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Originally Posted by dksuddeth
I figure it will only be a short matter of time, after state courts have ruled as the USSC did, that the local governments are well within their authority to condemn and take any property they need for 'public benefit' that you will see an entire city council rounded up, tried, and executed for pushing people too far. Then it will really become a showdown between them and law enforcement.
It's going to get ugly in this country damn soon.
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Well - I have trouble with my own historical signifigance in these things. I think had I been around when FDR exponentially expanded the reach of the US government, I would be saying the same thing. It has lasted this long. . .
You see, the easy thing to do here is to have property and individual rights be eroded in a slow "natural" process. This way less people's "line in the sand" are crossed at once. Over a couple decades, the distance that was crossed to breach that person's line seems less and therefore it can be chalked up as an innocuous thing. Sometimes you have a politician who is paticularly bold about it who will take relativly bigger bites but they are always prepared to backtrack if they need to. It is like sending people through the wire in Vietnam to test the defenses. IF they get through, they will send more people. If they don't, it was just an "isolated incident"
The other thing here is that I am not convinced there is a conspiracy to breach property and individual rights. If there were, they would be pushed through faster and more obviously. Instead, you have a series of politicians who are acting in their own self interest and at the same time claiming altruism. If someone were to point out that they were acting in their own self interest, they would respond with shock, disbelief and accuse the accuser of the same. Tell you what - I will come out right now and tell you that property and individual rights are in my best interest and I will act to keep them and not be ashamed.
The_Jazz I think this is the backdoor that keeps people at bay with this thing. In other words, They can defer to local governments the responsibility of this decision and possibly wait for the initial media hub-bub to die down. If no one freaks out then no problem. If people freak the heck out - then the local boys can be heros passing patchwork legislation that popularly defends something that the constitution was supposed to have protected anyway. Meanwhile, if the legislation is written properly, it can intentionally create loopholes to grab whatever land they want when it is convienient. (i.e. define "blighted" without being subjective...)
Two miles south of where I live, there is a strech of beachfront property called "Ponto" that is owned by a couple of individual homeowners who have been living there for 30-40 years. Sure the houses are older than most beachfront stuff that is $10M for a house, but there is really nothing wrong with them. They are painted and the lawns etc is manicured (not that either is a reason to apply eminant domain). The city of Carlsbad has declared the area blighted and sent out contracts to developers to bid on. So far the homeowners have not sold, but really they can't sell to anyone but the local government anyway since the open market would never buy one of these with the coming land grab.
Lets put it this way, if the m@yor of Carl$bad does not have at least $1 Billion stashed in the Caymans somewhere, he is the dumbest person to ever walk the earth. The expansion has been rampant with no regard for anything but more expansion.