Supreme Court ruled private property can be seized

[David S]

Well Thomas, O'Connor, and Rehnquist came down on the side of the constitution in the medical marijuana case and now in this one. Happily Scalia joined them on this vote.
Unfortunately the constitution and the Amercan people lost in both cases, mainly because of liberal justices.

I have to say it again: Harry Browne's litmus test for judges was that they be able to read the simple language of the constitution. That would be nice wouldn't it!

Those of you who vote for the Democrats or Republicans have nothing to look forward to but the gradual elimination of your constitutional rights. If you don't like the Libertarians then vote for the Greens or the Constitution party or anybody but the Ds or the Rs. Why keep voting for the same crooks who are dedicated to destroying your rights?

[David S]

Not permitting eminent domain creates all sorts of hold-out problems that impede progress.  If a government want to initiate a revitalization project in a blighted area of a city, they need to have the power to seize existing property at its correct value.  The current owners should be compensated for this value as well as all other associated expenses.  That is, they should be left no worse off than before the property was seized. 

If it were up to existing owners to sell their property at whatever price they could get from the city or the developers, this would give a huge advantage to whatever owners were the last to hold-out; they could extort an completely exorbitant price, and the city would have no choice but to pay it, because they've already purchased the surrounding property.  This in turn gives all the property owners a disintentive to ever sell, because they want to be the ones to hold out for an extortionary price.   

Urban renewal would be basically impossible with eminent domain.  Again, if you don't agree with a particular project, then vote against the officials who are advocating it.  But this is a question of political policy and not constitutionality.

No one is criticizing eminent domain, we are criticizing the Constitutionality of eminent domain to serve the interest of a preferred group of private citizens over another.

As I said before, even Justice Stevens admits that this is NOT a blighted area!

I guarantee you, this issue will be a litmus test for voters in New London for many years.  And I guarantee you that these people's homes will still be bulldozed and their ocean views still given to a pharmaceutical company.

It is the job of the Supreme Court to interpret the constitution. I don't see a definition of "public use" in the document itself, so however the Supreme Court interprets it is the definition. So you can't say that what the Supreme Court has done it unconstitutional. There's room for reasonable disagreement here about what the definition should be, but neither side is obviously wrong. The Court could have decided either way, and ultimately, made the decision which is far more beneficial to the public.

The proper way to get around such ambiguities is to discern the intent of the authors of a law.  The authors of the Bill of Rights would never have ruled that confiscation of property to give to a massive corporation in order to get more tax revenue is a "public use".

Your implication is that the Constitution should be mutated to serve whatever you think is beneficial to the public reeks of fascism, as it removes all effective limits on government power and makes all right of citizens subjective.

Nick is voicing one of the principles of Socialism and Communism, that individual rights can be sacrificed in the name of the common good. This is one of the reasons why I find them both so repugnant.

Some folks may argue that taking the individual rights of one person to benefit many is a good thing, but what they are missing is that individual rights do not apply to just one person they apply to everyone. When you take one persons rights you sacrifice everyone's rights. That is a very bad thing.

The court's decision not only slaughtered the rights of the New London residents it slaughtered the rights of every property owner in America.

[David S]

Not permitting eminent domain creates all sorts of hold-out problems that impede progress.  If a government want to initiate a revitalization project in a blighted area of a city, they need to have the power to seize existing property at its correct value.  The current owners should be compensated for this value as well as all other associated expenses.  That is, they should be left no worse off than before the property was seized. 

If it were up to existing owners to sell their property at whatever price they could get from the city or the developers, this would give a huge advantage to whatever owners were the last to hold-out; they could extort an completely exorbitant price, and the city would have no choice but to pay it, because they've already purchased the surrounding property.  This in turn gives all the property owners a disintentive to ever sell, because they want to be the ones to hold out for an extortionary price.   

Urban renewal would be basically impossible with eminent domain.  Again, if you don't agree with a particular project, then vote against the officials who are advocating it.  But this is a question of political policy and not constitutionality.

No one is criticizing eminent domain, we are criticizing the Constitutionality of eminent domain to serve the interest of a preferred group of private citizens over another.

As I said before, even Justice Stevens admits that this is NOT a blighted area!

I guarantee you, this issue will be a litmus test for voters in New London for many years.  And I guarantee you that these people's homes will still be bulldozed and their ocean views still given to a pharmaceutical company.

It is the job of the Supreme Court to interpret the constitution. I don't see a definition of "public use" in the document itself, so however the Supreme Court interprets it is the definition. So you can't say that what the Supreme Court has done it unconstitutional. There's room for reasonable disagreement here about what the definition should be, but neither side is obviously wrong. The Court could have decided either way, and ultimately, made the decision which is far more beneficial to the public.

The proper way to get around such ambiguities is to discern the intent of the authors of a law.  The authors of the Bill of Rights would never have ruled that confiscation of property to give to a massive corporation in order to get more tax revenue is a "public use".

Your implication is that the Constitution should be mutated to serve whatever you think is beneficial to the public reeks of fascism, as it removes all effective limits on government power and makes all right of citizens subjective.

Nick is voicing one of the principles of Socialism and Communism, that individual rights can be sacrificed in the name of the common good. This is one of the reasons why I find them both so repugnant.

Some folks may argue that taking the individual rights of one person to benefit many is a good thing, but what they are missing is that individual rights do not apply to just one person they apply to everyone. When you take one persons rights you sacrifice everyone's rights. That is a very bad thing.

The court's decision not only slaughtered the rights of the New London residents it slaughtered the rights of every property owner in America.

From what I understand the final decision really goes down to each individual community. Though this is a horrible decision and these justices should be removed from office I don't think this decision will change much of anything as it currently is.

The thing is that up until now there was a constitutional protection of property rights that states and /or communities could not violate. That protection is now mostly gone.

BTW on a slightly different topic, has anyone heard how much the owners were compensated, or who decided what fair compensation is?

[David S]

It's not necessarily a principle of socialism, its also a principle of capitalism, and a conservative movement in legal theory. 

It's called Pareto efficiency.  The use of eminent domain makes everyone better off overall without making anyone worse off (the definition of Pareto efficiency).   The person whose property is seized is justly compensated, so he doesn't lose or gain anything, while everyone else now gets a project that will help the economy.

All this takes away is the right of property owners to extort unreasonable compensation for their property as a result of the power they get from holding out.  This is a transaction cost and is an inefficient deadweight loss whether you are a conservative or a liberal.

Now, there are two ways in which the transaction may not be Pareto efficient: (a) if the new project does not actually increase overall public wealth, and (b) if the original owner is not fully compensated so that he is no worse off than before.  The first is a political question that need to be evaluated by elected officials before making the seizure, but is really not the province of the courts.  The second is fair game for a law suit, but one that attacks the seizure on the "just compensation" clause and not the the definition of "public use".

Nick you used the same philosophy in a different thread to argue that it was acceptable to murder someone for a large sum of money as long as the money was used to benefit the poor. Once again individual rights are sacrificed for the common good. This is  one of the reasons why I believe Socialism/Communism/Collectivism are not compatible with human rights.