US Supreme Court declares property seizure to be OK

[candygirl559]

www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=domesticNews&storyID=8873080 (http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=domesticNews&storyID=8873080)

Liberalism at its finest here. Their Marxist dogma to abolish private property.

Violation of the 4th and 5th amendments by the Supreme Court.

There is no excuse for the government to seize private property unless the owners give it to them, which they didn't in this case.

[bjb22]

$hit decision. Where are they going to appeal it? The World Court?

RippinG People off of their property so Pfizer (nyse:p fe) can develope new poisons. What a Crock !!!

"Hospitals are shrines to the diseases they create"- from the movie "Masked and Anonymous"

[candygirl559]

The World Court won't side with those guys. They're even more Marxist than our US Supreme Court.

[probativev]

How is this liberalism? Just because it happens to be the more liberal justices who voted yes? I think not.

It's actually the world turn up-side down, in that the whole point is to crush the small people to accommodate big giant corporation Pfizer. It's not taking land away to be given to the workers or dole it out to the poor. It's also not taking land away from the "haves," but taking them from the "have nots." Last I check, brushing aside the needs of poor small people in favor of corporate interests is on the side of conservatism. :b

Also, weren't we all complaining about outsourcing? Well Pfizer actully wants to create jobs in our own backyard. At least the 5 justices who voted yes are doing SOMETHING to keep jobs within the US...unlike those yuts with no solutions over on Capitol Hill.:b

Perhaps the labeling of conservatism and liberalism is skewing people's minds. What most likely really happened was that the 9 justices all forgot to take their medications..except for Kennedy who voted accordingly. This is most definitely a decision based on conservative economics.

[moxie]

Upsidide-down, indeed!

When I first saw that the decision was a 5-4 split, I assumed the conservatives were on the "winning" side. Wow, what a weird vote!

Reading about it further, the 5 in favor apparently weren't voting for expanding eminent domain as much as they were ruling that such matters should be left to the jurisdiction of state and local governments & not the courts. (Which is also usually a conservative position.)

The good news is that this ruling won't affect property owners in states that already have laws that strictly limit the taking of property. Now, those living in states without those laws will have to pressure their legislatures to get busy & change their laws.

[Krista]

This sucks :(

[Lanternlight]

Um first of all, if you count creatively, you can come up with maybe two sorta liberals on the court. But even they aren't that liberal. The other three who voted for it are definitely moderate justices, appointed by Republican presidents.

However, I'm also with the conservatives on this one (even a broken clock is right twice per day). This is clearly an outrageous and unfair decision. The right wing opposes this because they support property rights. The left wing realizes that this is a huge victory for corporations that they can use to boot the lower and middle classes out of their homes.

I don't know what the moderates were thinking. Bad decision.

[attyfan]

The constitution has always given government the right to sezie private property for public uses, on the requirement that "just compensation" is paid. The court only said that economic development is a public use, so there is nothing "liberal" or "conservative" about the decision. The fact that the decision is extraordinarily stupid is a totally separate issue.

[phisigsig]

What a weird one! I, like moxie, assumed the "conservatives" were the five. I find myself agreeing with Thomas, et al??!! What is the world coming too?

Dumb-a$$ decision if you ask me!

[missmarysgarden]

:rollin :rollin :rollin

Moxie, people who run around screaming "Marxist" give themselves away every time. I would bet my first child that you never read Marx, that you know nothing about Marxism, or any other kind of socialism, and that you picked up the word listenting to Rush Limbaugh or some other dimwith radio druggie.

[madison]

missmarysgarden,
Are you referring to 'moxie' or that other poster, 'candy?'

Confusion reigns.

[moxie]

"Moxie, people who run around screaming "Marxist" give themselves away every time. I would bet my first child that you never read Marx, that you know nothing about Marxism, or any other kind of socialism, and that you picked up the word listenting to Rush Limbaugh or some other dimwith radio druggie."

:rollin

You are seriously mixing me up with someone else. Please do edit my name out of this post ...

[EigthAv]

Actually,the original Carl Marx had dynamite ideas and wrote a good working blueprint for utopia.Like our politcal parties in power and our democracy/capitalism ,the USSR version strayed a good bit from the Marx idealogies. The ideal of everyone works therefore everyone shares equally is profound wisdom.It was the Kruschevs,Stalins and even now,Putins who place fear in the word "communist". I love this forum.:lol Had I said it just like that back in the late 80s/early90s,when I was moonlighting on bass guitar in a c&w band for the Wetumpka VFW,they wouldn't have beat my butt,but would have given me about a 100 loud tougue lashes and labled me a commie. As it was,I was only under suspicion.:D Really,the concept is good.It's the abuse of the concept that is the evil. I'd love to have the freedom to simply do what I know how to do,do my best,work hard, do clean programmes and know that if I am handing in what I can I won't have to worry about the money......that some kakniving lazy buzzard can't take it away. This ain't about demo,repo,conservative or liberal.It's the dadgum truth.Call it what you please,but what we are mostly all doing in America is one big game.Yes,there is good money in becoming a good pro accountant,good doctor or good electrician.There is far more money and prestige in being a good pro bs artist.

