SCOTUS: Cities may seize homes at will... Kelo v. New London (merged)

Is it just me, or...

...does this recent Supreme Court decision leave anyone else with a queasy feeling in the pit of their stomach like it does me?

I'm certainly not psychic, but this type of decision, IMHO, seems to be the death knell to the beginning of the end of the "free and proud" society on which we've always prided ourselves.

How many more of our Constitutional rights will be trampled upon or compromised? How many more things are we going to be expected to "just accept" from our self-elected leadership?

Sounds like this "eminent domain" can be used to justify seizing property from ANYone for ANY reason that sounds good to a few community leaders, including waterfront, wilderness, or other prime locations.

Frankly, this worries me. It makes me wonder what's next to go. . . :confused:
 
Question for you Constitutional Scholars:

How does this brutally unconstitutional ruling affect the Federal government's ability to designate more lands as National "Parks" and "Wilderness" Areas?
Rich
 
After all this talk what is to be done?
Here is an idea...
Who wants to form a constitutionalist revolutionary group, march on the beltway, toss the money grubbin politicians out on the road, and replace them with people who will represent those who put them in office. You know the guys who won't tell you what you want to hear to get elected then start taking kick backs from the oil lobby, pharmacutical people, and anyone else with the money to pay for a representative. Sell us down the river, take our rights, and freedoms, and be allowed to continue to violate the constitution of the US.
Tell you what, the list starts here. Put your name bellow.
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and this is pretty much how it will go.
It is the same mentality as Walmart. Tell people that 1/2 of every dollar they spend there goes to China. A military rule form of government that uses that money to point ICBM's right back over here, and they will say "oh how terrible", and in the end, next Saturday they are going to load up the grocery go getter, and pack the family down to Wally World, and buy up some more of those nukes to bring back back home, and never give it another thought.
Click to expand...

Occam's razor: People are lazy, stupid sheeple who like saving money by going to el grande Wal-Mart because they frankly don't care about an evil nation thousands of miles away, and Pat Robertson thinks the Chinese government is A-OK.

Aaron's razor: Wal-Mart stinks and I only go to K-Mart in order to stick it the Commies.

Someone else's razor: According to a circulated email, going into Wal-Mart infects you with Chi-Com developed nanotechnology mind control devices which use your body in the middle of the night to send your social security payments to Wal-Mart which then distributes them to illegal immigrants, and the fact that Snopes does not confirm this proves that they are part of the conspiracy.


Wallyworld could take over a whole neighborhood to build one of their supercenters (the parking lot alone should get it's own zipcode) and after a month or three, no one would even think about it and everyone from that town would still go there every day.

Sickening.
 
Rich, I'm going to take your question to mean whether the government could *take* land for use as a public park/forest. The process of designating land as a public forest, once it's already acquired, has nothing to do with the takings clause.

The court is consistently reading "public use" as "public purpose." Since either federal forests or federal parks would clearly serve a public purpose, any such taking would be deemed constitutional. That would be a much easier decision, since the land would be intended for ownership by the public/government, rather than in this case where the land is going to private developers, and the "public purpose" is nebulous and indirect. If a case like the one you described ended up before the SCOTUS, I could see O'Connor, and perhaps even Scalia and Rehnquist, siding with the majority.

In short, I think the question you present was settled as being constitutional before this decision, and even before Midkiff. As arbitrary as takings for public parks/forests may be, the real problem with this decision is that government can force a transfer from private individuals to private individuals. And even that's not new. In Midkiff, the SCOTUS approved of forced transfer of land titles from the landowning oligopoly in Hawaii to other private individuals. The intent was to break up the oligopoly, because it was skewing the real estate market. But the principle was the same: government-forced transfer of property from private owners to other private owners.

What's shocking is that O'Connor voted with the majority in Midkiff, but split hairs and came up with some nonsense distinction that enabled her to dissent in this case.

