Posted on 02/03/2016 6:08:39 AM PST by Kaslin
Donald Trump is running a pretty successful presidential campaign saying that he wants to "Make America Great Again."
But he seems to have very little interest in what exactly it is that makes America great.
This paradox is very much on display when Trump talks about eminent domain, the authority given to government in the constitution to take private property for public use.
Trump says, "Eminent domain is wonderful."
The Fifth Amendment to our Constitution tells us: "No person shall be ... deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation."
The key question is, what is "public use"?
George Mason University law professor Ilya Somin sums it up as follows: "Until the early 20th century, most courts interpreted those words to cover things such as roads or power lines -- projects owned either directly by the government or by private owners who have a legal obligation to serve the entire public, such as utility companies."
"By the 1950s, however," Somin continues, "The original meaning of 'public use' had been largely abandoned. Legal elites came to believe that government planners should have nearly limitless authority to take property to promote growth and combat blight afflicting the urban poor."
Donald Trump includes himself among these "legal elites" who think government should be free to confiscate private property and turn it over to some private developer who proposes a project, claiming it will create jobs.
This is what happened in the Kelo v. City of New London decision in 2005, when the Supreme Court sided with the city of New London, Connecticut, which seized property to make way for a commercial development anchored by a new research facility for Pfizer Corporation.
One of the property owners, Susette Kelo, sued the city, claiming this seizing of private property for a private development was not "public use" as intended in the constitution.
The court sided with the city, 5-4. The two solid conservatives on the Court at the time, Anton Scalia and Clarence Thomas, sided with Kelo, who was represented by the libertarian public interest law firm Institute for Justice.
Donald Trump told Fox News' Neil Cavuto, regarding the Kelo decision, "I happen to agree with it 100 percent."
It sounds so nice to say a project can bring jobs and development. But can we really allow, in our country, the forcing of private owners off their property because a government entity, working with a private developer, claims there is potential in some new development there?
We have proof in the pudding with Kelo, where the owners were removed and then the project fell through. The place is now an abandoned lot.
Washington is filled with special interests looking for favors, claiming their business project is in the "national interest." Business people such as Donald Trump, who think they know what is best for everyone, can be free to buy out whomever they want. But how can we put the force of government behind them and kick people out of their homes? This is what makes America great?
Back in 1993, Donald Trump tried to buy Vera Coking's Atlantic City home to use the property for his casino development. She refused to sell. So New Jersey confiscated her property. Coking was represented by the Institute for Justice, and defeated Donald Trump in court. Coking kept her home.
Cato Institute economist Mark Calabria estimates that since the Kelo decision in 2005 more than 1 million households "have been displaced by government action." Of these households, Calabria estimates 29 percent were black and 32 percent households in poverty.
What makes America great is respect for law and respect for all private citizens and their property.
We need leaders who understand and care about this. This is what will make America great. Not unprincipled dealmakers looking for wealth and power.
For every nice payout there's a blight issue. You can't just have one and forget the other.
Just a minor misstatement there. Using the first part of your analogy (the second part of which is nonsensical), in this case, the attack on your house was facilitated by an extra-constitutional government - all three branches; ordered by the executive, concurred with and funded by the legislative and ignored by the judicial.
Then you agree that the country is in danger?
So, 0.3% of the population affected over ten years, or .03% per year. And she laid down the race card, too! Those figures indicate that one-tenth of one percent of African-Americans were affected per year, on average, even though blacks are overrepresented in poor areas, and poor areas are more (by the above figures) somewhat more likely to be targeted for renewal. Where does the Constitution guarantee that blight is always preferable to a fairly compensated buy-out?
If the housing was so poor that a local government wanted to compensate the people who would then be able to move, in order that their neighbors would have a grocery store or a new strip mall nearby, don't the neighbors' interests count for anything as well?
Absolutely! And trust me, as a career counterterrorism officer, I know what danger is.
What I disagree with is that any single person - not Donald Trump, not Ted Cruz, nor any of the others alone - can lift us from that danger, no matter how pleasing or exciting his or her rhetoric might be. Thus, I contend that only a return to a constitutional government in which there are three co-equal branches, not a supremely powerful chief executive, a supreme court that has the final word on anything or a weak, pliant legislature that surrenders its constitutional powers, can bring us closer to the federal republic we were prior to 1868.
The decline of America didn’t begin with Barack Obama, he just accelerated it while we and most of our elected representatives stood by and watched. Likewise, it won’t end with the election of the next president. However, the right president can put us on the track to a return to a country of laws, the fundamental element of which is the Constitution, and, in the process, show America that it is the right path.
It would seem that even for Kelo like situations there should be a “use it or lose it†principle in effect. Otherwise waste is invited.
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I don’t disagree with you. We as a people and the govt. should show restraint and due process in its use, but to say its all, bad all the time. Rejecting eminent domain as a development for depressed urban areas (Atlantic City was) its just madness and would have a really deleterious effect, especially for people too poor to move.
But all govt. action bears watching..I mean that.
What is the gravity of the oil those refineries will be refining compared to the Canadian oil?
Didn’t know there was a difference in oil did you?
Not all refineries can refine the same oil.
You would think the Canadians would speak to the new refineries just next door to them - but instead want to send oil all the way to an export location. Why? Export.
Cheaper.
You would still need to build multiple pipelines to move the finished products.
Just admit you are a Clintonite and you are against the pipeline.
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For Christ's sake. I am for the pipeline - but that will require eminent domain to take people's property away from them for a private non govt enterprise to benefit a Canadian company. I am for it because of the jobs it creates. For you to be for this pipeline but attack Trump means at best you have cognitive dissonance and at worst a hypocrite.
Again, only a Trumpster would claim a pipeline and a Trump casino are equally beneficial to the country as a whole.
It wasn’t a casino
He was knocking down a boarding house and building a parking lot for limos
A better use in my opinion
However, eminent domain should never been used
But if you want to know who really owns your house, stop paying property taxes on it...... The government will foreclose on you, yes foreclose, it just isn’t for mortgages....
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