It’s funny that you should provide an example of the “siliver cord” relationship that I was mocked for bringing up a few posts ago.
You don’t own your organs; they are substantially a part of you. Your house isn’t. People in this thread really are confused about what ownership means, it would seem.
It can certainly be unethical to take someone’s home away from him/her, but it isn’t always unethical to do so just because the purpose is economic development; presumably, the government isn’t going to do so unless it thinks it is ethical, and it actually must make its case in a court of law.
Harvesting organs from living people is certainly unethical, though I don’t wish to debate that in this thread.
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I suspect many people are like me–there is a sanctity to personal property rights that is simply axiomatic. Are these rights absolute? No. Perhaps we can argue that someone can’t prevent critical infrastructure (roads, bridges, etc.) from being installed in the name of “ownership.” But even that should be sparingly and judiciously handled.
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And the ec-deve projects are for “critical economic infrastructure” and, yes, those should be rare in number and judiciously handled.
Childish. It’s “yours” by dint of the police and military who prevent others from taking it (or who took it from the Indians in the first place), by dint of the bank that finances it, and, in general, the society that recognizes you as the owner. There is nothing axiomatic about it; indeed, every society must decide what shape property ownership is to take, and many have decided differently than we have.
In the world of real property, you don’t get to decide as much as you think. There is zoning, restrictive covenants, and all kinds of restrictions to contend with. See my new post in GD to learn why “ownership” is one relationship in the set of “control.” You too can become a “Practical Democratic Socialist.”
I agree with your principle about killing innocents. But ownership is complex social phenomenon, and nothing is axiomatic about it.
/hijack
Huh, its been a couple of years since I have lived there but what happened to East Camp Trailer Park? When I left it was well maintained and in fact had a major expansion going on.
/end hijack
Never heard of it. The only other one I knew about was “Cozy Living” and that’s disappearing.
Aeschines, if you’re a male from 18-25 in the US, you’re subject to the military draft. This means that the state gets to use your body for cannon fodder, if it decides there’s a need. You own your body, yet the state says it has the right to take possession of it and use it for it’s own purposes. Why should it stop there?
Additionally, the state of TN has proven itself to be incapable of managing it’s affairs properly. Several members of the previous administration have been arrested by the Feds for taking bribes and kickbacks. The former governor had a six lane highway built to serve his personal residence on the state’s dime. It takes them the same amount of time to build 1-mile of interstate as it did to build the 1000+ mile Al-Can highway. The state spend millions (possibly billions) to lure an NFL team to the state, because of the promised dollars this would provide to the economy, not only from the games, but also concerts, etc., that could be held in the stadium. Thanks to the fine print in the contract (that nobody working for the state apparently bothered to read), the state has to keep coughing up money to maintain the thing, and there’s been no concerts held in the stadium because the team’s owner wants too much money, so it sits empty most of the time. (I won’t even get into the mess of the previous governor trying to have the legislature arrested, or calling in phony bomb threats to his own office, trying to circumvent the state’s constitution, or any of the other things that have gone on.)
I personally know people who’ve had their land ganked out from underneath them, and depsite their efforts to point out to officials that the means by which this was done were illegal (and we’re talking lots of law violations, like vote rigging, clandestine council meetings, to name but a few), they were unable to save their land. This new ruling just makes it that much easier for that to happen. Now, the landgrabbers don’t have to spend so much money bribing officials to get the “job” done. Also, because many of the folks who handle such things aren’t elected, the voters have no way of recalling them at the polls if they’re unhappy with the job they’re doing.
It’s not merely axiomatic reasons that people are alarmed by this. It’s the fact that folks know that the government doesn’t always have their best interests at heart, not only as individuals, but as groups.
Okay, my bad. I assumed everyone knew the basics of why property rights are good. But apparently this isn’t true so I’ll explain.
Property rights are good because without such rights it is difficult for an average individual to prevent a more powerful individual or group from seizing control of property. In such a situation you will either develop a society in which all property is owned by a small minority (in which case social progress will be surpressed by the self-interest of that minority in preserving their own status) or a society in which property is only owned by those individuals who are able to defend it from all challengers (in which case social progress will be minimized by the state of anarchy and the burden of defense). To prevent either of these states from arising and to promote social progress, sensible societies adopt policies of recognizing and promoting property rights. This allows average individuals to own property without having to assume the individual burden of defending it or the worry that others will take it away. This system benefits society as a whole both because it helps the individuals who make up that society, because it encourages individuals to develop their own property secure in the knowlege that they will be able to benefit from their efforts, because by showing individuals how they personally benefit from the rule of law it encourages respect for that institution, and because by allowing individuals to use their properties in many different ways it allows society as a whole to be exposed to these different possibilities thereby encouraging progress as beneficial new ideas are discovered and spread by example.
