Supreme Court Rules Private Property Can be Seized 1829
slew writes "CNN is reporting that the U.S. Supreme Court issued a ruling in a case where a local community seized private houses for commercial development (not public works) under the guise of eminent domain. Needless to say, the little guy loses to the commercial developer this case...
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The day freedom died .. (Score:2, Interesting)
Read this http://www.supremecourtus.gov/opinions/04pdf/04-1
Your government can now take your property for the "public good"
You are no longer safe in your own home!
The end has come and you only have yourself to blame.
What are you going to do?
Aarghhh. (Score:5, Interesting)
Bogus! (Score:5, Interesting)
The city government claims they seized the property for economic development, as part of a larger plan. Sure, the property is going to be turned over to a commercial developer, but it's "public use" of the land because of the larger economic development plan.
The state courts: Well, the city says their main reason for doing it is public use, not to benefit Pfizer, so it must be public use!
The supreme courts: We'll let the state courts worry about this. They said it's public use, so it probably is. Therefore, it's OK for the city to seize the land.
This is not the building of new roads, this is not the elimination of blight, this is a real estate development deal, and people are losing their houses over it. Does this frighten anybody but me?
Re:Woot!!! (Score:2, Interesting)
Why doesn't the "your rights online" section have an article about the Adult entertainment law that went into effect today? The law requires websites with adult content to keep documentation that all nekkid people are above the age of 18. While it may take down pictures of what may be 17 year olds from the internet, the law effectivly shuts down many adult sites that have no child pornography but don't have records [ratemyboner.com].
Re:bush judges (Score:5, Interesting)
And in an ironic twist, David Souter _is_ a Bush-appointed judge - Bush the elder, that is.
Nevermind the demise of liberty... (Score:2, Interesting)
Don't read a book though. But do watch infotainment and hear about how a common household product might kill your children TOMORROW!
Nevermind the fact that
1.) The Supreme Court just declared private property is only private until the government says they have an idea how someone else could perhaps use it better?
2.) The Senate is about to amend the U.S. Constitution to allow prohibiting burning a piece of fabric if that fabric happens to have 3 certain colors (red, white, blue) and 3 certain shapes (long rectangles, large rectancles, stars) in a certain pattern.
Nevermind the demise of liberty. Make sure you see the #1 movie at the box office this weekend, or else you aren't a patriotic American.
But you have got to build buypasses (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:bush judges (Score:5, Interesting)
The minority opinion of today's decision is pretty much the group I normally harbor such incredible contempt. And YET, today it is so obvious they were the ones making the correct decision. I am stroking out just trying to grasp this contradiction to my world view.
How do you go to a citizen, a property owner, someone who as poured his sweat and portion of his life into obtaining and maintaining his land, and then tell him he is to be evicted because some rich guy, or some soulless corporation has decided to take his property over???
Re:Gotta Say It.... (Score:2, Interesting)
Four of the most conservative judges on the bench ruled AGAINST this trash issue.
All of the Democrats on the bench ruled in favor of it.
Don't spout off shit you don't understand as an attempt to play a little political game.
And people need to stop fucking voting republican OR democrat. Put someone who actually values personal property rights and personal liberty as a whole.
If you hadn't noticed I'm furious as hell about this ruling.
Re:Aarghhh. (Score:2, Interesting)
Blighted areas (Score:3, Interesting)
Actually, even this argument would not be good enough in some towns, since they have defined "blighted area" so broadly that almost any older home qualifies. For instance, some have legislated that a home without an attached garage is "blighted".
Careful use of the word liberal (Score:2, Interesting)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberalism [wikipedia.org]
Personal property vs. Corporate property (Score:2, Interesting)
The city's actions couldn't make it more clear:
"Personal property", i.e. your house, has nothing to do with "Corporate property", i.e. strip-mines, clear-cuts, multiplexes, shopping malls, archives of intellectual property, privatized railways, privatized power companies, etc.
People confuse them both as "private property". We're confused because large corporations want us to confuse the two.
The next time some corporation protests that their "private property" must be protected, on principle, call them on it! Your private property isn't protected, unless you're powerful!
