Recent Supreme Court Rulings
 

Today the Supreme Court of the United States ruled against private property ownership. They said that any town can take away your property for the benefit of other private citizens if they feel it's in the "best interests" of the town. Justice Sandra Day O'Connor issued a stinging dissent. She argued that cities should not have unlimited authority to uproot families, even if they are provided compensation, simply to accommodate wealthy developers.

"Any property may now be taken for the benefit of another private party, but the fallout from this decision will not be random," O'Connor wrote. "The beneficiaries are likely to be those citizens with disproportionate influence and power in the political process, including large corporations and development firms."

The freedom of any nation can be measured in how much they protect private property ownership. All of our rights come from private property ownership. The most recent rulings of the Supreme Court are a kick in the groin to the founding fathers and to everything that America stands for. It's essentially dipping the Constitution in shit and setting it on fire. These decisions prove that there is no part of the government that isn't working against the people of America and claim that the government owns our bodies, our property, and anything else it wants. It says the government's powers are unlimited, and that we are nothing but property of the government. It's full-blown Communism.

:mad2: :mad2: :mad2: :mad2:

I don't often agree with Radar. This is a VERY BAD decision. He's not over-reacting.

I hope that the Justices who voted for this have their homes taken away to build malls.

It isn't Communism. It is economic Imperialism. Converting the use of private property for the use of special interests by force.

The Supremes are just warming up for when three of their number are replaced by some *really* scary people.

:worried: For once I'm with Scalia and Thomas...

When I first saw the report on Yahoo I thought the same thing. This is a developer's wet dream.

The justices said that under the 5th Amendment, property could be taken -

However, the definition of 'public' can be stretched. This isn't just a new issue. Most of the 'superblocks' in Manhattan are built on condemned buildings, and the new buildings are private property.

Well, now we know where to move to.

Come on, Els, that doesn't even make sense. It was the historically liberal judges who voted FOR it, and the conservative judges who voted against it. If he gets the chance at all, Bush will most likely nominate someone who would have voted against it too.

No, Bush would probably pick someone with a corporate law background and a pro-business stance.

This really pisses me off. I see this going on all around me but it's usually for "open space" which is a debatable public good.
But when then grab the family farm to build a fucking golf course...that's wrong.
So very fucking wrong, I think I would have to make a stand. :rattat:

Naturally the NYTimes sides with government landgrabbers.

not sure about communism but certainly madness. Ties in nicely with this.

Like those bastards in Coatesville? I couldn't agree more. :rar:

I saw this news story last night. There are a lot of news stories which unsettle me these days, but few that make me fume. This was one of the rare latter.

It really does seem that we are rapidly approaching a tipping point in the US, after which we will be completely stripped of the ever-shrinking list of freedoms we enjoy. Our supreme court has spoken, and now all Americans have the right to keep their own property unless someone with more money wants it. What a disgrace.

I am a pretty easygoing person, but if it was MY home, I'd be chained to something solid inside, and armed. No doubt I'd be forcibly disarmed and arrested, but that's the sort of thing that needs to happen to show Americans that they now live in a country where if you don't want to sell your nice house to someone with more money, the police will come and remove you from it. Free nation, my ass.

It is the whole "fair market value" thing that bothers me. If this is all about Free Enterprise making a blighted area a better place, why doesn't it start with Free Enterprise ponying up however much money it takes to get people to *want* to sell their houses?

Market Value - $250,000
Sells for - $3.9 million

Yeah, that would probably make people feel a little better.

Good point. The "value" of any object is defined by how desirable it is. By virtue of the fact that some entity with lots of money wants to build something there, it's value should be increased dramatically; but the "fair market value" given to the owner in these instances is based on it's value BEFORE the rich entity wanted it. What a racket.

Let's see. I've got a house that has been in my family for 4 generations. It's the only thing that's been consistent and has a hundred years of memories in it. What's the market value on that?

In Japan, they only do it for things like a freeway. Not for private business. When they use eminent domain, they come to your house and do an audit. They did it with my ex-wife's grandmother. They counted every bush, every tree, each and every Koi fish in the pond, etc. and paid her for all of it.

In America, many towns have condemned property in order to call it a blight and use eminent domain and to pay the owner a fraction of what the costs are. I've heard of the power company doing this with someone just recently. I think if eminent domain is going to be used by anyone, they should not pay you for the house. They should be required build a new house of the same or better quality in a location that is equally desirable and valuable, to pay all of your moving expenses, the costs involved in switching over utilities, and provide a certain amount of maintenance if things break down in the house...and they should be immune from all property taxes.

