Unholy Alliance Between DU and Freeperland?

[Hosnon]

I've been looking at both sites and the reaction seems to be the same. This ruling by the Supreme Court does not sit well with either side.

I'd like to read the opinion but it doesn't seem like the Founders intended eminent domain to be used in this way.

I've seen it suggested here and at Freeperland and think it may be a good idea: Perhaps both sides can call a cease-fire and get something in the works to overturn this ruling?

Thoughts?

[Midlodemocrat]

1. Yes.

Why in God's name do you read ANYTHING over there? Those people are crazy.

[Hosnon]

9. Know thy enemy...nt

[Midlodemocrat]

22. Good point. I used to read Drudge, but I just can't stand it anymore.

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

2. actually the founders did intend for eminent domain to be in the public

interest and this is not the FIRST time the USSC has ruled that the TAKINGS clause can be applied for private enrichment.

[Midlodemocrat]

3. NSMA

Isn't it eminent domain?

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

4. yep...I do that all the time :)

[Midlodemocrat]

6. Just wanted to make sure.

I couldn't remember, but I knew you would know.

:hi:

[nostalgicaboutmyfutr]

7. It was eminent....now it is imminent....

just one more step away from being required to house soldiers in my home.....

[Midlodemocrat]

21. Why do you hate Amerika?

Housing soldiers is an HONOR.

:sarcasm:

[Hosnon]

10. Gracias...edited original post. nt

[Hosnon]

8. Yea that's what I mean. I don't have a problem with the government

taking property for public use...but increasing tax revenue is a bit of a stretch to me.

[NewYorkerfromMass]

37. Public and private gains can coincide

People are not reading this ruling carefully enough. The opinion basically says that it is not the place of a federal court to rule on what are in the best local interests- that it is up to the local governments to do so. If anything, the people reacting to this should be recognizing that public and private gains can coincide, and that the intent is to reinforce local government control- God freepers should be estatic about that.

[CTLawGuy]

48. the problem is

as far as I know, they left no LIMITS on the eminent domain power. Which means government can take property essentially for whatever reason they want, as long as they can somehow link it to "economic development." (ie take your house to build a Wal Mart.)

[wyldwolf]

5. This will become a hot button issue

If you have plans to run for local office, you should choose your position on this very carefully...

[ClintonTyree]

11. Yeah....

any other ideas? There will be NO joining of forces with that scum.

[davepc]

24. Good thing FDR had that attitude when it came time to ally with the Stalin

against the Nazis.

[Fire Walk With Me]

32. What if it gets bad enough that we have to?

Three more years of BushCo, folks :-/

If anyone/anything could unite this country through aversion to monstrosity, it's BushCo.

There is torture in Gitmo because someone in power, somewhere, approves of it. Likes it. Think that over. They're in control of the country, and can bring about a great deal of grief if they wish.

[bahrbearian]

12. It worked pretty well for Chimpy and the Texas Rangers...

[MsTryska]

29. hah! i was wondering when someone

would bring this one up. it's what i've been thinking about since i saw this ruling.

[OneTwentyoNine]

34. Home owner had to SUE Bush,Arlington to get just compensation...

He got the SHIT screwed out of him because Chimp and Arlington wanted THAT hunk of land part of which the guys house sat on. I think they gave him some chump change and told him to start packing.

If I remember right he got 3-5 MILLION out of the lawsuit. Guess that would qualify as one of those Bush "frivolous lawsuits".

[MsTryska]

35. so the guy won the suit?

good for him.

[ProudDad]

41. Still can't collect

* et'all keep appealing...

[FourStarDemocrat]

45. I remember that story, does anyone have a link to it?

I have a couple of freepers on another board that I'd like to show it to.

[Lexingtonian]

13. This is a day

on which DU and Freeperland are both largely spewing bullshit.

Land ownership is stewardship of rights, not entitlement to remake the land in your own image and fetishize it.

That's my opinion.

[T Town Jake]

18. No, the majority of DU'ers are quite right in their...

...outraged sentiments about this ridiculous ruling, I can't speak to what they think in Freeperland since I haven't seen it and don't intend to.
It's the folks on the pro side of this ruling that are "spewing bullshit."

[Lexingtonian]

20. go ahead, explain that claim

It's all latent conservative bullshit of the variety that when 'government', say, touches money the money catches fire and disappears from circulation.

To take your position- when should government ever be able to sell any buildings or land it owns to private interests? Ever? 50 years? 2 years? 2000 years?

[Nederland]

26. Don't understand

This case is about private land owners being forced to sell their land. What are you referring to when you ask about the government's right to sell its land? Seems to me you are talking about something totally different.

[Lexingtonian]

28. Okay

I don't think there's culturally really a dispute about whether government can take land (houses) when there is a clearcut public need.

I don't think there's culturally really a dispute about whether government can take the land and houses it owns and sell it to private interests.

