I think it is very unreal that Ted Kennedy was the swing vote for this… I blew up in my livejournal over the whole thing and I did come to see a positive side to this… Some ass holes in Tacoma, Washington own two broken down buildings in the heart of the city. They want several times more than the buildings are worth and will not budge on the matter. For those that don’t know Tacoma has become the new powerhouse of Wa. State leaving Seattle in its dust. Every building in the down town area has been totally remodeled ripped down or re-built. Now the last remaining buildings will be seized pretty soon here.

But, what that said, it is still a violation of our most basic fundamental rights. Those ass holes in Tacoma deserve the right to be able to ask for more than their broken down dis-repair / crack house buildings are worth.

Recently my friend and I made a command decision.  We’re no longer going to use the word “liberal” when refering to people who think the government should have the right to redistribute property.  It’s time to call a spade a spade: henceforth these people shall be known as “socialists”.

Everyone who’s ever ranted about the evils of capitalism and the need for government interference in the free market: kindly shut the fuck up now.  How stupid and naive do you have to be to think that the government is going to protect the poor once property rights have been taken away?  The more power you give government to decide who should own what, the more they will take from the poor and marginalized, and give to the rich and influential.  That is why every socialist country inevitably becomes a totalitarian dictatorship within just a few years.

I guess it goes to show that some people never learn.  If you had to summarize the entire twentieth century in one sentence, it would be this: “Socialism didn’t work.“  Yet here we still are..  Left-wing nutcases on the supreme court deciding that if we just give government the power to redistribute property, it will use that power judiciously to make everything better.

The purpose of government is not to “make things better”.  The purpose of government is to safeguard individual rights.  That’s all.  First and foremost, to safeguard property rights.  Everyone who thinks government should be involved in welfare, Social Security, or Medicare: this is the next logical step.  If government can take my property and give it to someone who is poor, think how much more eager they’ll be to take the property of someone powerless and give it to someone powerful.

My favorite supreme, Clarence Thomas, got it right in his dissent:

Justice Thomas: William Blackstone wrote that “The law of the land .. postpones even public necessity to the sacred and inviolable rights of private property.“

If this ruling outrages you, good..  Here’s what you can do about it.  One of (very) few areas where President Bush is a good, solid conservative, is in his support for judges which believe in governmental restraint and the rule of law as defined by the Constitution.  The original Constitution, the one they went to the trouble of writing down.  Not some “living document”.  Call or write your senator and tell him or her to support Bush’s judicial nominees.

Call or write your senator and tell him or her to support Bush’s judicial nominees.

Sorry Daryl, but that just ain’t gonna happen with me. While I do consider this decision by the Supreme Court to be pretty bad, I have even more problems with most of the judicial nominations Bush has put forward so far so this event isn’t enough to prompt me to blindly start accepting whatever judges Bush thinks would be best for the job. Suddenly packing the bench with Bush’s favored wouldn’t change this decision anyway.

Daryl, I have little confidence that Bush’s judicial nominees (of whom 95% have been confirmed, by the way - all the bitching is about 5% of them) could be trusted to protect the little guy against corporate interests. It is doubtful they will consider the public interest above corporate interests, ever.

But even if they do offer that protection, who will protect our personal freedoms against them?  They will turn “activist” when the pursuit of happiness involves something the bluenoses think is immoral.

Lots of government is, like it or not, about interpretation and drawing lines.  One day separates voting age from too young, one dollar separates one tax bracket from another. 

The placement of the eminent domain line has been clear to everyone for hundreds of years: public use.  That is, stuff owned by the public, like parks, roads, and government buildings.  If the final product will be privately owned, it is private use and then only the market should decide “who owns what.“ 

That is the line they crossed.  This decision isn’t so much socialist or capitalist as it is corporatist.

Nice try, though.

I must say that it was not my favorite justices, nor President Bush’s that brought you this decision.  This is the danger that I talk about, often sounding like a broken CD.  Namely, when you start deviating from the original meaning of the language of the Constitution, judges get to make the law instead of interpreting it. That is exactly what they did here.

Justice Thomas, correctly notes in his dissent, that the language used in the Takings Clause in the 5th Amendment is public use, not public welfare.  Yet, the rationale for the majority opinion rests upon reading public use as public welfare.
There is a distinct advantage to originalist judges, i.e. Scalia, Thomas, Rehnquist.  That advantage is that they will read the Constitution as it is written, leaving it to you and me to decide if we should change what is written there. Not so with the others.  They will use what I call a fairsies approach that favors deference to GOVERNMENT. 

