Justice O’Connor, with whom The Chief Justice, Justice Scalia, and Justice Thomas join, dissenting.
"...Under the banner of economic development, all private property is now vulnerable to being taken and transferred to another private owner, so long as it might be upgraded–i.e., given to an owner who will use it in a way that the legislature deems more beneficial to the public–in the process. To reason, as the Court does, that the incidental public benefits resulting from the subsequent ordinary use of private property render economic development takings “for public use” is to wash out any distinction between private and public use of property–and thereby effectively to delete the words “for public use” from the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment. Accordingly I respectfully dissent."
More from O'Conner's dissent:
"If legislative prognostications about the secondary public benefits of a new use can legitimate a taking, there is nothing in the Court’s rule or in Justice Kennedy’s gloss on that rule to prohibit property transfers generated with less care, that are less comprehensive, that happen to result from less elaborate process, whose only projected advantage is the incidence of higher taxes, or that hope to transform an already prosperous city into an even more prosperous one. "
As I have been telling my friends for many years, the true divide in this country isn't between races, religions or even economic classes. The real divide is between the government and those sheeple who are governed. It doesn't matter who's sitting in the Oval Toilet.
What was once "We the People" is now "We the Government". We are now the public servants. We are the cash cows for the well fed and set for life entities of government.
This needs to change. By legislation, by ballot box or by force if necessary. It wouldn't be the first time.