The American Spectator

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Property Destruction

6.27.05 @ 12:01AM

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Re: Christopher Orlet's Kiss Your House Goodbye:

Apparently, only good intentions and a city charter are all one needs to qualify as Robin Hood for the Economic Development fanatics. No past evidence of failure need be taken into consideration and the quality of the calculations of benefit versus cost are beyond criticism when jobs and prosperity are promised by city officials or their hired guns with questionable computer simulations of cornucopia construction.

If the Constitution does not mean what it says in a durable way, who will fight for it? Who will consider it much more than a party platform? Can anyone rewrite the Fifth Amendment in a more clear way to prevent the Supreme Court from finding what ever it pleases in the words?
-- Danny L. Newton
Cookeville, Tennessee

Well, the evisceration of the concept of private property is now complete. No longer do we own our own homes, farms, or any other real property. We are merely allowed by our all knowing liberal masters to hold it until they find someone else willing to pay more for it. This is the sad legacy of feckless conservatives and a complacent public ignoring the threat posed by liberal democrats. It is also a perfect example of why the judicial nomination process is so important. Only an unelected group of liberal judges could read a document designed solely to limit government power and find absolutely no limit on government power. Without private property there is no freedom in this country. How much longer will we let this continue?
-- Bill White
Great Mills, Maryland

The steady drumbeat of the erosion of rights continues unabated from the very seat of what is supposedly the preserver of those rights, based on their perverted interpretation of the Constitution. I'll let the lawyers argue over their theories and details, however, this is all part of the uncontrolled growth of the Leviathan's interference in our less-free lives.

I read the words of Scottish Jurist and Historian Sir Alex Fraser Tyler, published in a collection of his lectures in 1801, and start to feel nauseous. He advanced a theory of democracy based on historical observation.

"A democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of government. It can exist only until voters discover that they can vote themselves largesse from the public treasury. From that time on, the majority always votes for the candidate promising the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that a democracy always collapses over loose fiscal policy, always followed by a dictatorship.

"The average age of the world's great civilizations has been 200 years. These nations have progressed through this sequence: From bondage to spiritual faith; from spiritual faith to great courage; from courage to liberty; from liberty to abundance; from abundance to selfishness; from selfishness to complacency; from complacency to apathy; from apathy to dependency; from dependency back again to bondage."

While we descend on this slippery slope as the American people sleep, I pray for an underground swelling of those intelligent enough to understand what is being lost and will fight not only to stop this recent theft by the courts, and the ongoing theft by the legislature, too, but to regain lost ground. Where do I sign up, somebody tell me please? Is another revolution in the offing? Say it ain't so.
-- David P. Bennett
Chicago, Illinois

Mr. Orlet makes many good points in his opinion piece; however, the accusatory tone toward liberals is really unnecessary. Yes, the liberal side of the court looks pathetic in light of the decision in the New London case. However, the conservative side of the court looked equally pathetic in the Raich case. The constant whining on both sides of the aisle detracts from the real issues at hand and makes people like Mr. Orlet sound more like Sean Hannity than William F. Buckley. That's not a compliment. It's time for Americans to get back to discussing public policy and leave politics behind. There is plenty of blame to go around on both sides.
-- Ben Berry
Washington, D.C.

This crushing decision will fall heaviest on the owners of small, older homes, whose property will be grabbed for "development." Liberal's true faces have been thus exposed by the majority opinion. So much for helping " the little guy" !

There is no recourse for the American citizen but to withhold any support or patronage of the new building on the sites of the evicted homeowner.
-- Julie Weber
Spring Branch, Texas

Couldn't agree more. The only way to assure preservation of property now is by constitutional amendment. I humbly offer the following:

Amendment XXVIII

Section 1. The right of the people to acquire and retain property shall not be infringed. No Law, Rule or Finding shall issue that diminishes the rights or value of property by its rightful owner. Neither Congress nor the Courts shall promulgate any Law, Rule or Finding contrary to the rights thereto.

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