Most corporate property used to belong to everyone, in commons, before it was stolen, subsidized, extracted, and polluted. We pay the bills to clean the mess up. Yet we can't keep our houses!
Re:bush judges (Score:2, Interesting)
With a big check in your hand? These people were offered on average $1.7 million for (again, on average)
In general the government is only supposed to do this stuff when the value to the community outweighs the harm to the individual. You (and I as well) may disagree that was the case in this particular scenario, but could you say the same thing when they had to take a few houses in order to start providing running water for people for the first time?
I don't agree with what the city of New London is doing in this case, but you've got to admit that when you calm down and think about it a bit the issue isn't so black and white.
Comment removed (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Constitutional Amendment Time (Score:1, Interesting)
It's time for a constitutional convention.
Now that all three branches of the federal government of the United States has shown that it cares nothing for the rights of the people, it is time for the people to disband the federal government.
The states can do this right now, absolutely legally, by two-thirds of the states calling for one (U.S. Constitution, Article V). The states need to call such a convention, and utterly re-write the Constitution.
This idea of the kind of idiots that we have roaming around calling themselves "statesmen" rewriting the Constitution used to scare me to death. But it clearly can not get any worse without blood running in the streets.
And if the states refuse to take back their power from the federal government, then the people will have to take back their power from both.
That, or enjoy being serfs and licking the boots of our new lords.
"If this be treason, make the most of it." -- Patrick Henry
Re:Not as bad as it sounds... (Score:3, Interesting)
I believe the judges voting for it, in saying that a local judge would know what was best for the local public good.
They have faith in their fellow judges to decide on a case by case basis what is best.
To me O'Conner's desent is more activist than anything. To say that the gov't is under the power of those with more resources basically says that the gov't is messed up. If they had blocked this, that would mean a blighted neighborhood could never be removed by the government unless it was to make way for a park. (exaggeration)
I'm off course here, anyway I just wanted to point out I didn't mean to say it was the more Conservative judges that voted for the measure, just that those who did sounded a lot more like a Conservative than not.
Re:Gotta Say It.... (Score:3, Interesting)
I swear to god the day that someone tries this on my house (yes the one the bank owns for another 25 years or so) I will sit on my porch with my 12 guage and let the bulldozers run me over.
This is how people defended property rights before it was codified and we may yet have to go back to that.
I wouldn't vote Republican if my life depended on it. Nor would I vote Democrat. In the last three elections I've voted Libertarian and will continue to do so because I know the process that the candidates have to go through. I know that anyone willing to get involved with a third party has less on his mind than political power and more along the lines of making a change for the better.
The only reason I spend time in my basement is because that's where my office is.
Re:bush judges (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:bush judges (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:bush judges (Score:4, Interesting)
- Liberals are for Change
- Conservatives are for Remaining the Same
In Congress, the term "Liberal" has become synonymous with Socialist, mostly because the Liberal Democrats have (over the last 50+ years) promoted legislation with Socialist (providing for the Commons at the expense of the Individual) results. The modern Conservative Republicans exceedingly fall under the term "Neo-Conservative", falling away from the traditional budget hawk positions to a Nationalistic "protect the citizens at all costs".Gone are the Democrats and Republicans of our fathers' era...
Re:bush judges (Score:5, Interesting)
-- Ford
How utterly absurd (Score:5, Interesting)
You want to build something else? Fine. Go take over the city council's properties. Leave mine alone. This is theft, pure and simple. There;'s precious little difference between this and Cuba's "nationalization" of property after the revolution.
You wait and see. There will now be a LOT of cases where governments decide to "streamline" the process of changing their cities, counties, states, or whatever just to please whoever's in charge, or the local big business they want to buddy up to.
It won't usually involve $17M/acre. It will be backed up with guns if necessary. And it could just as easily be you as anyone else.
Based purely on this one ruling, those judges should be (at a minimum) in public stocks the rest of their lives. Preferably on a flatbed trailer so they can be toted around the country for everyone to laugh at, maybe throw a few tomatoes. I wouldn't have a problem with flogging, either.
