Erosion of Rights
Another fundamental right died in the courts yesterday. You no longer have the right to keep your private property.
The Supreme Court voted 5-4 to allow local governments to seize citizens’ land to build… shopping malls.
Of course, they’ve been able to force citizens to sell steal citizens’ land to build things like highways for decades. But now they have been given the OK to steal land for private development.
If a county councilman decides that the county really needs a Wal-Mart in your neighborhood, he can bulldoze your house to make room for it. Oh he’ll pay you something for it–whatever he thinks it’s worth.
How can they possibly justify this from the Constitution? The Fifth Ammendment states:
No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.
Previously, public use has referred to government use like highways and water lines; now the definition has expanded to include private development, like hotels and shopping malls, if they’ll bring jobs and commerce to the area.
And what’s commerce? Well, as we learned a few weeks ago, interstate commerce means anything the government wants it to mean. When “marijuana that has never been bought or sold, that has never crossed state lines, and that has had no demonstrable effect on the national market for marijuana” can be called interstate commerce, then commerce, as a word, is utterly meaningless and pliable, adaptable to the schemes of any tiny tyrant.
I need to move out of the country before that becomes illegal.
Update: You know the worst part of this decision? Justice John Paul Stevens, the fool who wrote for the majority, said that local officials “know best” how to run your land. That’s right. You’re too stupid to know how to run your land the right way; you’ve got to let the government take it and give it to a company that’s obviously smarter than you are.