Eminent Domain

[DSYoungEsq]

You live everyday in relative comfort with clean water, air, and decent food to eat because of a citizens right to sue. Without such a right the Clean Water Act and many other such legislation would never have been enforced. You take so much for granted. Continue to wear blinders if it pleases you. We are losing our rights as citizens of a democracy to govern ourselves. Capitalism and democracy are not interchangeable. They do not mean the same thing. Capitalism without democracy is nothing more than corporate fascism.

Thus proving at last that the poster (Needs2know) has a very poor understanding of both the political history of most social legislation in this country and the meaning of democracy as it has been practiced in this country since the founding. The right to sue in tort has nothing to do with the right to act as a private attorney general, or any other similar right granted by Congress or the state legislatures in an attempt to offer additional ways to enforce certain environmental and social legislation. Further, the vast majority of the social legislation which protects us owes nothing to the efforts of private individuals; indeed much current employee protecting, consumer protecting legislation has roots in the governance of the Republican party in the early 1900’s (oh those damn conservatives again).

I won’t debate the issue further; unintelligent, uninformed opinions rarely form the basis of a cracking good discussion of current issues. If anyone cares to take up the original theme with some intelligent support for the point, then maybe we can explore the concept of ‘strong’ federal government vs. ‘large’ federal government. As for the poster of the OP, we sentence you to some better courses in American history and politics. :rolleyes:

[sailor]

DSYoungEsq, I am quite with you. Sometimes the gap is just too wide. I would point out also that every developed culture that I know of has the concept of corporations as (fictional) persons with legal standing and this is a very useful tool for people to get together and do what they could not do individually. To anyone who says "Idoits that defend the right of corporate “personhood” … well, I really have nothing further to say.

[ricepad]

The power to take private property has been used (and abused) by those on both ends of the political spectrum. To characterize it as a tool of one side or the other is to misunderstand how it is used (and abused).