Now, you have the reality of what I have said before coming home to roost in the way of Kelo.  Do you really want more of that?  When Ted Kennedy gets up to filibuster the nomination for the next Chief Justice, rest assured that he is fighting for the right of government to take your house.

As to the assurances brought by recourse to local governments, that is fairly hollow.  This decision benefits Wal-Mart and Target. Wal-Mart and Target are much more effective at getting what they want at the local level, than on a national level, with a few exceptions. Influencing petty city officials is easy to do.

The recourse is at a state level.  Cities derive their existence from the state.  Amending state constitutions and getting state supreme courts to restrict cities is the solution.

Consi, you propose a false dichotomy: either Bush’s judges or more Kelo.  Bush is not about reducing government power, only redirecting it at individuals instead of corporations.

You are correct about influencing petty city officials.  As Darth Vader said (flipping the lever to encase Han Solo in carbonite), “All too easy.“

Our political climate is now full of false dichotomies: Support the war or you are unpatriotic,  trash the environment or your are anti-business, and so on.  It seems government now either tastes great, or is less filling.

Damn.. I think this crap is outrageous too, but I’m more immediately pissed about the 2257 changes about adult content. That stupid law (which is obviously a moral attack on anyone in the porn business and not an attempt to stop child porn) means I am never going to make enough money to OWN property much less have it seized! If you haven’t heard about it… 2257 makes changes to record keeping for all people who promote, sell, or produce any material with sexual content. You have to publicly display full records for every person involved in the media including their name, date of birth, all known previous aliases they have ever used, and their address. How worried are they about the safety and privacy of adult workers who now have their address and real name on display for every crazy stalker in the world to see?

As Darth Vader said (flipping the lever to encase Han Solo in carbonite), “All too easy.�?

...flipping the lever to encase Luke Skywalker… 

Doh!  You’re right.  We the audience see what Vader somehow missed, that Luke was using the mysterious “trampoline of the Force” to fly up out of the chamber just as he said it.  Solo got boxed later.  My bad.

And my apologies for causing the thread to veer off-topic, too.  Back to the Supreme Court - Darn the Supreme Court!  Darn them all to heck!

Consigliere: There is a distinct advantage to originalist judges, i.e. Scalia, Thomas, Rehnquist.  That advantage is that they will read the Constitution as it is written, leaving it to you and me to decide if we should change what is written there. Not so with the others.

This is why socialists (ie, liberals) hate these three justices.  Socialists often refer to them as “activist judges”, but in fact it’s the left that likes to invent new federal powers out of whole cloth.  If they actually had to run their wacky policies past the electorate, they would get spanked down.  People would say “Hmmmm… I believe that was tried in the Soviet Union last century and didn’t work out so well.“

Most government programs instituted since the New Deal are completely unconstitutional, but that doesn’t matter if you have a bunch of expansionist, “living document” judges signing off on things.

Take Social Security (please, take it).  I’ve read the constitution many times, and I never found a part where it said “Congress shall have the power to take your money and give it back to you at a later date, providing it hasn’t changed its mind in the interim.“  I see a whole list of things there in section 8 of article 1, but nothing you could possibly argue would include Social Security, Medicare, Affirmative Action…

It does list some valid things which the government can spend tax dollars on: “To establish Post Offices and post Roads… To constitute Tribunals inferior to the Supreme Court… To raise and support Armies… To provide and maintain a Navy…“

The founders even went to the trouble of putting in the Tenth Amendmant, to make it absolutely clear that the powers of the federal government are only those which they enumerated.  No matter: “Living document” judges just whip out their pencil and start adding what they want (socialism, government control of property) and subtracting what they don’t like (limits on government powers, private ownership of property). 

The only good thing about this process is reading Scalia’s rather scathing dissents.  He’s one of those wacky “judicial activists” who thinks the court should rule on the constitution as it was written.  He thinks that if people want to change what the constitution says, there’s a perfectly valid way for them to accomplish that.  To people on the left, that makes him Public Enemy Number One.

The same thing is happening in blue states.  As I mentioned in a previous comment, four judges in my home state of Massachusetts “found” a right for gay people to get married, where no such right had existed before.  Amazing!

