when I think about it too long.
________________________________________________________________
Everyone complains there are 'two sets of laws', one for the illegals and elites, and one for Joe American.......there IS!
Natural law for the people and positive law for government, artificial entities, and anyone violating the rights of another PERSON.
The two sets of laws it what MAKES us a REPUBLIC!
Unbelievable
You've identified half the problem.
The other half is that nearly every government "planner" sees $$$ in the city's treasury whenever he can seal a deal for another shopping mall, Wal-Mart, or other revenue-producing retail activity.
In the never-ending search for more tax revenues, cities have become the public-sector equivalent of real-estate developers -- only with considerably more power. Who else can restrict commercial development to certain sections of town and prohibit flying American flags if they are deemed used for advertising purposes? In their strange universe, competition is only good if it's regulated competition and if it results in more tax revenue for the greedy bureaucrats.
That way, our elected officials are happy because they won't have to overtly raise taxes. They can go around masquerading as "fiscal conservatives" while their underlings in City Hall are trashing individual rights in their zeal to boost "economic development."
Don't look to the Chamber of Commerce for protection against these actions, either. More often than not, they are working hand in glove with city "planners" to do the very kinds of things exemplified by Kelo vs. New London.
"I think we've finally reached the point where even a French "man" has stronger property rights than an American."
You have, really long ago. The problem is the US legal system. Here are all the ways that it leaves you helpless:
(1) There is no right to privacy in the US.
There is an explicit right to privacy in France.
This makes a difference across the board, including the degree to which someone can defame you by collecting and publishing your private, personal information.
(2) There is "civil discovery" in the US legal system, which allows your enemy in a lawsuit to demand all of YOUR papers and e-mails so that he can go through them all and look for a way to use your own words to convict you.
There is no discovery in France.
(3) There is the power to seize property in America and hand it over to wealthier persons, corporations and developers, to do with it as they please.
In France, the government can take property for government purposes, but must pay fair value for it.
(4) In the United States, criminals can only be prosecuted by a public prosecutor who is an elected official. If you are attacked, but he does not - for political reasons - choose to bring the case against him, your attacker goes free.
In France, an individual can sue another person in criminal law if he has been criminally attacked, and the state prosecutor must cooperate to the extent of providing such evidence as the state has collected to each side.
(5) In America, judges have the power to "interpret" the US Constitution so as to overturn acts of the US legislature.
In France, judges do not have the power to overturn acts of Parliament. There is a special constitutional court which can review laws that are being discussed in Parliament and determine their constitutionality before they are passed. This court does nothing but rule on such constitutional matters. Other judges do not have the power to make constitutional rulings, and no judge has the right to overrule acts of Parliament. Parliament is elected by the People. It is the final source of law, through the democracy. Judges rise through the civil service. They are not elected and not removable, except for crimes, and as such they should not, and do not, have the power to override the decisions of the democracy. Ever.
The totality of these differences comes to bear in the case today.
On my property in France, I can do as I please so long as I do not cause some sort of terrible nuisance to my neighbors (I cannot keep pigs in an apartment in the middle of Paris, for example).
On my property in America, this is also theoretically true.
On my property in France, if I am famous and someone sticks a camera through the hedges and photographs me and my family having dinner in our garden and publishes it, he has committed a crime against my privacy.
In the United States, he has the unlimited freedom to print whatever intrusion onto my privacy and private property he chooses.
In France, if the government wants to build a bridge, it can take my property and it must pay the fair price of the property, as though I had sold it to another particular.
If the wealthy man next door desires to buy my property to expand his golf green, and I do not wish to sell it, there is nothing to be said.
In American, if the government wants to build a bridge, it can take property and it must pay a price for the property. And if the wealthy man next door desires my property for his golf green and he is well connected and can show that my property attached to his will cause more tax revenues to the community, the city will take my property, pay some value for it, and sell it to my neighbor at whatever deal it works out with him.
My property in France is much more protected from political taking by the law than it is in America.
In America, judges have the greatest political power, but they are not elected nor even must they go to judge school and move their ways up the ranks through experience.
It is a dramatically bad system, the American legal system, and it is the thing which seems to make Americans more angry than anything else in their whole government.
It is surprising that they never do anything about it.
We tend to treat the document as sacred when it suits our ends and as something to be interpreted if it doesn't say exactly what we want it to say based on our somewhat nebulous concepts of natural law, etc.
Heh.. Not "we".. ;^)
Thanks, but I mean for the civil procedure case that was decided today. Is it on the same website?
If so, what is the address?
This is absolutely, unequivocally not what the Eminent Domain power was meant to cover.
There are at least five shelves of books to read on this topic alone.
It's been going on forever (almost.) My grandparents lost everything when The Government wanted to build (or expand) a fort for training during WWI.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.