For example, the U.S. government demanded and bought hugh stretches of the American South after the Civil War, of Florida before/during the Spanish-American War (1898), and even larger stretches of the American West during World War 2. There are bases all along the coasts and near Southern population centers from those times. Now that the Cold War is over, more and more of these lands and bases are given up and sold to state governments and developers to make state parks and housing and industrial areas and private airports.

And it's not just military activities for which government uses and returns land. There is the Tennessee Valley Authority, which dammed up the Tennessee River valley for electricity and flood control during the 1930s, and as an electricity producer became part of the Manhattan Project (a hugh amount of electricity was needed to separate the uranium isotopes; the facility was put in a place called Oak Ridge). It now runs nuclear power reactors for commercial electricity production along with all the dam stuff.

What people here are upset about is that government is claiming some land and selling it to private interests very directly. The principle argued about is one that government actually acts in very commonly, so the only discoverable objective issues are either acknowledgeable purposes or the amount of time for which government holds land.

As I see it, the dispute in New London pretends to be about the first, but that doesn't actually turn out in the critics' favor historically. The whole settlement of the West had the government selling settlers land which it only owned in theoretical fashion.

Operationally the issue thus really amounts to the second- how long, then, should government let lapse between the acquisition under one rationale and the sale or lease to the desired entity that meets the public interest under some other rationale.

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

31. Ghettos and low income housing has been being knocked down for years

with these exact same laws only the poor get squat.

DU'ers don't like this law being applied as equally to the middle class as it has been applied to the poor.

[Lexingtonian]

33. Absolutely.

Glad to see you around, NSMA. You're still knocking sense into folks and holes into their preciousness and selfimportance as no one else around here does.

Love ya for it.

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

36. actually I hadn't even read the case til I came across one of your

posts on another thread...then I looked it up and said, "yeah...there's good reason the court ruled as it did" So..kudos right back atcha ;-)

[Nederland]

39. Here's the difference

I don't think there's culturally really a dispute about whether government can take land (houses) when there is a clearcut public need.

I don't think there's culturally really a dispute about whether government can take the land and houses it owns and sell it to private interests.

Here's the difference: what happened in this case was the first step got skipped. I'd have no problem if the government had seized the land to build a hospital and then years later decided to sell it. That's not what happened though...

[Lexingtonian]

40. well

New London happens to be a small city that is in massive economic contraction because its mainstay industry, building and maintaining and stationing nuclear attack submarines, is being drastically cut back. There isn't substantial economic activity or industry- any rationale or source for a few hundred white collar jobs- in a ~50 mile (80 km) radius in general except casinos. The area around New London is more or less rural and thousands of families are about to depart, so there is no housing shortage.

You are unwilling to define this variety and scale of economic development necessarily put in this part of the city, under the circumstances, as a public interest. But the city government of New London and some substantial proportion of its citizens has claimed it to be such, relative to the property rights that exist of private landholders.

It's not an easy decision, and in Connecticut it was a 4-3 and now it is a 5-4. Before a 1000 judges it might well be a 501-499 or a 500-500.

Like I said, it's ultimately all about what constitutes the allowable amount of time and the acknowledgeable interests involved. A lot of people here are pretending that there are some kind of fixed, a priori, abstractifiable standards of what constitutes public interest, and my counterargument is that it turns on a situational logic.

[CTLawGuy]

49. so you wouldn't mind if I paid a corrupt politician

to bulldoze your house and build a Wal Mart?

it's "economic development"

[bribri16]

14. Maybe the Freeps will understand how they are used for fodder just

like the rest of us. Wouldn't it be wonderful if there could be a real alliance against the coporatocracy!

[alcibiades_mystery]

16. Except they have a built in out: all the conservatives on the court oppose

the ruling.

So liberals look like the oligarchy party and conservatives look like the defenders of land rights for the little guy. Fucking backwards ass bullshit, this.

[Tom Rinaldo]

15. This is freaky. I'm with Scalia Thomas and Rehnquist on this one

It reminds me of a Supreme Court case in the mid 70's. One of my genuine personal heroes, Justice Douglas, wrote an opinion upholding a zoning law that prohibited more than two adults who were not related by birth adoption or marriage form residing together. To me it was the ultimate infringement on my personal Liberties, telling me who I could and could not live with. Douglas was focused on a different aspect of the law regarding to local authority.

We ended up building a great local coalition to fight a law like that that then was proposed for the Township of Hempstead where I then lived. Libertarians and leftists and lots of folks in between.

[MsTryska]

30. You know.....i'm actually beginning to appreciate Thomas

lately - he might be a pornhound and chuavinist - but at least he rules according to his specific ideals. he can be counted on for consistency. scalia - i have no idea what his deal is.