In related news, one state has already drafted a new law making this eminent domain “We want to give your house to MegaCorp.“ crap illegal.  The speaker of the house says that’s a nice start, but also wants to ammend the state constitution to make sure.  The state: Republican-controlled Virginia.

Errr… Scalia is not an originalist.  He is antidisestablishmentarian.  Not only that, but he is either a liar or ignorant of facts regarding the influence of Christianity in government.  When he was stating his views, he held as “proof” of Christianity’s influence on American government the motto “In God We Trust” and the phrase “under God” in the Pledge of Alliegance.  A little research shows that the coin motto did not appear until 1864 on the two cent piece and it did not appear on paper money until the 1950’s!  As well, it wasn’t until June 8th, 1954 that the phrase “under God” was added to the pledge by an act of Congress.

In 1954, after a campaign initiated by the Roman Catholic Knights of Columbus, Senator Homer Ferguson of Michigan sponsored a bill to amend the pledge to include the words under God, to distinguish the U.S. from the officially atheist Soviet Union, and to remove the appearance of flag and nation worship. The phrase “nation, under God” previously appeared in Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg Address, and echoes the Declaration of Independence. On June 8, 1954, Congress adopted this change.

  Originalist, not.

But even if they do offer that protection, who will protect our personal freedoms against them?< They will turn "activist" when the pursuit of happiness involves something the bluenoses think is immoral.

The conservative trojan horse is unmasked! Our judges will rule in favor of individual rights until we lull you into complacency!

Lots of government is, like it or not, about interpretation and drawing lines.  One day separates voting age from too young, one dollar separates one tax bracket from another.

Yup, and lets get some conservatives that draw the line at limiting more and more government power. As Daryl points out, liberals are opposed to this concept because they are socialists at heart and need a strong government capable of theft to implement their socialist policies.

That is the line they crossed.  This decision isn’t so much socialist or capitalist as it is corporatist.

You can label it however you want, but the more powerful the government the easier it is for the strong to bully the weak. Conservatives recognize this, socialists do not.

Justin, I think you’re deliberately missing my point.  The so-called “conservatives” seem intent on furthering government oversight of individuals’ private lives in the name of morality.

Corporations (especially multinationals) now have power once found only in governments.  I don’t think that condition existed when the constitution was framed.  Can you suggest an alternative to government power to hold those corporations in check?

But governments also need to be kept pointed in the right direction.  What you seem to want is to tie the steering wheel, put a stick on the throttle, and let ‘er rip.  “That oughta do it!

Oh Darryl, you can call me a socialist if you want to, but I get to call you an amoral bloodsucking dumb-as-a-post anti-constitutionalist neocon shill. Of course I will have to take a deep breath cause them there is a whole lot a words!

So occasionally a republican or two get it right for a change, wow, I guess that means their kung fu is the best. I guess everything crumbles to dust before the mighty power of correct and proper republican thinking. I am convinced!

Tomorrow I’m off for a prefrontal, tune my radio to Limbaugh then break off the knobs, and hit the local evangelical church to be born again as a capitalist! Hallelujah, I’m saved!

Butthole.

Corporations are also the ones who want to LICENSE a product to you.  That means you don’t really own shit, but instead are loaned something that you many only use in the corporately proscribed way, with all attendant dues and fees. 

Daryl said: That is why every socialist country inevitably becomes a totalitarian dictatorship within just a few years.

So how many years did it take France to become a totalitarian dictatorship?

Les said:Yeah I know being a liberal I’m supposed to be against the whole idea of property rights

Only if you’re communist.  Private property is compatible with socialism.

Call or write your senator and tell him or her to support Bush’s judicial nominees.
...
If [liberals] actually had to run their wacky policies past the electorate, they would get spanked down.  People would say “Hmmmm… I believe that was tried in the Soviet Union last century and didn’t work out so well.�?

Daryl, kindly take your blinkers off. DOF is completely correct in noting that the vast majority of Bush’s judge nominees have been approved. Only the tiniest handful have been rejected. No president can expect every single nominee to be confirmed. How many of Clinton’s nominees were blocked by Republicans? Do the math—it’s more than the mere handful you righties are screaming bloody murder over.

