Posted on 04/08/2023 6:33:56 AM PDT by george76
“The Supreme Power cannot take from any Man any part of his Property without his own consent. For the preservation of Property being the end of Government, and that for which Men enter into Society, it necessarily supposes and requires, that the People should have Property, without which they must be supposed to lose that by entering into Society, which was the end for which they entered into it, too gross an absurdity for any Man to own. Men therefore in Society having Property, they have such a right to the goods, which by the Law of the Community are theirs, that no Body hath a right to take their substance, or any part of it from them, without their own consent; without this, they have no Property at all.” — John Locke, Second Treatise of Government, § 138
Ford Motor Company has announced a $5.6 billion electric truck and battery plant to be built in rural Tennessee just west of Memphis, and the state of Tennessee is so willing to bend over backward for the carmaker that it is prepared to seize the property of black farmers in order to facilitate Ford’s building project.
Here’s a bit of the legislative contortions that led to the decision to build “Blue Oval City” in the Volunteer State, as reported by Reason:
In return for picking Tennessee, state lawmakers overwhelmingly approved legislation that would grant Ford $884 million in state incentives. That includes a $500 million grant from the state’s current budget surplus and $384 million for site preparation, including $200 million for road improvements and $138.2 million for infrastructure and demolition services.
The bill also apportioned $745,100 to fund the Megasite Authority of West Tennessee, an 11-person board with the power to execute contracts on behalf of the development. It can also take privately-owned land, via eminent domain, in order to facilitate construction of the facility and supporting infrastructure.
Eminent domain. Two words that could not be more antithetical to the American concept of primacy of private property.
For readers unfamiliar with this brand of bullying, here’s a brief definition of eminent domain:
Eminent domain refers to the authority claimed by government and its agents to seize private property for public use, provided the owner receive “just compensation” for his property.
Supporters of this scheme point to the Fifth Amendment as authority. The Fifth Amendment reads, in relevant part:
[N]or shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.
Here’s what William Blackstone had to say about the confiscation of private property for the “public good:”
So great moreover is the regard of the law for private property, that it will not authorize the least violation of it; no, not even for the general good of the whole community. If a new road, for instance, were to be made through the grounds of a private person, it might perhaps be extensively beneficial to the public; but the law permits no man, or set of men, to do this without consent of the owner of the land. In vain may it be urged, that the good of the individual ought to yield to that of the community; for it would be dangerous to allow any private man, or even any public tribunal, to be the judge of this common good, and to decide whether it be expedient or no. Besides, the public good is in nothing more essentially interested, than in the protection of every individual’s private rights.
My next witness is the Baron Montesquieu, who, with Blackstone, are the two men most often quoted by our Founding Fathers. In his The Spirit of the Laws, Montesquieu echoes Blackstone’s statement of the supremacy of private property:
It is a paralogism to say, that the good of the individual should give way to that of the public…. the public good consists in everyone’s having his property, which was given him by the civil laws, invariably preserved.
The last of the influential writers I’ll call to the stand is Cicero, who insisted that the laws passed in Rome redistributing private property were invalid “because the community was established with no other view than that everyone might be able to preserve his property.”
Lawmakers in Tennessee apparently haven’t studied Locke, or Montesquieu, or Blackstone, or Cicero. Here’s the next part of the story, as reported by Tennessee Lookout:
According to the Tennessee Department of Transportation, the state is seeking 35 separate tracts, either through purchase or eminent domain, in order to construct a series of road connections and widenings that will link the 4,100-acre BlueOval Ford campus to the new Exit 39 off I-40 to accommodate throngs of workers and truck traffic.
Thus far, the state has taken possession of 15 tracts — two through court proceedings, Nichole Lawrence, a spokesperson said. Of the remaining 20 tracks, Lawrence said the state is in negotiation with property owners. It’s unclear how many land owners the state has sued. In Haywood County alone, court records show, the state has filed seven lawsuits seeking to take property for the new interchange.
The government is suing private property owners, asking the judiciary to collude with them in denying to the owners of this land the most basic benefit of government: the protection of the right of private property.
Marvin Sanderlin, a longtime local farmer with 400 acres, is one of the landowners being targeted by the state government. According to court documents, the state has taken him to court to confiscate 10 acres of his land. The land stands between the Ford plant and the interstate. The state filed the complaint after Sanderlin rejected the state’s offer of $3,750 per acre.
Even before the announcement of the planned construction of the Ford plant, land in the area was selling for about $10,000 per acre. Since the announcement, the value has skyrocketed, with listings offering land in the area for as much as $200,000 an acre.
