June 28, 2005
Lost Liberty Hotel
Want a tangible result from your charitable giving? Help build a hotel!
The US Supreme Court's recent ruling in 'Kelo v. City of New London' removed the last obstacle preventing this project from moving forward. The 'Lost Liberty Hotel' project had previously been blocked by the current use of the desired development site as a private residence for a single American family. Now that the Supreme Court has obliterated the Constitutional restrictions on emminent domain, the process of bribing city officials to obtain condemnation of the property can begin in earnest.
"This is not a prank" said Clements, "The Towne of Weare has five people on the Board of Selectmen. If three of them vote to use the power of eminent domain to take this land from Mr. Souter we can begin our hotel development."
Who's that? Souter? Yes, Supreme Court Justice David H. Souter, whose residence at 34 Cilley Hill Road in Weare, New Hampshire is the future building site for the hotel.
Clements indicated that the hotel must be built on this particular piece of land because it is a unique site being the home of someone largely responsible for destroying property rights for all Americans.
So there you have it. A site is "necessary" just because the developer says it is. As long as the local government goes along the individual is powerless to stop them. We'll see how David feels when he faces Goliath by himself, without his flowing robe.
And there's a delicious coup de grace, for me anyway: "Instead of a Gideon's Bible each guest will receive a free copy of Ayn Rand's novel "Atlas Shrugged." HOO-rah.
Ha! Just to doink with Justice Souter a bit is well worth a few bucks.
I agree that Kelo is a bad decision, but I am having a hard time getting riled about it (I'm STILL fuming from Raich!) At some level, it seems a concept of eminent domain is required for progress. And I suspect the people harmed by Kelo will tend to be wackos trying to block a Wal*Mart and not simple folks who are pushed aside for more government revenue.
I am way out of step with the blogosphere in general and a lot of people I respect on this. Am I banned from ThreeSources?
Posted by: jk at June 28, 2005 3:10 PMNo, you're not banned from ThreeSources, and it's not surprising that you think the government should have SOME recourse with intransigent "wackos" taking unfair advantage of their windfall position in the path of the most advantage rail route through XYZ mountains, or some such. America's Founders, after all, thought so too, and provided said recourse in the Fifth Amendment. But this wasn't "good enough" for Justice Souter and the liberal gang-of-four. It "proved to be impractical given the diverse and always evolving needs of society." [BARF!]
Dagny and I are currently reading Judge Napolitano's "Constitutional Chaos." In chapter 5 (appropriately) he discusses governmental violations of the takings clause. In Hurst, Texas, in 2000, "the town fathers threatened to condemn 127 homes so that its largest taxpayer, a real estate company, could build a larger parking lot for the town's mall. (...) Despite the fact that the government used the eminent domain power for a clearly private use, a Texas trial judge allowed the developer to demolish the homes even though the lawsuit wasn't over. The Prohs and the Duval families had each owned their homes for thirty years. Most shockingly, Leonard Prohs was forced to move while his wife was in the hospital with brain cancer; she died five days after the house was demolished. Phyllis Duval's husband, also in the hospital with cancer at the time, died one month after the demolition."
I also happen to have personal knowledge of such a situation, having followed the newspaper accounts of an eminent domain condemnation of a home in Superior, Colorado to make way for a shopping center that includes a Costco store I shop at regularly. The elderly couple had lived there for decades and had no desire to rip up their lives to make way for "progress." Within two months of their forceable relocation, both had died.
Napolitano goes on to explain that cases like this are copious. "On a daily basis, the government can be found plotting to violate the Constitution in order to take away your land. A recent report by the Castle Coalition [http://www.castlecoalition.org/] ... chronicled 10,382 government attempts to condemn private property for the benefit of other private individuals in the last ten years."
The Founders intended the courts to be a checking mechanism against this sort of tyranny on the part of a branch of the government, but the courts have abdicated that duty. The Kelo ruling is the latest and the most destructive SCOTUS ruling in a string that Napolitano summarizes beginning in 1936 with 'New York City Housing Authority v. Mueller' and including 'Bush Terminal Co. v. City of New York' in 1940, 'Kaskel v. Impellitteri' in 1953, and 'Berman v. Parker' in 1954, which Napolitano characterized as "the final blow to 'public use." (It's an excellent book. I highly recommend it.)
So, is there enough here for you to get riled about 'Kelo' now?
Posted by: johngalt at June 29, 2005 1:06 AMJK and I have argued many things over many years and I can't remember a time when I thought he was more wrong about something. This nightmarish decision is not only an assault on the property rights of individuals,as desribed so well in John Galt's post; it is a huge step towards collectivism and a command economy. If this were simply a matter of "wackos vs. Walmart" we'd see the usual liberal suspects lining up to demounce the decison as "pro business" and as an attack on the "little guy." Of course the champions of working Americans are nowhere to be found because this decision will go such a long way towards creating the "progressive society" they crave. God save us from this court!
Posted by: sugarchuck at June 29, 2005 9:33 AMIf I may, I too have a book suggestion. Take a look at Robert Bork's "The Tempting of America." Bork's arguments for judicial restraint are profound and his recollections of the confirmation process are very timely, given the confirmation battles we are about to go through.
Not to beat a dead horse, but our Supreme Court just handed us a law regarding eminent domain that no sane legislator would have voted for. Coupled with their recent veiws on interstate commerce, these decisions become powerful tools for those in our society who would like to abolish propery rights and move towards collectivism, central planning and the redustribution of wealth. The longer we allow ourselves to view the Supreme Court in terms of abortion rights not found anywhere in the constitution, the more we face the erosion of those rights that were clearly spelled out.
I appreciate the argument. I cannot argue back because I agree that it is a bad decision; it certainly should have gone the other way.
And, whoa cowboys! I agree that SCOTUS is waaaay off track. My point is that I was MORE upset about Raich. Using the commerce clause to regulate intra-state non-commerce! Whaaaa?
I will cry "Mea Culpla" and accept the dressing down from JohnGalt and SugarChuck. There are abuses, and I am likely naive about their prevalence.
But we all have our issues. Two of mine are the importance of Federalism and reduced gub'mint intrusion into personal health care -- especially for the seriously and chronically sick. Raich went by with a small whimper from the libertarian set, and Kelo set off a firestorm of punditry and now legislation. The relative asininity of these decisions is comparable, the reaction was not.
(And you were too upset to catch my joke "Still Fuming about Raich!" I am thinking of a bumpersticker on that...)
Posted by: jk at June 29, 2005 10:21 AM | What do you think? [4]