Unintended Consequences
The Kelo decision, probably one of the worst supreme court decisions since the Dred Scott ruling, is revisited in
this article. For those who are too lazy to google it (which includes 90% of you, c'mon admit it) Kelo is the one where municipalities can take land from private owners and give it to private owners who will "Develop it into a higher taxable property" thus making it good for Public use. It was a long stretch to get to seizing land by the busy bodies who think they know what's best for us all. Well, here is the result of that landmark decision:
Nor did it help that the Fort Trumbull tract where the razed homes once stood never did get built on, despite a $78 million incentive package from the state of Connecticut. In 2008, after the nationwide real-estate bubble burst, the construction company, Boston-based Corcoran Jennison, that the NLDC had engaged to develop the site announced that it couldn’t obtain enough financing for the ambitious enterprise and pulled out.
In other words, nothing was built. The land was taken, the homes torn down, $78 million was spent, and what does the city of New London have to show for it? A 90 acre field. The article says that 40 states have passed laws that do not allow municipalities to take property and give it to another private entity. That number is now down to 8 states that do not protect against Kelo seizures: Arkansas, Hawai, Massachusetts, Mississippi, New Jersey, New York, Oklahoma, and Rhode Island. The biggest thing that separates freedom from tyranny is property rights. If the government, wether it be one man or a group, can come and take what you have whenever they want, there is no freedom.
posted by davis14633 at 10:04
1 Comments:
That is the end result of too much government and not enough tarring-and-feathering.
Hired government jobs, such as the drones who work in the average city hall, always attract the laziest and least competent of people. The same is true of elected offices, with the additional personality flaws of greed, narcissism, and lust for power. It's a very bad combination. These are the people who want to tell the rest of us what to do with our property, what to eat, how to raise our children and what we should read or watch.
It is the primary weakness in a representative Republic. I am increasingly coming to believe that the solution is to increase the churn factor to maximum: vote against incumbents, always. Whether they do a good job, a bad job, or no job at all doesn't matter. Do not leave them in place long enough for their teeth to become clamped onto the public teat, because they will always sour the milk.
A government worker never, ever has your best interests at heart. That goes double for a politician. I was taught that lesson at a young age. It saddens me that so many people in this country have not only failed to learn that lesson, but actually believe the opposite.
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