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« Playing the Racist Card | Main | Open Up! » June 23, 2008Taking from the Middle Class to Give to the RichKay Brooks writes, powerfully, about how the city of Nashville is trying to take an elderly woman's property in order to benefit a wealthy out-of-town developer. Says Brooks: "The city needs to quit being the gun at the head of Miss Joy. Citizens need to realize that if we don't stand with Miss Joy 'our property rights' won't be worth the paper the deed is printed on."Amen to that. Frankly, the area the city claims is "blighted" - the legal justification it needs to force Miss Joy to sell property that she doesn't want to sell - isn't blighted at all. Her property is neat, tidy and home to a functioning business. If the city of Nashville can use "eminent domain" laws and a specious claim of "blight" to steal this one old woman's property in order to enrich an out-of-state developer, property rights have ceased to exist in the city of Nashville in any meaningful sense of the phrase. That ruling was handed down three years ago today. Update: While writing the above post I got to wondering where Democrat presidential nominee Barack Obama stands on eminent domain abuse and the Kelo ruling. While I couldn't find any official statements, I did run across an interesting story about how Obama campaigned at a rally last year in Fairfield, Iowa, a rally that drew appreciative crowds from nearby Maharishi Vedic City, Iowa. That's a real, incorporated, town, folks. It's run by followers of the Hindu-related cult led by the Maharishi Mahesh Yogi*. Now, how did a Google search for "obama kelo" lead me to that story? It seems the peace-loving vegetarians of Maharishi Vedic City, Iowa, have threatened to use eminent domain to force some pig farmers off their land. It seems the town of Maharishi Vedic City, Iowa, doesn't like pig farms. (They also don't like English - the city's official language is Hindu Sanskrit.) *The Maharishi Mahesh Yogi is unrelated to the great Yogi Berra or even Yogi Bear. Posted in Nashville
Comments
There is another case in Cookeville like this but there is no claim of blight. The land is farm land but it sits where the city and county want to put a Business park. Unlike the engineering and solid science that allows the government to build a sewage treatment plant to prevent disease, a water treatment plant to furnish drinking water, highways to provide transportation and so forth, these cases in Nashville, Clarksville and Cookeville are trading the police powers of the government to the highest bidder and the cash they are taking is a lot like monopoly money. There is no real cash transfer. The government is selling itself and its powers to the one that makes the largest claim of economic development. If the cornucopia fails to produce, the taxpayers pay the freight. This puts the business sense of the government well below the prostitute. There should be a sign out front of city hall that reads,"Condemnations For Sale." Economic development motivations are morally neutral. Both legal and illegal transactions can multiply and find their way back to the government. Property rights are what makes the difference between us and third world countries. The supreme court has embarrassed us all by not recognizing that the claims of public economic benefit are nebulous, inexact and can not be verified even with the best computers in the world. Posted by: Danny L. Newton at June 25, 2008 12:02 AMThe Kelo decision is getting very near a tipping point. Meaning all property could be could be considered "public use". Can you say communism? Posted by: Bowen Pratt at June 25, 2008 6:03 PMPost a comment
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