As to the other bit, are you referring to “wacky policies” like continuing to spend an outrageous percentage of GDP on the military while the nation’s economy headed inexorably south? Like coddling the influential elite while the bulk of the population struggled just keep their heads above water? Like managing the news in such a propagandistic way that very little coverage of substance ever actually reached the masses? Like monitoring, intimidating and even jailing dissenters for no more reason that the fact that they were dissenters? Like flouting international opinion because it was a superpower and could do more or less as it pleased? Like invading a sovereign nation that had done it no direct harm? Like imprisoning people without charge and torturing them? 

Put the Kool-Aid down.

Ragman:

You are correct to point out that Darryl has it wrong.  Socialism does not lead inevitably towards a totalitarian state. 

It would be correct to say that socialism leads to a pretty crappy economy.  http://eurota.blogspot.com/2005/06/eu-economies-benchmark-year.html

But that is offpoint really, as is the little tirade about licensing, which if you don’t like it, don’t contract as a licensee. 

DOF:

No false anything in my prior post.  If one examines the Bush nominees one will find that they would not have voted with majority in Kelo.  If you look at those appointed to the court by the Dems they would and DID vote to diminish property rights. They did so because they believe in BIG government.

They, Bush’s nominees leave a bad taste in your mouth because most of them will not find that homosexuals are a protected class.  Yet, the place to fight the battle over homosexuality is not in the courthouse.  It is in the statehouse.  Win at the statehouse and these same judges will apply the law as written.

Finally, to reiterate, if you are going to compare approval rates for judges, compare apples to apples.  Do you know what the approval rate for Clinton’s CIRCUIT COURT nominees were when the Dems controlled the White House and the Senate v. the approval rate for Bush’s CIRCUIT COURT nominees?  That would be the appropriate comparison since the fight was over CIRCUIT COURT nominees not District Court nominees.

Warbi:

Please set forth Scalia’s remarks in full before deconstructing them.  That way we all can judge them.  I fear that like your rant about how bad the nominees were, that it is based on something you have read that was written by someone else who may or may not have the actual facts. Look forward to seeing this.

Wow, so much to read for monday coffee.

  OK, Socialism and Liberal are not the same word for starters and they do not have the same meaning.

Socialism N. Political system which advocates public ownership as a means of production.

Liberal a. Political party favoring democratic reforms and individual freedom.

  Now Socialism as a method of running your whole economy is stupid.  That being said leaving everything to Capitalism isn’t all that bright either.  If the Capitalist had their way, there would be no middle class and it would be just as destructive to any economy.  Find balance. The founding fathers of any mondern nation had NO IDEA how complicated the world would become. thus ANY constitution is/are a guide and rules to help us.  Confusing this judgement as anything other than pro-corporate is a mistake. 
 
  Trying to reduce this one to Repub/Dem Conserv/Lib is a bad plan this is about Money.  This is a rich-poor issue and if you confuse it any other way its dangerous.  If I was a poor republican I would fear this ruling as much as if I was a poor Dem.

  I like to try to think the best of my fellow citizens but city hall is more likely to interfere in your life than the Federal government day-to-day.  The minority opinion here is based more in realism, whereas the Majority opinion appears to be based on “In a perfect world city hall looks out for the little guy.“
I think we all know better than that.

Consi:

Scalia also noted that Congress has always employed chaplains, that every military service uses them and that an inscription on the nation’s coins and currency reads “In God We Trust.“

  This was from his “Religious Freedom Day” Speech given in Fredricksburg, PA in January 2003.
[1]
  I remembered this because at the time it came out, I was annoyed enough tot try to find an e-mail address for the Supreme Court.  I thought it laughable that he would try to use the coins motto to imply that “tradition” would have the government and religion twined together- especially since 1864 was almost 100 years after the nation was formed.

  From the same source:

Scalia, whose son Paul is a priest at St. Patrick Catholic Church in Spotsylvania County, said the nation’s founding fathers acknowledged a sovereign God in establishing the government—as did the men who framed Virginia’s statute in Fredericksburg in 1777. That statute served as the model for the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.

  From religioustolerance.org:

How the first amendment was written:
In the spring of 1778, the Constitutional Convention was held in Philadelphia, PA. They resolved three main religious controversies. They:

Decided that there would be no religious test, oath or other requirement for any federal elected office
Allowed Quakers and others to affirm (rather than swear) their oaths of office
Refrained from recognizing the religion of Christianity, or one of its denominations, as an established, state church.

But there was no specific guarantee of religious freedom.