But while we're at it, throw in the New London governmental morons who started this.
Re:All hail the rich (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:government self interest, too (Score:3, Interesting)
Actually, eminent domain is mentioned in the constitution, so the concept goes back further than you state.
Ford (Score:5, Interesting)
Ford cannot credibly be described as a conservative.
It depends on how you define "conservative" as the meaning is changing, has changed from previous definitions. The same with "liberal". Thomas Jefferson's and Thomas Paine's "Liberal" was someone who believed in a small and limited government, but today it's closer to socialism or big government. Meanwhile conservative back then believed in a big and powerful federal government. Conservatives are still for big government, the only difference between conservatives and liberals today is in what part of government is big. The only political party today with the classical liberal outlook of a small and limited government is the Libertarian Party [lp.org].
FalconRe:Not as bad as it sounds... (Score:3, Interesting)
I have a co-worker from California, he was married 12 years, since it was over 10 years, he has to pay alimony for life or the spouse re-marries. Guess what, no insentive to remarry with a free income.
Another co worker just paid 80K in legal fees to get custody of his child from an abusive mother.
This is CRAZY.
Re:Them Pesky Conser-oh, wait... (Score:2, Interesting)
liberals (Score:3, Interesting)
Conservativism at one point in time stood for smaller government, it wasn't until the 80s during the Reagan administration did the definition change. (the Neoconservatism era)
Actually it was liberals who stood for a small and limited government, as did the two Thomases, Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Paine [tpaine.org](or TomPaine.common sense [tompaine.com]). To get a good idea of what liberals stood for read Thomas Paine's "Common Sense" [amazon.com], "Rights Of Man" [amazon.com] or other books of his.
Re:government self interest, too (Score:3, Interesting)
Any sovereign nation has to have this power. But I agree that "just compensation" is not properly defined. I would prefer something like double market value, since this action is taking away someone's liberty to pursue happiness, property, etc.
Freedom is more important than fixing the symptoms of our failed economic system. If they can't fix the real problems that cause blight, poverty, foreclosure of large business and government-run institutions, then these symptoms will only get worse. Taking away one's freedom doesn't help us in any way.
Now taking away one's freedom in the name of sovereignty, for national security or in extreme and similar situations, does make sense. Though that should happen much less often.
What our Supreme Court did is decide that a small town can take your home from you if they fear economic collapse after GM or Boeing or a military base shuts down. There's no certainty that by taking your home they will improve the economy. Its a gamble and you lose by default, if they take your stuff.
Probably better to live elsewhere anyway. This country sucks. It can't even understand what the real problem is and much prefers to patch the symptoms instead of doing a proper analysis and unbiased evaluation of how these problems occur.
Supreme Court Justices (Score:3, Interesting)
The court needs to be abolished and replaced with Supreme Juries. Each case/review/whatever sees nine of us selected at random and flying out to Washington to deal with whatever the problem is.
This is unworkable if you want to maintain justice. At least judges are supposed to be knowledgeble of the USA Constitution, most citizens aren't nearly as knowledgeble. Having said that I am a strong believer in Jury Nullification [erowid.org] and a Fully Informed Jury [fija.org].
FalconRe:A day that will live in infamy. (Score:1, Interesting)
Wow, someone who knows the Wickard v. Filburn ruling. Has to be my favorite Supreme Court ruling. You can't even get a law professor to explain it to you with a straight face.
The court ruled that if poor old Roscoe Filburn hadn't grown his own wheat to consume on his own Ohio farm he would have had to buy it in the open market. Even if his purchase had been in his own state, somewhere somehow there would be an interstate effect in the wheat market. Hence his non-participation in the market is itself interstate commerce. By that logic there is not a single thing you can do (or not do) that will not be considered interstate commerce.
What's that you say, you were going to veg out on the sofa tonight? Ha, by not going out to the movies and spending your money on tickets you have engaged in interstate commerce. Ergo, vegging out on the sofa is now within the realm of federal regulation.
