I thought This Land was My Land

[NoLabelsPlease13]

Eminant domain is one thing...however I just heard that the Supreme Court voted today that any home or business may be seized by local governments for private economical gain. WOW this is great (sarcasm my friends).

[viva le revolution]

It was only a matter of time.............. :wacko:

[slim]

When will it end...? (this is more of a rhetorical question).

[Colombia]

It has to be more specific than that. Can you provide a source?

[NoLabelsPlease13]

go to cnn.com or foxnews.com

you got both your left and right news sources to choose from

[Bannockburn]

What they probably failed to tell you is that as required by the US Constitution amendment 5 that “nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation”. Thus, while, “The Supreme Court…ruled that local governments may seize people's homes and businesses…for private economic development” probably signifies that the local government gave her something monetary, like the value of her property, then sold it to private corporations.

Thus, I honestly don’t think she’s now homeless, but nevertheless is distinctly shows that local and federal governments are willing to sacrifice individual rights, for corporate rights. For a long while governments have had a business mentality, where investors, and investor rights have had priority over individual citizens within the municipality, county, etc. After all, a big multinational corporation who wants an area of land who will bring millions in tax revenue on condition on having a certain area of land will always have priority over a single family who will bring not even close to that amount. Its not surprising.

Of course I don’t agree with any of it, and I find to sacrifice one right over another’s simply on monetary value is completely against classical philosophical liberalism of the establishment of Rights, and clearly shows the state inclination to pursue profit over people. Moreover, the idea of “outweighing” one’s rights over another is completely ludicrous. A complete false argument and completely contrary with the idea of rights in general.


However this verdict is not surprising whatsoever, it has long been established and a conventional norm that people become displaced when they are in the way of national of economic progress. For example, the state has always moved people for the sake of road building. What is new about this – is the local government’s pursuit to satisfy private corporations, and willing to buy out and disregard one’s rights, for another. In this case a flesh and blood human’s right to an immortal entity “the corporation”.

The courts were simply upholding what was in the constitution. That is the thing. If we want change for the better, you have to rid yourself of the document that impedes that change.

[FreeChechnya]

Originally posted by [email protected] 23 2005, 07:38 PM
go to cnn.com or foxnews.com

you got both your left and right news sources to choose from
uhh what left?

[Vallegrande]

I was surprised to learn that corporations have human rights. Is it because a corporation acts as one body, it has a right to be human?

[viva le revolution]

Of course they do. In fact their rights supercede everyone else's. That's not cause they feel they are human, but because unfortunately they are situated in a system that is money-worshipping capitalist.

[Vallegrande]

How is this not unconstitutional? This can cause a revolution, which is about time, since we haven't had one in 200 years. Thomas Jefferson would be pleased to hear of a revolution.

[praxis1966]

Well, technically it is constitutional as Bannock already stated. What's new about this is that the government is allowed to sell the claimed property to private interests. In the past, the military was notorious for this. Any time they needed a new base they would just claim it for themselves. What's worse is there was a time where they weren't required to compensate the owners.

In any event, if you want the full story, I've posted a link to the article in the Newswire forum. It's under the title 'High court OK's personal property seizures.' This whole thing stemmed from an incident in New Jersey where a boatyard had gone out of business. Pfizer (the pharmacutical giant) wanted to build a research laboratory so they bought out the boatyard but claimed it wasn't big enough to suit their purposes. Apparently there were 54 homes that they wanted demolished and all but seven sold willingly. One of which (wait for it) was built by the man's immigrant grandfather with his own two hands and had been passed down from generation to generation as a family heirloom. Now you tell me, how the hell can you place a monetary value on that?