Defending your property

This post has been updated.

"A republic, if you can keep it." —Benjamin Franklin

The worst setback to property rights since the taking of Naboth’s vineyard has briefly stirred my blog out of hibernation.

In 1776, America’s defense of property rights had gotten off to rocky start. Some people had the right to own property, while others had the right to be property. Still, one certainly hopes that America has come a long way since then.

According to the U.S. Constitution, government can only seize real estate for "public use," although the Supreme Court has just legitimized confiscation for any reason as long as there is a cartoon halo over the mayor’s head as he gives his justification.

The road to runaway land redistribution was paved first by income redistribution. At the local level, theft knows no political bounds. It's too easy to say the city needs a new sports arena or arts district or a revitalized downtown, then immediately start the process of raising property or sales taxes. If the city needs those things so badly, there is obviously a market for them and the companies that stand to profit should be the ones paying the bill.

Is there any light at the end of the tunnel?

Yes. Although the Supreme Court has made it easy for local governments to push grannies off the front porch so they can bulldoze their houses to build a new sports arena, they are not required to do so. At least we can start voting for mayors that hold the line against this sort of nonsense. Tell us what cities decide to put families’ needs ahead of corporate welfare, and we will leave our socialist strongholds and turn them into ghost towns.

At the national level, it's time to demand that Congress get to work on a new constitutional amendment, while we still have a few feet of real estate from which to exercise our Constitutional right to petition our government for redress of grievances. A constitutional amendment is the only recourse from a Supreme Court decision, and it would give the Supreme Court a somewhat cleaner slate from the bad precedent they relied on. Hopefully this amendment won’t be ignored like the other one was.

Happy Independence Day.

UPDATE:
Jesse Dolan, the Insanehippie, made a point I forgot to make in my post about the U.S. Supreme Court decision saying it is just fine to force the little guy out of his property as long as one job is created or one dollar of tax revenue is generated:

This should also be a HUGE wakeup call to the political apathetic people around the country. Even their house can be taken away. This is also a rare moment in recent American history where the Left and Right can agree on something.

The Left is frightened (for good reason) about Big Business coming to buldoze their pretty natural parks for a new Best Buy, Circuit City, Wal Mart, strip mall, or whatever.

The Right is frightened (for good reason) for their property rights to be declared open season for Big Businesses and natural parks and other eco-hippie lands.

This can be a political Perfect Storm that will *hopefully* get the two sides together to seriously push for some Constitutional Amendments to limit Eminent Domain Abuses at the State, Local and National level.

Now all we need is for the Greens, Libertarians, Republicans and Democrats to join up thru groups like the

Castle Coalition
http://www.castlecoalition.org

Institute for Justice
http://ij.org/

And check out the Neal Boortz show, he's been the only national radio host that I know of, who has been keeping track of Eminent Domain abuses.
http://www.boortz.com
-Jesse

Like Jesse, I believe all political persuasions have reason to join in the fight. It is for that reason that I am cautiously optimistic that a grassroots effort could force the reversal by constitutional amendment.