Jefferson was pleased with the constitution, but felt it was incomplete. He pushed for legislation that would guarantee individual rights, including what he felt was the prime guarantee: freedom of and from religion. Madison promised to promote such a bill, in order to gain support for the ratification of the constitution by the State of Virginia. In 1789, the first of ten amendments were written to the constitution; they have since been known as the Bill of Rights.

  And we all “know” how Christian Jefferson, Franklin, and Washington were!  lol

Deists have a great example of toleration, perseverance, and integrity in the person of fellow Deist George Washington.

Christian preachers who ardently wanted Washington to be portrayed as one of them have made up many stories of George Washington’s strong Christian beliefs. One of the primary purveyors of these propaganda pieces was Mason Locke Weems, a Christian preacher who came up with the fable of George Washington and the cherry tree. He also feverishly promoted the myth of George Washington and Christianity.

Washington, like many people in colonial America, belonged to the Anglican church and was a vestryman in it. But in early America, particularly in pre-revolutionary America, you had to belong to the dominant church if you wanted to have influence in society, as is illustrated by the following taken from Old Chruches, Ministers and Families of Virginia, by Bishop William Meade, I, p 191. “Even Mr. Jefferson, and George Wythe, who did not conceal their disbelief in Christianity, took their parts in the duties of vestrymen, the one at Williamsburg, the other at Albermarle; for they wished to be men of influence.“

[2]

Lordllegg, once again to the heart of things. I was about to pull out my own dictionary this morning and try some irony, but it wouldn’t have come off.

A nit on DOF’s observation about corporate power in colonial times. The Boston Tea Party was all about The East India Company. Those guys ran India and, in a sense, had their own Navy.

A thought for the Constitutional literalists. You can’t possibly put everything in a governing document.  This cuts both ways. We can all get up in arms about an amendment proposed by the other guys. In later years Jefferson came to believe that each generation* could best determine how to govern itself.  Constitutional convention anyone?

* He read mortality tables to come up with his “every twenty years”—what an incredible polymath.

So the East India Company was like, the Halliburten of their day!  Coool! 

Corporations (especially multinationals) now have power once found only in governments.  I don’t think that condition existed when the constitution was framed.  Can you suggest an alternative to government power to hold those corporations in check?

Easy - lack of government power. If the government does not have the power to steal your home, then corporations can’t use the government to steal your home.

Socialism N. Political system which advocates public ownership as a means of production.

Liberal a. Political party favoring democratic reforms and individual freedom.

That is the classic definition of the word liberal. By that definition I am also a liberal.

That being said leaving everything to Capitalism isn’t all that bright either.  If the Capitalist had their way, there would be no middle class and it would be just as destructive to any economy.

Wrong. If the liberals (modern definition) have their way then there will be no middle class. That is because eminent domain is just the tip of the iceberg. From everything from zoning laws, licensing, tax structure and deductions, and government regulation over industry, greedy corporations can use the power of the government to run roughshod over their competition.

here is an article about licensing agencies shut down an inner city hair braiding business. And here is another example of how New York denies 98% of new van licenses, putting entrepeneurs out of business.

The natural solution is to dismantle that part of the government. Then the little guy will have a chance again because the only way the big guy can beat him is by producing a superior product for a lower cost. Liberals (modern definition) try to be the friend of the little guy, but with friends like liberals who needs enemies!

...Apparently Justin has forgotten that big business has its own anti-competitive streak.  History is full of examples where existing companies opposed the introduction of competition, sometimes violently.  The solution is not to dismantle government, but to make it more responsive to competitive interests.  This is an evolving understanding.

.Apparently Justin has forgotten that big business has its own anti-competitive streak.  History is full of examples where existing companies opposed the introduction of competition, sometimes violently.

To quote Thomas Jefferson: “A wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government.“

Punishing violence is one of the few areas where the government should get involved. As many posters on this blog often appreciate when it does not involve economics, the foundation of a free society is protection of consensual and non-violent behavior.

The only way for a company to prevent competition without government involvement is low prices. Standard Oil became a rare private monopoly (most monopolies are granted by the government) by lowering the cost of kerosene from 30 cents to 6 cents. Their competitors simply could not keep up with their technology or superior distribution. But by the time the government interfered their competitors had actually caught up and Standard Oil had slipped to 60% market share. Standard Oil simply did not have the power to stop new competitors except for the ability to produce a better product at a lower price. Why didn’t Standard Oil “force” their competitors out of business?

here is some further reading on the subject.