Do you think that Stalin should have had the right to take away private ownership of farms and form collectives with his Five Year Plans? That didn’t exactly turn out well. The following is from a letter written to a friend of Stalin during that period. linkmain page
Even ignoring the violence involved in the collectivization of farmland, it’s clear that revoking private ownership drastically reduced agricultural output due to poor planning. Granted, the situation with the SCOTUS ruling won’t lead to anything that drastic, but other people have posted examples of the government reassigning private land and the negative effects that resulted. This ruling will only make it easier for more screwups to happen.
Tuckerfan, sorry to hear that Tennessee is so screwed up, but the fact that the government is incompent or unjust in administering the law doesn’t mean that the law itself is bad.
In general, I don’t believe that the draft is a good idea or right for the very reasons you state.
Little Nemo, I agree that property rights are a good idea. Their artificial creations of society and varied in form. Eminent domain is part of the form they take in the US (and most countries), and it’s a good thing most of the time.
Sturmhawke, Stalin and his policies were evil and sucked. The use of eminent domain could suck based on the society and sometimes sucked in the US (I’m not denying that). But that doesn’t change the fact that it’s a necessary thing for society.
Apparently, you’ve never owned a house. At least, not one in which you’ve invested your labor and heart, and which forms most of your memories. And I do own my organs. Being a part of me makes them no less owned. In fact, everything that I own is a part of me.
Slavers argued the rights of society over the rights of men. So did Stalin. All central planners think they’re doing the right thing for society. Fuck central planners.
You know, I’ve noticed that the people who like this decision are mostly fans of the concept of “social engineering.” The idea that the government know how you should live (and where) is fundamentally at odds with the concept of civil rights.
People who say things like “Let’s bulldoze all the suburbs and force everyone to live in highrise apartments in the city,” must love this verdict.
I wasn’t aware that the Framers of the Bill of Rights intended that the protections therein shield citizens from actions of state and local governments. What’s originalist about Thomas’s dissent, again?
“Giving money and power to government is like handing whiskey and car keys to teenage boys.” P. J. O’Roarke. And I wasn’t simply talking about problems with TN’s government. The people I know of who hand their land ganked from them, lived in Ohio, so there’s two states. The fact that the ruling (there’s a difference between laws and rulings) makes it easier for abuse to occur, means that it’s a bad ruling. Period.
Yet, the rationale for it, is similar to the eminent domain laws: The state has the right to protect itself for the greater good. Slapping “greater good” on an argument is like slapping “for the children” on an argument, IMHO.
The location field in your info is empty, so I can’t know where you live for sure; however, if it is in the United States I’m guessing that you have a comprehensive land use plan and your locality has some sort of zoning ordinance that keeps a nuclear plant from being built next door to you. You have land use planners to thank for both of those concepts. Of course, you could argue for the repeal of the zoning ordinance and let market forces control where industrial uses are built. Should you ever want to sell (and I suspect you would if a rendering plant, nuclear facility, or some other noxious use was to go up close by), it may only take, say, 50 to 100 years to sell your property.
You and every other person that feels like a nuclear power plant in their neighborhood isn’t a good idea. The politician that votes to put a nuclear power plant in your neighborhood today has to get your vote tomorrow. If you think it doesn’t work that way, try doing a search for Loudon County, Viriginia and read all about the revolving door for County Supervisors that land use and planning issues has created.
What if the politician is not an at large candidate? I don’t know about where you’re from, but here only two commissioners are at large. Suppose the vote is seven to three.
So some say. It certainly wasn’t the intention of the original Framers, and it’s extremely questionable whether, and to what extent, it was the intention of the Framers of the Fourteenth Amendment. Justice Thomas doesn’t address the incorporation of the Fifth Amendment against the states by the Fourteenth Amendment, but rather takes it as given – which would be fine for anyone but a strict originalist – and all the while he attempts to discern “public use” as meant in the 1780s, not the 1860s.
Just another example of how absolutist schools of constitutional interpretation (like absolutist political philosophies) necessarily bend with the weight of history and the difficulty in applying theory to practice.
Granted, that’s a link to Wikipedia, but if you have another, better one, I’d be happy to see it.
Why? If we assume that the 14th amendment did “incorporate” the Bill of Rights, then it would inorporate the original intent of those rights, and therefore the meaning, especially in the 1780s, would be relavent. No?