Don’t tell me, tell Metacom. He’s the one who’s bringing up “legal relevance” as if that’s what I’m talking about.
So there’s a difference as a matter of degree. Granted. Although I think the “private property” disguises the fact that we’re talking about a wee bit more than a pen and pencil set, here: we’re talking about a home where a man has lived for many years. Although Souter can clearly live without it, we are talking about a significant conseqence.
Now perhaps you could consider the question I posed to Guinastasia: how is the threat of personal consequences for judges in response to their decision a good idea in a nation that values an independent judiciary?
He’s publically stating his intention to kick Souter out of his home, in what is clearly a response to Souter’s agreement with the majority decision. Sounds like a threat to me.
Hell, ask the man himself: (caution: World Net Daily link, if you don’t like that sort of thing…)
“Retaliation”. If that’s not a threat, what the hell is it?
Maybe if judges realized that their decisions might affect them- if they had a little skin in the game- they would pause before greatly expanding the definition of “public use,” or keeping an absurd definition of “interstate commerce,” or considering any other bit of the law.
Sure, it’s a “threat,” but it can’t in any stretch of the imagination, be equated with threats of physical harm (illegal activity). He made the call, he has to live with the consequences, as a citizen of the US.
Poor Souter! Poor poor Souter. I weep for him. So willing to take away the homes of other people, who have lived there for many years. I weep.
Because it helps keep them honest. Otherwise, we’re dealiing with privelage. Private. Law. If a judge decides that your home can be seized for economic reasons in whatever place you’re at, he should have his home seized if there’s an economic benefit. Fair is fair. What, judges should be immune from their own policies?
“Oh, this is the law for the rest of you. But I really like my house. I will, however, let you eat cake if you would like.”
But not a threat against his life. Only his property. Which, thanks to Souter, is perfectly legal. And, let’s face it, a hotel will offer many more jobs and more tax revenue than Souter’s private residence.
It is exactly as much of a threat as Souter made to the entire nation. “If you get in the way of bussiness, aint nothin’ you can do. Prepare to lose your home.”
Guess what: I don’t like the legal decision either. I think it’s crappy that a low-income family can have their home taken away just so that someone can build a strip mall or a hotel. I just also think it’s crappy when it happens to Souter, too.
As I’ve already said in this thread, I’m not questioning the legality of Clements’ actions. I am also not suggesting that Souter should be immune from his own law.
But Clements’ actions…seeking personal revenge against Souter in response to Souter’s decision…is just wrong. We’re not just talking about judges having “a little skin in the game” here, we’re talking about judges having to worry about revenge-seekers every time they make a decision. I want judges making decisions based on the law, not based on the whims of whatever little vindictive bastard might be waiting in the wings to punish them for the next decision they don’t agree with.
Personal revenge? Have I missed something in this thread or on the ‘net? Was Clements’ house seized? Or is he trying to make Souter aware of the effect his ruling has on common folk in this country? And, in the process, using the law on exactly the same type of mechanics which Souter intended it to be used?
On this point we may have to agree to disagree, I refuse to have the debate cast in those terms. I see it as judges having to face the consequences of their own rulings in their own lives. This seems eminently fair.
You can’t have it both ways.
If judges make decisions based on the law, and those decisions make the judges themselves vulnerable, what reason is there not to go after the judges? To me, doing anything else smacks of private law. If common folk can have their house seized due to his decision, he can have his house seized due to his decision. I see nothing that’s not kosher according to Hoyle.
It is not a good idea. But it has been stripped of all legal recourse (less state’s legislature). Thusly it cannot be defined as a threat, which is against the law. Clements could not have threatened Souter in that he had no idea which way he would vote and after the vote it wasn’t against the law. Now threatening to develop Souter’s home, prior to the vote, if Souter did not vote a certain way, is a threat and coercion; but that didn’t happen here.
O.k. so now that the word “threat” is boiled off, what do we have? Yes, Clements targeted Souter’s home because Souter voted for expanding emminent domain. But Souter gave him the authority. He took rights away from many and gave them to a few. While I agree with you that you shouldn’t target specific individuals because of personal feelings; I also think you shouldn’t be surprised when you get punched in the face after making face punching legal.
And don’t forget that the ruling basically said that the government has no obligation to see to it that the plans actually unfold (or are even capable of unfolding) in the manner specified by the plans before seizing the property. So, Clemens could, in theory, take Souter’s land, bulldoze the house, and then let the land lay fallow, and there’s no legal recourse against Clemens for doing so.
That’s got to be a major league suckitude, IMHO. Not only can they gank your land from you, but then, they don’t have to use it for the purpose which was given as justification for ganking it from you! Og bless America!
Okay, we’ll do the long version, then. The locality takes Souter’s land, sells it to Clemens (for a mere pittance of it’s value, I’m sure) and then Clemens let’s it lay fallow. Better?
Except for the fact NH has indicted that it will not allow this. Also, the locality has not created an economic development plan. As far as I can tell the only “plan” is Clemens and it is not much of a plan.
And your point in picking this nit is? I was merely posting a hypothetical of what could happen, if Clemens were allowed to go through with his plan. Oh, and fuck Duke.
Writing in dissent of yesterday’s decision, Justice Sandra Day O’Connor said cities shouldn’t be allowed to uproot a family in order to accommodate wealthy developers.
“Any property may now be taken for the benefit of another private party, but the fallout from this decision will not be random,” O’Connor wrote. “The beneficiaries are likely to be those citizens with disproportionate influence and power in the political process, including large corporations and development firms.”
Justice Clarence Thomas’ addition to O’Conner’s dissent: “If such ‘economic development’ takings are for a ‘public use,’ any taking is, and the Court has erased the Public Use Clause from our Constitution.”
Stephen Crampton, chief counsel for the AFA Center for Law & Policy, said America’s founders “held that government was instituted to protect property as much as persons, but today’s high court no longer respects private property.”
“There is a world of difference between taking private property for a legitimate public use, such as the building of a road, and some private developer’s get-rich-quick scheme,” he said. “In effect, the Supreme Court has written over city hall: ‘The government giveth, and the government taketh away.’”
If it’s “a shitty, immoral, dangerous thing to do” to take away somebody’s property, then Justice Souter shouldn’t have legalized it. He should not expect to be immune to the consequences of the legal decisions he makes.
Exactly. Unless the Governent cares to publically and officially declare that there really is no equality (drop the pretense). I wonder how fast the Courts ( or someone) will find a way to change this “interpretation” if Souter’s house is taken.
“Ye shall reap what ye sow”
“What goes around, comes around”.
Nothing is axiomatic about it for you. You do understand that I was assigning the feeling to “people like me”? If I find a certain position to be axiomatic, that does not imply that I think the rest of the world is as right-minded as I am, believe me.
There are people who would disagree with you and me regarding the principle about killing innocents–they’d think it complex, impossible to reduce to an axiomatic statement. The editorial pages are chockfull of competing, mutually exclusive “axioms.”