I Atlantic City one woman held out against the first casino so they built around her. I mean they walled up 3 sides of her property with casino. Now her property is worth so much they taxed her out. Most of the proceeds from the property went to back taxes. :smack:

Llast year Vietnam was trying to convince Boeing to throw some business their way and invest in a plant there. After considerable investigating, Boeing said no because the Viet's legal system didn't provide enough protection for ownership of private property. Wonder if they'll be moving out of the US? :eyebrow:

Fair Market Value? A few years back my township took 176 acres of farmland (orchards) for "open Space". They decided the value was $13.5k/acre. Yet a half mile up the road 1/2 acre lots were already selling for $60k. That's in the courts. Plus they sold the taxpayers/voters the whole bond issue approval deal with the $13.5k number.
Now when the dust settles the deal is done and J.Q. Public has to ante up no matter what the cost. :mad:

I didn't really know where to put this but here seems as good as anywhere.

I noticed that the whole map's red now. :(

Reminds me of the thread that drew me to the cellar in the first place. My first post was on this subject.

Every little chump municipality in the country just got green lighted.

Cue violins.....Your Mom and Dad bought or built their house back in the 50's. A modest house but it fits their needs nicely. Lovely location, nice view, garden, flower beds and a million happy memories. Wonderful to have the grandkids running around the big yard with the dogs just like you did back in the day. Best of all, because it's a modest home, the taxes are only a couple grand...say $2500.

Cue oboe......Snidley Richcash thinks it's a lovely location too. Just the spot to build his dream showoff place that the high rent architect designed. Have to get rid of those pesky old folks and tear down that shack but that's not a big deal. After all, Snidley has this burg in his pocket. But more importantly the new home would pay not $2500 but $7500 in taxes.

Mom and Dad better hope they're not on the toilet when Snidley tells the powers that be his plans because they won't have time to wipe. :mad:

Elspode is right on, this is not communism it is the nascent moments of Corpocracy. I am surprised that not everyone realizes how much of everything they see, do, and unfortunatley, think is dictated by Corporations.

Some months after 9/11 the Gov't said they wanted to have a "real time" teleconferencing (sp?) system in place within 5 years to enable all the world leaders heads of state to communicate in teh event of a similar occurance. The top Fortune 500 companies had one in place within MONTHS.

That to me, speaks volumes about who is running what.

The fact that big corporations know how to manipulate small municipal governments isn't the scary thing here. The greed is plenty bad, but what's scary is that the highest court in the land just ruled that your government is entitled to take your private property for any reason it wants. That's pure Soviet Russia there.

If I'm not mistaken, though, state's rights still supersede.....

So far.

Oh, and by the way folks, please remember that your children are also Property of the State.

While we're on the "Corporations own the world, we just breathe here" tune, here's another verse.

Why? The only answer is "bought and paid for". Which leads to the question, are politician expenses short term liabilities, or capital expenses?

Government is a business... and as crappy as it is for the government to use eminent domain to take someone's property and sell it to a private individual/entity, it's what happens in our society. Sucks... yes. Violates constitutional rights... not really.

As for the Grokster ruling... it really doesn't answer the question in my opinion.

http://www.nldc.org/

Here it is in black and white and color.

Sometimes, I wished I would have either: a) payed attention in my Constitutional Law classes or b) gave a damn about learning Constitutional law. Often times, I praised the countries that didn't have constitutions because constitutions can lead to bs like all this, but without it - life would probably suck too. It's a catch-22.

Hell, that's nothing. Disney's deal with Florida allows them to build and operate a nuclear power plant if the wish. :worried:

seriously?

is a 'tax base' the amount of tax generating things in a municipality?

I know that everybody wants Disney to be responsible for the cute widdle kid's demise, but what kind of parent takes a four year old onto a centrifuge?

Most amusement park rides are centrifuges of one sort or another.

i thought he died while on the mission space ride? i also thought that was the equivalent of Soar over California. that is basically an Imax screen with you lifted a few feet off the ground in a chair that will tip forward, back, side to side with loud noises, to simulate flight etc. having been on that ride only recently, i don't see how it could even be remotely looked at as a cause of death.

or is this a different ride?

I thought it was specifically mentioned in the article that the cause of death was completely unrelated to the ride, he just happened to die while on it.

I don't think the cause of death has been determined - it's just been noted that he didn't have any signs of trauma.

I'm sorry to hijack from the story about the dead kid :(

but I thought this was an interesting little display of citizen outrage. I would dearly love to see this succeed.

Copy of Atlas Shrugged in the nightstand? I'd stay there.

so your saying if your family, along with many other families on the street, owned a nice but small piece of property across the street from the water and a developer came along and proposed to the town that he wanted to build high end condominiums and upscale shops where the houses are standing and have been handed down for generations, you would say that was fair???? Just so the town could make more tax revenue (or is the trickle down theory, you pay me, I pay him, he pays her, it goes through, the 3 of us get rich what do we care)
:eek:

A Libertarian developer has just filed paperwork to take away David Souter's house to build a hotel.


This land WAS your land...