[nothingshocksmeanymore]

17. Actually I don't disagree with the court entirely

I haven't read the entire decision but they felt the local municipality knew what was in their best interests in terms of public use better than the federal court did. In doing so, in a sense the LIMITED the manner in which the court could be used for such arguments. The conservatives on the courts have interpreted the takings clause to extend to regulatory acts from municipalities which TAKE future profits from corporations through regulations. In this incident, the USSC diminished that power a bit..so while it falls unfairly on this small group of homeowners or appears to, it also has some specific language on the right of municipalities to decide what is PUBLIC USE in their communities and may benefit us in the future in the case of polluters

[JPZenger]

19. Each State Sets the Rules

Each state establishes the laws on when a municipality can use condemnation for redevelopment. Sometimes condemnation is needed, but it should be limited to exceptional circumstances as a last resort, or the clearance of blight. If a state wants strict rules on this type of condemnation, they can adopt it.

We had one bad case in Pennsylvania where the City of Coatsville tried to condemn a farm to build a public golf course. Most of the land was not even in Coatsville. The City's own residents tried to use various methods to stop the projects, including changes to the City Charter by referendum, but it still took 3 years to stop it. Until the project was killed, the City had spent several million dollars on it. The whole thing was ridiculous because the City has a large low income population and many problems that would not be fixed with a golf course.

[Hosnon]

23. Yea...I did see one talking head say that all of the states can simply

ban this type of taking.

Any federalist paper dealing with eminent domain?

[nolabels]

25. Do you really need the dialectic that bad?

Since when has outright thievery ever been condoned by any culture? Just because a group of people agree on the color of the sky being blue does not make for any political alliance.

There are more here I agree with than over there but that doesn't square me up in believing or agreeing with everything here.

This ruling is at the very heart of government being able to govern or misgovern. This not much different from taxation without representation or forced slavery in the Armed Forces by the way of a draft.

Some of the true conservatives were correct about them few (so called) elite liberals being out of control, but now that control has been twisted around to let the freeps feel it by the hands of their so claimed side too. It all just seems so fitting. I would welcome them to the frying pan but mostly they were told this happen sooner or later so what would be the point?

The feudalism we now see will be overthrown sooner than it thinks so relishing in these moments as it happens should not be taken for granted :-)

[ComerPerro]

27. Yeah! And maybe we can help them in their effort to get rid of the courts

So they can leave all power to Bush and Congress

[skooooo]

38. overturn the Supreme Ct.? good luck!

[nolabels]

42. It's one of the reasons we have more than ten amendments now

Eff the stupid damn government, they have a lousy track record on planing and are shown only to be working for the moneyed interest with the people be damned.

The Constitution clearly states it is up to the people to abolish or change it as they see fit. I read no where in that document that Billionaires have the privilege to skim off the top. Also not listed in it is the right for corporations to use the US military for their adventures around the world.

[roguevalley]

43. eminent domain doesn't play well west of the Mississippi. It will be

a problem for the pugs if they don't do something about it.

[eridani]

44. We are against it for different reasons

The conservatives don't think that there should ever be eminent domain. We think that eminent domain is wrong only when it puts the government into the service of private, not public interests.

Pat Buchanan is anti-Iraq war, but for different reasons than I am.

[Selatius]

50. We can look to the French for a recent example: EU Constitution

Many left-leaning activists, especially the socialists, were against the EU Constitution because they feared language in the Constitution would enshrine free-trade policies and would help to destroy France's social programs.

Ultra-rightwing groups were against the Constitution for fear of losing sovereignty to a supra-national entity. I guess you could say they opposed it for the same reasons conservatives oppose the UN.

Their respective positions did not stop them from uniting on this issue, at least temporarily, to kill the Constitution. It worked.

[union_maid]

46. No one can be wrong all the time

Taking private property and turning it over to other private interests is anti-people - regardless of your politics. I know that New London has a real problem. The larger problem is that this is happening in other places that don't have the same issues and some states will allow terrible abuse of this. Eminent domain for public use - roads, railroads, etc. is still a painful process for the people directly affected by it. It doesn't happen all that often, though. Private development is a constant, ongoing process everywhere. Not one piece of property is safe from it ultimately.

[sendero]

47. It seems like..

.... you are saying that one side must be the opposite of the other.

That is of course absurd. I can think of several SC decisions that would be roundly condemned by just about everybody.

As much as I agree that *many if not most* freepers are knuckle-dragging knee-jerk one-inch thinkers, they are not all. And as much as I want to attribute pernicious motives to them, I realize that they love America just like we do, they just have a different idea of what it should be.

These eminent domain rulings piss everybody off. They basically say that government entities can displace you from your land if they decide they have good reason to. Democrats and Freepers alike believe in freedom, albeit in their own ways. Nobody wants to consider the possiblilty of losing their home because some city planner wants a condo development. Even freepers. So relax.

The good news? Beleive it or not, freepers are going to start peeling off one by one to realize that the policies of this administration are hurting America. Someone who looks like a hero to you can fool you a long time, but not forever. I'd bet it is already happening.