But I thought this was the one thing the Republicans were good for!

[fabrisse]

This link is to a NyTimes article.

I'm very glad that my finances got so bad that I had to sell my condominium to eat. Never thought I'd type that sentence.

For better or worse this country was founded on property and property rights. It was the fact that the British Crown was interfering with our rights as property owners (the whole "no taxation without representation" thing) that made us go to war.

So here we have the majority on the Supreme Court saying that the government may now condemn houses that aren't decrepit in order to award that property to a private developer because the local government think that hotels and water sports will be better for the town than homeownership.

I hope that every single house in that town is on the market for sale tomorrow.

Damn!

I thought Souter would be on the property rights side. I expect Breyer to be an idiot, but Souter!?

Comments

[mecurtin.livejournal.com]

I don't get it at all. When I agree with Scalia and against Souter and Stewart, it's good skatin' weather in Hell.

[fabrisse.livejournal.com]

Exactly.

Worst of all is that this decision could endanger a woman's right to choose. So many choice arguments are posited on the idea that a woman's body is her own property.

I love your icon. I could wish it weren't so true.

[mecurtin.livejournal.com]

Feel free to share the icon! Just credit _skye_

[siderea]

Hear, hear.

*shakes head*

[fabrisse.livejournal.com]

There's not much to say.

This decision has huge repercussions. As worried as I am about the rightward tilt of the nation and the court, this glaring error from the left has blindsided me.

[thorbol.livejournal.com]

I'd hoped this might be one time when "liberal" members of the court might side with us lowly individuals, but I'm not really surprised at all. It was "liberals" of an earlier time that gave us the outrageously expansive misinterpretation of the Congress's power to regulate commerce among the states that was reaffirmed in the "medical marijuana" decision last week. The author of the majority opinion was none other than John Paul Stevens, who I gather is now regarded as among the court's "liverals." (I'm repelled by this all the more because, in a dissenting opinion in a case on prisoners' rights I read in 1979, Stevens wrote eloquently about how rights are inherent in the individual, not creations of the state.)

I also find that much of the left, like much of the right, has at best selective concern about individual rights. "Community" is the great buzzword, individualism now equated with selfishness, in too many supposedly leftist circles I've come upon.

[moria923.livejournal.com]

I was practically screaming when I found out about the decision. What it really means is: we don't have any rights at all to our homes. I can't believe this was the intent of the Fifth Amendment. Well, we still own our home, which means . . . nothing. Aaaarrrrgh!

[fabrisse.livejournal.com]

Fifth Amendment? I thought that one was just the incrimination one.

Still, this is overwhelmingly appalling. I'm glad you own your place, but be careful that the T doesn't decide they need your place for a bus route.

*sigh*

[thorbol.livejournal.com]

Yes, the privision is one of the fifth amendment's several parts.

Actually, the T probably always could take our property for a bus route--or, at least, the city or the state could. (I'm unclear just what kind of entity the T is.) Creating or revising a bus route for general use is at least a "public use." The particular outrage of this case is that the property's really being taken for private use, on the theory that this private use will bring in more tax (public) money.



Apparently, there's nothing qualitatively new about this outrage. If memory serves, the New York Times company got property for a new building in New York City by way of a similar taking, except that the victims were businesspeople.

[fabrisse.livejournal.com]

Just went and read the full text. You're absolutely right.

And while I'd deplore the idea of the city taking your house for the T, I could see the public good. If they tried to take your house to build a profitable Starbucks close to the T entrance, well, I might help you exercise the right to bear arms. *g*

[kstanley.livejournal.com]

Yeah there was a bit about this in MSNBC yesterday. It's so hard to believe. Honestly, I don't know what this country is coming to. It seems as if the rights of corporations are protected more than ever.

[fabrisse.livejournal.com]

Someone compared this to the period of the Robber Barons, but they at least had the good grace to give us a railway system that was needed. This decision is being couched in "public good" terms, but all it builds is an office park, and, potentially, a waterfront mall with hotels.

I just can't see the public good in turning small landholders off their property and making them no long landholders.