Instead of a bible in every room, it will have a copy of Atlas Shrugged in every room.

http://www.freestarmedia.com/index.html

See Post #37, Radar. Mr. Noodle is faster on the draw.

Scalia and Thomas voted against the amendment, julie. HM is uncomfortable because he finds himself in agreement with conservatives.

Wow, my wish just may come true!!

Justice Souter's home may be seized to build hotel

Hey, have you heard that they're trying to seize Souter's land to build a hotel? :O

You're halfway right. Thomas voted the right way and Scalia voted to misuse eminent domain. Scalia is also one of the insane assholes who thought posting the 10 commandments in government buildings was appropriate.


Seven of the 9 members of the Supreme Court were nominated by Republicans. They are:

Stevens - Ford
O'Connor - Reagan
Scalia - Reagan
Kennedy - Reagan
Souter - GHW Bush
Thomas - GHW Bush
Rehnquist - Reagan

The other two were appointed by a Democrat.

Ginsburg - Clinton
Breyer - Clinton

Out of these judges, only 3 sided with the Constitution in both cases.
Rehnquist, Thomas, and O'Connor dissented on both cases.

The rest are all worthless human scumbags. Scalia voted the right way on medical marijuana, but the wrong way on almost everything else.

The other 5....

Souter, Kennedy, Stevens (All Republicans) Ginsburg, and Breyer (Democrats) should be taken outside and burned alive right after their homes and other property is taken, bulldozed into the ground, and given to marijuana co-ops to grow medicine.

Wierd. I've been reading this thread all along. When I clicked on "new posts", it skipped those. I must have left the Cellar window open yesterday, and all the fresh posts got stale. Oh well, in hindsight, I think my post was mildly amusing without intending it to be.

Back to the topic, I really hope the hotel goes through. That would be delicious. They have a few other hotels to build too, but someone has to be first. Might as well be Souter.

No, Scalia and Thomas both dissented on the eminent domain case.

keep in mind that "right" and "wrong" are judgements to be used strictly at thte discretion of radar.

[quote=hot_pastrami]
It really does seem that we are rapidly approaching a tipping point in the US, after which we will be completely stripped of the ever-shrinking list of freedoms we enjoy. Our supreme court has spoken, and now all Americans have the right to keep their own property unless someone with more money wants it. What a disgrace.[quote]

Replace "rapidly approaching" with "have passed". Actually, we passed it shortly after 9/11. The age of freedom is over and humanity is returning to its usual state of tyranny and despotism.

Actually right and wrong are not judgements in this case. The job of the Supreme Court is to stick to the Constitution. It's not to redefine the Constitution or ignore it. It's not to make the Constitution into what they personally want it to be, and it's not to "interpret" it. The Constitution does not require interpretation, it means exactly what it says and is not ambiguous in any way.

If someone says the interstate commerce clause applies when it's not commerce and not interstate, they are willfully violating the Constitution. If they try to twist the eminent domain clause of the 5th amendment to mean it can be used for the benefit of private individuals, they are violating the Constitution.

It's not a gray area. It's black and white, and they are on the wrong side. They are violating the limits of their powers, and the U.S. Constitution. This isn't my "opinion", it's a fact.

I am in complete agreement with radar on this one. The constitution very plainly states a lot of things, which, since the early 1970s, have either been determined to not mean what they say, or to be reinterpreted to the extent that they have no meaning whatsoever, or in some cases, new meaning not previously understood in that context.

i don't disagree with radar on these issues. i am just skeptical about people standing up and shouting about "right" and "wrong" decisions in politics - and let's face it the SC is a political animal. as much as we may hate it, it is the truth.

it always has been a political animal, at least for as long as I've been keeping track. The fanciful notion of the highest court in the land being a stronghold of strict constructionism and absolute justice fails when faced with the reality that it is manned by a group of people with lifetime appointments and no real accountability.

It's saddening to see that even those who once supported the literal interpretation of the Constitution have fallen prey to the same disease that their liberal counterparts have suffered from for so long.

They have the same law in the UK it's called "Compulsary Purchase" but it's only done for public works projects like roads.

http://www.odpm.gov.uk/stellent/grou...609211-01.hcsp

Usually it's a sweatheart deal as they use the taxable value of the property. If there is a sniff of a compulsary purchase people are lining up at the door. :yelgreedy

A few years ago there was a whisper of a new town to be built where my parent live and they were central downtown. The talk in the local pub for weeks was what the locals would do with the money.

For those of you who want to stay in the "Lost Liberty Hotel" as I do, you can sign a pledge to stay there if you go HERE

The town of Arnold, MO used the power of Eminent Domain to take the land owned by the local VFW to give it to Lowe's HOme improvement store. I don't know if they waited until post-New London to do it, but they did it recently.

We need a state school educated justice next... Ivy-Leaguers approach things from an academic sense and academics make crappy laws.