With those numbers in mind, under no reasonable definition would an offer of $3,750 an acre qualify as “just compensation.”
As Sanderlin explained it, as quoted by the Tennessee Lookout:
You can’t buy no land here for $3,500 an acre. You can’t buy a swamp here for $3,500. I told them this is the biggest ripoff there is. They want your land, but they don’t want you to participate in the wealth.
James Madison declared the purpose of the government in the following statement delivered at the Virginia Constitutional Convention in 1829:
It is sufficiently obvious, that persons and property are the two great subjects on which Governments are to act; and that the rights of persons, and the rights of property, are the objects, for the protection of which Government was instituted. These rights cannot well be separated. The personal right to acquire property, which is a natural right, gives to property, when acquired, a right to protection, as a social right.
As it stands, the state is carrying on in its lawsuits seeking to force landowners to “sell” their property for far below market value so that it may keep its $884 million promise to Ford, even if that means destroying the very thing government was instituted by people to protect: the right to property.
Did you even read the article? And you get on here and call another Freeper a “moron?”
No wonder these quarterly fundraisers on FR are so disappointing. It’s exhausting to even spend ten minutes of time dealing with some of the jackasses here.
A.C. Wharton wasn't racist enough for contemporary politics as it's practiced today. Today they want them dumb, easily manipulated, dependent for every need, unemployable, and willing to induce chaos and hate when and where directed.
Roads to a factory.
Moron.
Don’t tell me there aren’t roads there now.
Let them build where the roads are sufficient.
Eminant Domain is communism in drag.
Have to remember Biden & Co. is a trend setters now
Chaos for money or power
Time to find an endangered critter in the area the EV plant is going. That should gum up the works for years.
Eminent domain. Very popular out here in CaCaLand. If developer can put up a spreadsheet showing that the state can get more tax $$$ (before tax discounts, of course) with the deal they can confiscate the asset and give it to the developer. Of course, the original owner will be compensated for market value — which is in column 17 of same spreadsheet.
Probably the only way to queer such is to contaminate the asset with some sort of environmental poison, or make up a protected species.
There’s a little strip of land along the Mississippi border that’s west of Memphis but still in Tennessee. So it’s technically possible to be west of Memphis but still in the state. No significant road and I don’t see any rail infrastructure there. It does have access to the river, but no port facitilites.
They are hiding behind the “ROAD’ issue-—Road is to GET TO NEW FACTORY
The Saturn Plant became “Spring Hill Assembly”, producing internal combustion engines for GM products, and also GM crossover vehicles wearing various badges found under the GM umbrella. There is also, currently under construction, a battery manufacturing facility that will be producing batteries for GM’s EV lines.
Just when you start to think they have their shit together after the expulsions, they do something stupid like this.
I remember when they brought the Ford plant to Springfield, Tn. They promised they would hire Tennesseans but they brought their union employees from Detroit.
Forget food
Drive around for a minute
Except the road is ONLY needed because of the Ev plant. No plant no road.
Yes exactly right. Sometimes I spell it Cali, but Kali what I call my evil state.
Along with everything else that's going to come afterward ... retail development, housing tracts, hotels, etc.
No plant no road.
No shopping mall, no roads.
No housing subdivisions, no roads.
No steel mills, no roads.
No warehouses, no roads.
No churches, no roads.
No schools, no roads.
That's kind of how it works -- isn't it? The infrastructure is built to serve a purpose. There isn't any place in the U.S. where this is not the norm.
TVA has been a Federal entity since it’s conception May 18, 1933 and the Tennessee Valley Authority Act was signed by Roosevelt. We/our electrical co-ops buy power from them.
My ancestral homes in TN & NC are under Tellico to Fontana. I can’t even visit the graves of my ancestors because the gov renigged on the Road to Nowhere under Obama for the final time.
They need to go build this on a Superfund site away from rivers and streams and not on anyones farmland.
Of course, it wouldn’t be FR without tradition ;-)
There’s a good Reagan story that goes with the photo. I can’t recall it exactly right but after the handshake they conversed briefly and Reagan says something like, when we were done speaking I wasn’t sure who was president!
In my opinion, the use of emanant domain should be restricted to:
- purchase a 10% above market value
- resulting use only for publicly held property
- sale of the property within 20 years should first be offered to the prior owner as a first right of refusal at 10% below market value.
Let’s not forget Kelso. Which opened the door for such expansions of what public good meant.
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