If you're on your own land, doing your own thing, government can demolish your home and steal your land, put you in jail for objecting to it, and then charge you tens of thousands of dollars for what they've done to you.
I've had dealings with folks like Theron Saluteen who live like that. Generally they have problems that keep them from participating in society as a whole, and just want to be left alone. They harm nobody, they aren't out there robbing or killing or raping anything, they're just doing their own thing. They're not pretty, but so what.
But none of that matters in Soviet America, where if you are not a proper little Sovak consumer who behaves the way Party ideology says you must behave, why, ve haff ways of dealing with zat, da? Like bulldozing your home, hauling you away to jail, and charging you $40,000 for the privilege of having your home destroyed.
So it goes, in Soviet America, where we pretend we are free -- as long as we behave in government-approved manner at all times.
-- Badtux the Sovok Penguin
I understand your point, but from what I've read, pr'haps the analogy doesn't work all that well. See, the Russians survived the collapse because they grew food in their gardens, they took care of what fed them.
ReplyDeleteI tend to think that both the US and the Soviet governments care only about preserving their own power. Sadly, I think the Russian people are going to be better at survival than we are, because they never had any illusions about what governments (or rulers) do. And neither govt gives a crap about how toxic a property is, unless it's going to cost them something.
ps, I remembered this post when I read this article.
ReplyDeleteAs Prices Rise, Crime Tipsters Work Overtime
"To gas prices, foreclosure rates and the cost of rice, add this rising economic indicator: the number of tips to the police from people hoping to collect reward money."
Unfortunately Roberts and Alito were not on the court yet when SCOTUS ruled on Kelo v. City of New London in 2005. Justices John Paul Stevens, Anthony Kennedy, David Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer all ruled in favor of New London and against property owners in eminent domain cases. This incident is an unfortunate consequence.
ReplyDeletePC, you may wish to believe what you posted. But this had nothing to do with eminent domain. This is zoning ordinance, which a Republican Supreme Court signed off on in 1925. Structures and items which are illegally built without a permit in violation of a zoning ordinance are subject to removal by the government, and this has been the law of the land since long before Alito was writing on his DoJ employment application that "If the President does it, it's not illegal."
ReplyDelete-Badtux the HIstory Penguin
From the article YOU posted:
ReplyDelete"The county wants the land," Waugh said. "It's prime real estate, and they need a new holding pond for flooding."
Uhm, the county can seize the land anytime they want under eminent domain if it's for use as a publicly owned flood reservoir. Didn't need any Supreme Court ruling to know that, it's called the 5th Amendment of the Constitution, which explicitly allows seizing private property for public use as long as the property owner is compensated fair market value.
ReplyDeleteAgain, this was a zoning issue, not an eminent domain issue. Recent Supreme Court rulings say little about zoning other than that if zoning interferes with the ability to develop the property, it can, under some circumstances, be a "takings" as described by the 5th Amendment and thus require compensation. In practice, municipalities use zoning laws every day to punish folks for living in a way not approved by the Powers that Be, and the courts rarely have anything to say about that practice because the people being punished are generally poor and unsavory-looking and being poor in America is a crime that is heavily punished by our society.
-- Badtux the Once-poor Penguin
Didn't need any Supreme Court ruling to know that, it's called the 5th Amendment of the Constitution, which explicitly allows seizing private property for public use as long as the property owner is compensated fair market value.
ReplyDeleteWhich is a bad policy unfortunately upheld by a liberal SCOTUS in 2005.
Err, no. The 5th Amendment's takings clause specifically states that taking property for public use such as a floodway is okay as long as the government pays. No interpretation is needed by the Supreme Court, liberal or no, to make it okay. It is okay, has always been okay, and will always be okay as long as the 5th Amendment is not repealed.
ReplyDeleteWhat the Supreme Court said in '05 was that taking property for *private* use was okay. That is, that taking property from person A, then giving said property to person B, was okay as long as fair market value was paid to person A.
As for the notion that a Supreme Court whose members were all appointed by conservative Presidents is somehow "liberal"... err... (penguin shuffles nervously away from babbling bum talking about government mind control rays...).
Now, what governments have discovered is that by imposing restrictive zoning ordinances, they can do a "takings" without having to pay as long as the zoning ordinance doesn't decrease the value of the property. A zoning ordinance prohibiting shacks and junk cars on a property doesn't decrease the value of the property, but it does allow a government to "cleanse" those pesky poor folks off the land. And sadly, this subject hasn't been revisited by the U.S. Supreme Court since 1925, when a conservative court (as FDR found out when they struck down his initial New Deal legislation) specifically allowed zoning ordinances to stand.
-Badtux the Law Penguin