[EigthAv]

Wow! I wrote a decent post,but really meant it for a different part of the forum.On the land grab issue,I say the Supreme Court is wrong! Keep on snatching up paradise to build Wal Marts and parking lots and watch what is happening a generation from now.I know this,Before some land snatching zealot ever takes this cracker box and the chunk o earth it sits on away from me mum and I,they WILL compensate properly and fairly or they can take me to jail kicking and scrapping!!! I've never faulted Native Americans of olde who fought like hail with the back then lying,gun toting land snatchers.It ain't right! You grow up on it,YOU worked for it, then the sharks kcik you in teeth and snatch it?? Unh uhn babe!

[olympic]

Those who throw around the label 'Marxism' here in teh US should be forced to live in a Marxist state, just so they will never forget what that term really means.

[EigthAv]

We are still wrestling with democracy/capitilism here. We here in America have the right to buy it all up and price gouge our peers. I don't want forced common courtesy and/or common sense. "Do unto to others as you would that others would do unto you". So simple.The 10% who would abuse because they also like being abused would be fairly easy to deal with.

[bjb22]

The "anything goes" mentality of the corporate elite has now manifested and this decision exhibits the continued erosion of liberites and sovereignty for the Common Man.

In 20 years we'll be the United States of Canada (or England).

[attyfan]

This link should take you to a story on some group's effort to use the doctrine of eminent domain to seize the house of Justice David Souter:

www.theunionleader.com/ar...icle=57048 (http://www.theunionleader.com/articles_showa.html?article=57048)

[bjb22]

Allegedly congress has suggested a bill that would grant them the right to revoke/deny Federal Transportation money to any jurisdiction acquisending to this horrendous decison. This fu*kers a disaster.

"Old Charlie Stole the handle
And the Train it won't stop going
No it won't slow down"

"Locomotive Breath"- Jethro Tull

[4dogknight]

Allegedly congress has suggested a bill that would grant them the right to revoke/deny Federal Transportation money to any jurisdiction acquisending to this horrendous decison.

bjb22: Please cite your source for the above!

4dk

[bjb22]

I am sorry for no like or cite.....caught it on CNN or the net.

[John King]

Marxism clearly means the abolition of private property and the establishment of a Government-owned society.What we have in America has been a mixed-economy for over a century.For a better understanding of Marx,read Ludwig Von Mises (http://www.mises.org),the greatest economist of the 20th Century.

[4dogknight]

It's open season on private property (http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oe-brooks27jul27,0,7795419.story?track=tothtml)

{snip}
"Supreme court Justice David Souter must be ruing the day he joined the majority opinion in Kelo vs. City of New London, the controversial case that approved the Connecticut city's plan to redevelop its waterfront by seizing homes and handing them over to private developers. Under the Constitution, governments may not take private property except for "public use," but in Kelo, the court held that the concept of "public use" is capacious enough to embrace private economic development, as long as it is in the public interest.

Libertarians denounced the decision as the death knell for private-property rights. It's outrageous, they argued, that government should be allowed to take houses away from their owners so that developers can build shopping malls and football stadiums. And in Souter's home state of New Hampshire — where the license plate motto is "Live Free or Die" — some critics of the Kelo decision are taking creative revenge. They've proposed to local zoning boards that Souter's 200-year-old farmhouse in Weare, N.H., be seized and turned into a luxury hotel to bring "economic development and higher tax revenue" to the town."

{snip}
"Since the court's decision in Kelo, I'm not the only one who's been engaging in creative "takings" fantasies. Developers are salivating at the thought of all the profitable real estate they may now be able to snatch up with a little help from their pals on the city council.

In Freeport, Texas, it took town officials only a few hours from the time Kelo was handed down to file papers seeking the seizure of two local seafood companies; they want to turn the land into a private boat marina. In Long Branch, N.J., residents are fighting town efforts to boot them out of their waterfront homes so a developer can build luxury condos instead."

{snip}
"What it comes down to is that each case will have to be decided on its own particulars. In New London, the waterfront revitalization plan at issue was developed through a transparent and participatory process, and it may well be the struggling city's last hope. But other development projects might not pass muster in the courts. And it's hardly true that "nothing" can now prevent a free-for-all: Reacting to Kelo, many state legislatures are already considering tighter laws to ensure that the power of eminent domain is not abused.

In the meantime, while it's still open season on private property, I've got my eye on the Bush ranch in Crawford, Texas. Wouldn't it make a lovely a nuclear waste dump?"

COMMENT: Admittedly this article is an editorial but in the history of 'truth being stranger than fiction', articles in the op-ed section are always a good read and always with a great deal of truth in them.

4dk - but then I could be wrong!

[EigthAv]

Do they have reservations in mind for those of us who can't afford the $100,000.00 + homes or will we be expected to live in vans down by the rivers until the greedy landgrubbing vultures hog that up too??? Yup,we could use some younger,less travelled brains in the SC.I think when one lives in a mansion long enough he/she becomes totally disconnected with the realities of breaking a real sweat over 8 dollars an hour.

[EigthAv]

Alabama Limits Eminent Domain (http://www.washtimes.com/national/20050804-120711-4571r.htm)

[moxie]

States and cities are now moving to pass laws to more clearly define eminent domain at the local level, which is what I believe the Supreme Court justices thought/hoped would happen when they made that unusual decision.

They may prove to have made a wise decision after all.

[EigthAv]

It's cool.It is very very rare that the Governor(r),Loutenant Governor(d) and legislature(majority-d) are all on the same page in Alabama.It was totally unanimous. I'm relieved.I guess I can stop looking at olde vans and spots on the river now.:D