Supreme Court limits private property rights
We have long accepted the right of the state to take private property for public use. I have long said that the day would come when there would not be any private property rights in this country.
Well, today the U.S. Supreme Court has taken the first step toward my assumption by giving the states the right to take one's property for private use.
I had a college professor to say the same thing more than 50 years ago. In my way of thinking, we are living in the last days of a free and democratic society. We need to let our congressmen know that we will not stand for this type of treatment. I may not live to see the end result of this misfortune, but our children and grandchildren will suffer for this sort of misconduct by our highest court.
George Deaton
Stoneville
Comments (6)
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No, "we" haven't long accepted the "right" of the state to take private property for public use. Theft is theft, regardless of who receives it and for what purpose.
The government has long been stealing everyone's private property on a weekly basis and giving it to others for private use anyway, for such things as welfare, both corporate and individual. How about getting into an uproar over that already?
Posted on July 2, 2005 4:12 AM
Let's look at this for what it is. Every piece of property has a price that it can be purchased at. We've all seen the movies where a huge enterprise was held up by one lone old man who had a sentimental attachment to his home. In the real world the developer would raise the price to where the mans sentiment would be compensated. Property is only worth what one party is willing to pay and what the other party is willing to sell for. Now what we have is the government jumping in on a negotiation on the wealthy mans side and awarding him the property for what they think it is worth which is by definition, generous to his cause. This is yet another example of ours being government by the wealthy and for the wealthy.
Posted on July 2, 2005 4:54 AM
Marshall,
You are only 1/2 right with your thought that our government is based upon benefitting the wealthy. You overlooked the fact that this new "right" found by the Supreme Court not only enables the wealthy to buy property that they might not otherwise be able to buy on the open market in a legit negotiation, but it is fueled by government's lust for increased tax dollars. This is the true reason why the Supreme Court found this new right, so that local governments could increase their tax base. The fact that it benefits the wealthy while so doing, is something of a side effect. I believe that the real intended benfactor is our insatiable government's thirst for increasing tax dollars. They can never get enough tax dollars to waste. If you don't agree, just reference the egregious actions of our county commissioners recently in approving their new budget, with a plethora of giveaways on "worthy" projects. What you have is an out-of-control capitalism working hand in hand with socialism, taking your taxes to re-distribute as it sees socially fit. A pretty unique event.
Posted on July 2, 2005 6:17 AM
Dumb ole me but it sure looks like the invisible entity known as, “economic development,” now owns all the private property in America.
Posted on July 2, 2005 2:53 PM
The Supremes sure screwed us on this one. This is the only ruling in which I agreed with Scalia.
Posted on July 2, 2005 8:48 PM
Hey Jim, Perhaps you are a closet conservitive and don't know it.
Posted on July 4, 2005 10:01 AM