What I can't figure out is why those stupid founding fathers bothered with declaring that only interstate commerce fell within the federal powers. Don't they know they could have saved a word? Ha, those silly framers sprinkling unecessary words around the constitution. And editing was hard in those days.
ironically, developers probably can't afford this (Score:3, Interesting)
We are living in a real-estate bubble (commercial and residential). Development costs are being held artificially low by government subsidy (interest rates and otherwize) and pricing is being held up by speculators (borrowing on margin to try to get returns higher than the simple interest rate). Maybe one of these days we will pay the piper (like Japan did) and I'll predict it'll make the dot-bust look like a blip, but as long as the government is manipulating things, not much will be changing...
Re:What does "own" mean now? (Score:3, Interesting)
Me.
If I live in a house I love, such as a house my father built, and in which I grew up, that house is worth a *lot* more to me than it is to "fair market value." The price of a thing is the price you, the owner, sets. If people don't want to buy, that's their problem.
If I want to sell, I might have to lower my price. But that is *my* decision. Or, it *was* my decision up until a few days ago.
I believe that's called a capitalist marketplace. It's the way a free market economy is *supposed* to work (but it doesn't).
Re:Pardon, BUT... (Score:3, Interesting)
Does this decision mean if I own some rare painting, baseball card, etc the gubberment can take it and give it to a museum because of the public benefit from higher tourism? Sounds like it to me.
This is a terrible decision. Alas, there's no higher court
time to write congress and state assemblies.
Re:New way around California's Prop 13: (Score:3, Interesting)
I suppose the one upside would have been that the locality would have been forced to pay them the value that they were about to be taxed on.
I'm not sure where I'm going with this. I see a need to force land owners to make effective economic use of the land, and not just park on it because they managed to get in at the right time. See your local first ring suburbs; there are plenty of low-value land-holding businesses like self-storage that manage to return *some* kind of money to meet unrealistically low real estate taxes, but it's nowhere near what the value to the community would be of five story condos with an associated urban retail cluster. But the guys holding the self-storage place don't feel particularly pressured by taxes to do anything *useful*.
The value of taxes such as the estate tax and property taxes is that they force people to create real value, not just sit on their accreted wealth until something magic happens. As Americans, and Americans true to our Constitution, how much leverage should we have to force wealth generation rather than asset hording with the hopes of eventual secular profit?
Re:Ford (Score:2, Interesting)
Protection Money (Score:2, Interesting)
Eminent domain is really a local issue. (Score:3, Interesting)
Now, the same legislative body cannot levy property tax (at least in Ohio) without an election. So why can't eniment domain issues, which are relatively rare, be voted on by the public? I mean, if it really is for public use (or benefit), should the public have a say in it?
Personally, I would think that an eminent domain election would certainly be better for both sides. Whether it was for highways, schools, or commercial projects, at least there is a process (or scruntinization) that seems more true to the public interest than the agendas of only a few politicians.
Re:pwn3d (Score:2, Interesting)
It may worse than that.
All the posts I've seen so far discuss only the expropriation of land, but the term property deals with so much more. And now that the government can force the movement of any property from one private entity to another based solely on the promise of increased tax revenue (good for the Public, right?), what's to stop them from doing so with intellectual property?
You write a nice bit of code, you GPL it for the community. Free code isn't bringing in any sales taxes, so the government seizes the code and makes it available to a large private corporation for further development, paying you a one time compensation for your work. Large private corporation uses your code to increase jobs, increasing sales, which increases tax revenue for government. That is for the Public Good, right?
If they can seize the products of my physical work, they can take the fruits of my mental work as well.
adequate compensation (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:bush judges (Score:4, Interesting)
I have one word for you: beachfront. We've had a lot of this happening in Florida. People whom many slashdotters would probably classify as "rich" have had their beachfront property -- extremely expensive pieces of land -- stolen by local governments for private development purposes (typically codos or hotels). In fact, this pseudo-eminent-domain chicanery has been running rampant throughout the past several years, it just doesn't get much coverage in the press.
The CT state government took my family's house (Score:4, Interesting)