Only Thomas would be fairly certain to vote your hypothetical public park taking to be unconstitutional. In his dissent, he says that takings must be for some constitutionally-authorized purpose. Since there's no authorization in the constitution to provide the people with parks or forests, I think he would consider such a taking to be unconstitutional.

Antipitas?
 
The Supremes just released a new song and its called "Unlimited Emminent Domain". I'm sure big business will love dancing to this new Conservative hit.
 
Rich, that is a good question. The issue is economic development and creating employment. If government biologists, universities and bovine flatulence study funding can be considered economic advantages, there well may be lands seized and given to the central government. Good observation. My family fought a road being built through the family farm for 40 years. The road was finally forced through and there was no compensation paid and no reimbursement of expenses for fencing, ditching or legal expenses. It was just done. Delayed but, in the end, paved and striped. General Robert E. Lee lost his home for a cemetary. At issue locally is a bypass that is shutting down eateries and used car lots. Businesses are told to sell or the property will be seized under eminent domain. One property owner has had two businesses forcibly sold. One of my cousins has been forced to sell right of way for a four lane highway, a section of property for a cell phone tower and his home for another four lane highway. His wife was forced to sell her antique business. New London was not the first injustice in the name of progress. I suspect the native americans felt similar emotions when the europeans, railroads and immigrants began moving in on their lands.
 
Sir William-
Thanks for the input, but I think tyme may be on the mark....what makes this decision so egregious is transfer to private party. .Gov taking your land to protect the Snail Darters has probably already been settled (just as unconstitutionally).
Rich
 
I wasn't referencing ecology or the environment. The management of natural resources is a business. Government employees, grants, studies and the urban.rural interface is all about money. There is no protection of lands, there are governmental managers, leases, use permits, fees, studies funded by the public coffers and even tree farming for profit. I meant that the cover of a national forest is really a smokescreen. Think facetious. Private developers are not the issue either. The basic right of individual pieces of property are endangered. The interpretation I have is that associations are stronger than the individual.
 
Sir William said:
Fair market compensation was proferred and denied. The proerty owners turned down financial renumeration and they lost in court.
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Listened to an interview with one of the property owners.

The "fair market compensation" which was initially offered to him was $60,000. He turned it down. More jockeying went on... the final "fair market compensation" which was offered was $150,000.

His home/land market value is worth at least $300,000. This is waterfront property for God's sake.

I'd like to see how they justify their "offer" as "fair".

"Hey, I want your land. Here's $5.00 take it or leave it."

"No thanks I'd like to stay here, I'm not selling"

***Court Decision***
"Fair market compensation was proferred and denied. The proerty owners turned down financial renumeration. We find in favor of the Plaintiff. The Defendant must vacate premesis in 30 days"

:eek: :mad: :barf:

Edit: Also, not only was this land to be used for the "public good" but they were planning to place high-dollar homes in the same spot that these poor live!!!

What does that say??? Your not good enough to live here. But these rich bastards are.
 
And again I ask, when the bull dozers show up, how many of us will be there to stop it? People have jobs, they have stuff. Nobody wants to risk anything anymore for what is right,and wrong, for the fear of losing thier stuff. Well without freedom, rights, and liberty, all that stuff is just the leash the government has on us.
 
70-101,

The Supremes just released a new song and its called "Unlimited Emminent Domain". I'm sure big business will love dancing to this new Conservative hit.
Click to expand...

I realize that you're late to the discussion, but you ought to know that it was the most conservative justices that dissented.
 
Rich, to your question, I believe this ruling will directly impact the ability of "them" to take land for the public good. It goes far beyond taking of land for parks and forests by government and extends into the ability of NGO's and quasi-governmental organizations to now get local government to side with them. It will take a while to noodle through the environmental implications but I fear it is not good. http://www.wildlandsprojectrevealed.org/htm/summary.htm is a good example of who benefits.

