Will you continue to back Bush when the goverment comes to take your home to line the pockets of the energy industry? Or will you freely give up your land for the good of the economy like we are expected to give up our public lands? Perhaps we won’t be so inclined to agree with the new energy policy if the cost starts hitting a little closer to home.
Eminent Domain
Incarceration for minor traffic infractions
Tort Reform
Roll-back of Roe v. Wade
More stringent bankruptcy laws
shall I go on…
This is the agenda of the conservative party that claims government should be less intrusive. I think a few folks have been sold a pretty good bill of goods. Anybody ready to ask for their money back yet?
Eminent domain isn’t “the agenda of the conservative party,” it’s a basic tool of government that’s been around for three centuries, is recognized and approved under the Bill of Rights so long as full compensation is made, and has been used by governments of the left and right for all sorts of public purposes.
While there are a lot of things eminent domain has been used for where the public purpose is questionable (public stadiums for private sports teams?), it seems to me that keeping the electric lights on, for schools, hospitals, public buildings, industry, etc., IS a public purpose. Isn’t constructing power lines so that excess electric capacity in one part of the country can be used in another without automatically resorting to building new power plants the sort of measure the environmentalists have been pushing for? In a way, it’s a sort of conservation, using existing power plants more efficiently.
Allowing eminent domain to be used for power distribution lines is no more “lining the pockets of the energy industry” than building public highways is lining trucking industry pockets, dredging the Mississippi River is lining barge industry pockets, or building public airports lines the pockets of the airline industry. These things are all done because they are infrastructure necessary for the success of the economy. That for-profit companies use these facilities is secondary.
Eminent domain for private industry isn’t a giveaway, either. Eminent domain is not a synonym for seizure! The land doesn’t come for free, as there’s a constitutional right to just compensation when eminent domain is used, whether by the government itself or by a private business granted the power by the government. (And private grants of eminent domain power aren’t rare; they were commonly given to canal and railroad companies in the 1800s.) Landowners have a right to challenge in court any amount paid no matter how large, and exercising that right is NOT rare. If eminent domain were such an omnipotent steamroller as it’s made out to be, why do most agencies and communities building roads, schools, etc. TRY to buy the land first? Because they don’t want to be tied up in court for years with a landowner convinced rightly or wrongly that they got rooked who won’t settle until a jury tells them what the fair price is.
The main person quoted here is from the “American Land Rights Association.” Property rights activists tend to believe that the government has no business telling them what they can do on their land even if it affects others. They question the power of states and communities to engage in basic regulation of land use, like protecting historic landmarks, claiming their rights as owners are absolute. That’s never been the position of the law; the common law since before the colonization of America is “sic utere tuo ut alienum non laedas,” which means “enjoy your property in such a manner as not to injure that of another person.”
Oh lordy, that phrase “constitutional rights” is like fingernails on a blackboard. It lays bare the notion that our rights come from other men’s scribbles and whims.
Didn’t GW use the same tactics to build a stadium for the Texas Rangers? Apparently, it is a policy he is fond of.
Some of the owners whose land was seized for the Texas stadium did sue to contest the amount they were paid. The court ruled in favor of the plaintiff, who had only been paid about 1/7 what the land was worth. So much for just compensation. Last I heard, the former landowners still haven’t been payed either. The Texas Rangers say the state owes them the money, and the state says the Rangers owe it.
Ahh… c’mon…
He’s a Republican. People to get to take pot shots at him just for breathing.
It’s like there is this giant book that goes out to the knee-jerk reactionary left. Then they sit and watch TV to see what Bush does. Regardless of his actions, they just turn to the appropraite page.
Emminent Domain? Page 196 paragraph 5
No action on the energy crisis? Page 120 paragraph 4
Enforcing the law too stringently? Page 11 paragraph 9
Traffic deaths rising? Page 15 paragraph 2
Neighbor’s music is too loud? Keep looking, I’m sure it’s Bush’s fault.
Freedom, the people on the right do exactly the same thing.
DD Goose, why not go aheand and discuss eminent domain; it is, after all, the title of the thread.
I think it’s wrong to use eminent domain for things like sports stadia, superstores, shopping malls, and the like.
Anyone have a justification for this?
There was a big controversy in New Rochelle, NY, where ED was going to be used to raze a neighborhood and replace it with huge store. In this case, the neighborhood won, and the store lost.
Do you truly not think that none of that is simply exposing hypocrisy, of both Bush and his supporters? Granted, that’s shooting fish in a barrel so much of the time that it normally is simply assumed, but it’s there anyway. In the case of Dubya and the new Rangers ballpark, it gets amusing to hear the same people who argue most vociferously about getting government out of the markets, bewailing its dead hand on the free-enterprise system that made America great, etc. overlooking or dismissing (as in your case) a transaction that represents exactly that.
The most amusing part is the next (or so) sentence that condemns anyone who can’t see that Bush is a hero of capitalism and a successful businessman, etc., who made his fortunes through his own dynamism and rugged indivdualism, yada yada.
Meanwhile, the victims of his government-assisted theft are still out the value of the property Bush stole from them and resold. Is that of interest to you?
So here we have the city of San Jose using the threat of propert seizures to “entice” development in a specific area. This is the a great example of why I support limiting our government. When you give the government the sanction to instigate force, you need to severly limit what they can do. Otherwise they start using their ability to coerce people in ways that were never originally envisioned.
FTR…
I support ED in very limited situations. Stadiums and highrises don’t even come close to making the cut. In addition, I think that in order to help curtail abuses, property owners should be paid in multiples of the current property value. If we need the property that badly, we should be willing to pay for it.
You’ll have to point out the contradictions to me.
I could have sworn the op was vaguely aimed at discussing ED and power lines. After making a brief feint in that direction, it turned into a full fledged Bush rant.
You seem to keep implying that I have taken stands on issues in this thread, and contradicted myself.
You’ll have to be a little more explicit if you want me to answer you, it seems to me that you are inventing things for me to defend. Unfortunately, I’m not willing to play a guessing game to come up with the positions you think I have.
Freedon, the question was whether or not you think it is fair to criticize Bush for his use of eminent domain in the Arlington stadium complex deal. If you don’t understand the question, there are no simpler words I can use. If you can’t come up with a consistent answer, that’s your problem.
That was never your question before your last post.
Obviously I think it is fair to criticize Bush over the Stadium deal. I don’t know all the details, but I’ve already stated that I don’t support the use of ED in cases of stadiums and high rises.
Now if you would please point out my contradictions, I would be very much obliged.
This thread was initially all about ED and power lines. We didn’t even really debate that.
My point was one that you are working hard to illustrate. There are certain people who don’t really want to debate a particular issue, they just want to rant about Bush.
If I were to title a thread **Eminent Domain ** I would expect to post an OP that DISCUSSED it. This op belongs in the pit with the title Generic Bush Rant #285
The initial subject of the OP was that Bush is asking for expanding the eminent domain authority of the federal government. As such, his past use of this policy is certainly relevant. I see nothing generic about that.
The OP tried to show that policy as an example of inreased government interference. This may be leaning more toward a generic rant. But IMO, it may be relevant to ask whether expanding eminent domain powers is part of a trend of increased government interference.
ElvisL1ves’ first post here may be a slight anti-Bush rant, but it was in reaction to this thread being called a rant… which up to that point was clearly unjustified.
Since it was Berkeley-esque liberal groups that were the most vocal proponents of California declaring Eminent Domain over its power plants, I fail to see how Eminent Domain is “the agenda of the conservative party”.