More On
The opinion is here.
The Fifth Amendment.
Concerned about your property rights? Check out The Institute for Justice and Castle Coalition.
A dedicated blog.
Some discussion. More discussion.
Even more discussion. How about some more discussion? And more, uh, discussion?
What can we now look forward to? This. And this.
Finally, George Will's summary is great:
The question answered yesterday was: Can government profit by seizing the property of people of modest means and giving it to wealthy people who can pay more taxes than can be extracted from the original owners? The court answered yes.UPDATE: A proposed constitutional amendment at Yippi-Ki-Yay!
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posted by KJ @ 1:30 PM
6 comments
6 Comments:
Well, while this is one of the really bad decisions, at least we can still fight it. The issue is now in your local and state legislatures. Unlike some activist opinions, the Court left it in OUR hands.
Get busy protecting yourself and your property with state constitutional amendments.
KJ, do you remember my story about the township and zoning? I'd like to be hopeful and say, "Well, at least we can wrastle it at home," but power changes people, and it ain't pretty. I never believed in altruism, even when I was a humanist, and my experiences with those in charge confirm that instinct.
In my first post about this ruling, I mentioned the problem of a relatively affluent society and "creep." Too many people don't care, and those in position to make decisions are too prone to reprobacy of a number of forms. It may be a slow slide, but it's pretty much downhill from anywhere you're standing.
I'm not trying to be optimistic here. But amendments to prevent this takings that are then handed over to private development have been passed in about 5-10 states as I understand it. It can be done.
And afe, not to repeat myself from my Scrappler days (FYI, that is now called "TOB" [the other blog] in these circles) but activism has some practical limits. It is one thing to limit or expand potentially vague meanings of the language. What can one do to 13th Amendment in that direction? Maybe debtors prison, but not full blown slavery. And it would never be "required." The states would have the power to limit slavery. The activism comes in expanding the definition of slavery to mean "employment contracts" or something like that.
Besides, that is hypothetical without an answer. The 13th amendment couldn't be clearer -- what should I say? Besides, slavery was never a judicial creation -- legislatures created it -- you think slavery is going to pass in the local legislatures?
Anyway, check out http://nogovernmentcheese.blogspot.com/2005/05/left-view-of-judicial-debate-off-base.html for my discussion on some of these points.
That is a pretty good proposed amemdment. But the idea of amendments is discouraging to me, I mean how do you make the language any clearer than some of the language they already ignore?
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You might update your link to Amendments atthe top of the post.
http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/bill_of_rights_transcript.html
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