Bad, bad mojo. :eek:
 
Rich and any others who might be interested:

I do not recall if it was at this site/discussion or another that I saw the following thought posted, regarding the New London Land Theft, oops exercise of Eminent Domain. "PEOPLE WILL DIE". The poster went on to explain his line of thinking, and I suspect that he was pretty much correct.

There will likely be violence, which neither he nor I recommend as a course of action, however when the deck is stacked against the individual, what is left? Nobody can fortell when violence will take place, it could be sooner, it could be later, however if anyone were to say that there will be violence, I'd be inclined to agree. This is NOT to say that I think violence is desirable, but then it gets cold in December. Whether or not I like that fact changes nothing. It still gets cold in December.

I personally believe that The Court did the greatest possible public disservice with this ruling of theirs. I also believe that the elected things we send to Washington D.C. badly need to legislatively void this ruling. I do not think that they have the sense to so do, which brings us back to the original statement. PEOPLE WILL DIE.

I know not who it will be, nor do I know when it will be, however speaking personally, I would be very much surprised if it turned out otherwise, given that I don't believe that our elected things have either the wit or the balls to do what is necessary, which it to overturn this most ridiculous of Supreme Court rulings.

By the way, New London is NOT the only place where this foolishness goes on. Public Televisions Now show, broadcast Friday evenings, had a segment dealing with exactly this sort of thing. It centered around affairs in Long Branch New Jersey, where a residential area was bulldozed for commercial development or redevelopment. Seems that the homeowners long established there weren't producing sufficient tax revenue for city government, so out they go. The segment struck us as being extremely sad, and my wife and I have always rented, and still do. One wonders as to what happened to all the property tax monies that the existing residents had paid into township/city coffers over the years. I guess that that doesn't count, once developers obtain the ear of city council. It does strike me that the mayor and city council would, in other times, have been prime candidates for tar, feathers and that old rail.

Re the earlier mentioned forcast, PEOPLE WILL DIE, I do wonder about one thing. Which people will it be?
 
I live in an old area, with farms that go back many generations. There are family cemeteries on those farms that also go back many generations. These are proud, independent people, and if it happens there, I don't think, I KNOW there will be bloodshed :( . I can tell you this: while I'm city and not county, the day I'm called on to evict these folks, I'm reporting off sick (and I suspect a number of my people will also) :mad: .
 
Capt-
THAT'S what I call "closing the gap".
You get the TFL Class Act Award for June 2005......not for anything you've said here. Just for understanding the difference between what's "Legal" and what's "Right".

Thanks much-
Rich
 
Our State Supreme Court has already ruled that even though there may be significant public benefit to a project, that is not enough to use the eminent domain power. Our state constitution does offer more protection for landowners than federal law.

Several State Senators are already discussing how to further strengthen landowner's rights against such seizures.

One legislator, a democrat of all things, was quoted, "that's the most asinine ruling the Supreme Court (US) has made in the history of the country".
 
Capt-
THAT'S what I call "closing the gap".
You get the TFL Class Act Award for June 2005......not for anything you've said here. Just for understanding the difference between what's "Legal" and what's "Right".

Thanks much-
Rich
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I would second this. This is the kind of attitude that leaves me some respect for a few good men, and women that serve as LEOs. Everyone has to draw thier own line. The problem comes in when you don't know where a persons line is, or it is subject to moving about. I commend you Capt on your decision for this.
 
Just to pile on, I'm disgusted. Historical local precedent out of the early '60s was the condemnation of a little barrio area in L.A. called Chavez Ravine. If memory serves it was 'dozed for the parking lot of a hospital to be that became Dodger Stadium. Sometimes a convenient fiction will get you places others require SCOTUS for. The locals felt they weren't justly compensated; I wonder who gets to decide a fair price. We have a local battle raging in Redondo Beach with the city fathers wanting to grab land from Edison for some beach front development. Last round it died in part because the development was private. Bet their attorney has staff working ot on the next go round.
 
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