Funny you should mention Poletown, since the Michigan Supreme Court overturned their decision in the case recently.
Am I correct in assuming that the recent SCOTUS decision will have no bearing on the Michigan decision?
Maybe I am just stupid here, but 1. there is no “urban blight” to correct here, right? and 2. what kind of “fair market value” or “just compensation” does one get from an appraiser?–your home has been condemned! I would think that there was no such thing as a FMV for a condemned home…or is the Gment ONLY paying you for the land? Is this token money? And I feel like a person in that Tom Lehrer song…“who’s next?”
IMS, the New London area does not serve as crack house central or similiar. HOW is this for the public good? And let us by all means follow the effing money. I am sure that Mr. Mogul is gonna build a community center or at least donate a pint of his blood, maybe. As a liberal, this sickens me. To own your own home IS the American dream. This may be legal, but yet again, the law is an ass. An immoral, unethical ass. [aside; I have more respect for O’Connor now than previously.]
And to those who would define liberalism for me or call me a hypocrite(I don’t wan to wade thru all this for names) for not following some “classic” model of it–go to hell. So, if one does not adhere to all precepts spouted by neo-cons, one doesn’t count as that, either? By all means, let us have purity of philosophy in politics–the world has no room for pragamtism or heart. :wally :rolleyes:
This must be true! He used all caps.
forgot to say that the “classic liberal” argument that government solves all social issues does not hold here–there IS NO social issue here. There is a developer who wants to make money and there is a city council who wants to assist that developer. Mr. American Homeowner gets screwed. If I were one of those homeowners, I would be out burning a flag or something…
They do have the rights, just as Indians and Blacks have rights. But those rights are ignored by magistrates who find them to be politically inexpedient.
Or anywhere. That is NOT the classical liberal argument. This is classical liberalism: Liberalism in the Classical Tradition, by Ludwig von Mises. An excerpt:
“The program of liberalism, therefore, if condensed into a single word, would have to read: property, that is, private ownership of the means of production… All the other demands of liberalism result from his fundamental demand.”
The biggest problem with the decision is that it is far to broadening of it’s definition of public use. AS on eof the dissenting justices (O’connor?) said, it basically gives any community the right to buy any property if it can be determined it is more valuable to the community for another use. It is my belief that the takings clause is targeted for two specific purposes: First, to provide needed pathways for publis or quasi-public works programs that need, generally specific land to work. Things like highways, railways, and right-ofways for utility lines which generally only have so much leeqay for routing. The second would be land needed for the governemet so it can basically can do it’s job and provide the needed services: gov’t office buildings, police and fire stations, schools, etc. My interpretation would be that econommic development is absolutely not one of the reasons.
Your biggest problem is your constant tendency to present yourself as the voice of reason, when you are, in fact, as partisan as anyone else. The whole “I’m a moderate and therefore more rational than everyone else” bullshit that is your constant mode of argumentation just gets a little old.
You’re an idiot. Plenty of liberals hold exactly that position, despite your constant attempts to portray them as nothing but irrational party-liners or hypocrites.
I’ll think about saying that when you’re actually right about something.
I may support your general position on this issue. The problem is that, in your intial post, you didn’t even say what it was. You did nothing but accuse liberals of hypocrisy for opposing the ruling. I don’t support the idiocy, the reductionism, and the self-righteousness you displayed in making your alleged point.
Except that your first post to this thread, to which i was responding, made virtually no attempt to deal with the current issue in any substantive way. It was nothing more than a mindless screed, giving us your fantasy of what constitutes liberalism, rather than any evaluation of the pros and cons of the question at hand. It was, when your “argument” is boiled down, nothing more than “If you call yourself a liberal, and you disagree with this ruling, then you’re a hypocrite.” Remember your own words:
Nice to know that you—someone who seems to masturbate at every opportunity to make blanket condemnations of liberalism—are also the person we should look to for a definition of what liberalism is.
No you’re not. You just want to scream “liberal” some more.
You are, of course, correct.
But, to be fair, eleanorigby and most of those who have used such a term on this page of the thread have done so in quotation marks. She also said “classic liberal,” not “classical liberal.” And these people were responding to the first person to refer to modern liberalism as “classic Liberal ideology” in this thread, which was weirddave.
I know fuckall about what constitutes “classic liberalism”, I just call myself a liberal Democrat because other parties conform less well to my personal beliefs. I believe that indivdual rights come before corporate interests, so I very strongly disagree with this ruling. If you want to know where I stand on other issues, look up Pete Stark’s voting record. He’s become a dick lately, but until someone else comes along who I agree with 90% of the time I’ll keep voting for him.
Very well, then. I can appreciate such a distinction. I’m not one to scream “nitpick!” whenever such a point is made. Thanks, Mhendo. As I said in the flag burning thread, these are issues on which modern and classical liberals alike can join together.
I think that’s right. I think it would also behoove us all, when we disagree, to realise that not everyone who disagrees with us does so merely out of malice or hypocrisy. Which was the problem that i had with weirddave’s pointless screed.
It seems to me that the term “classic” was being deployed in this thread to mean “typical” or “archetypal” of modern liberalism, rather than classical in the proper sense.
I second that emotion. If you think this decision is bad, wait until the same court has to enforce the new constitutional amendment prohibiting free speech when in the guise of flag burning.
It ain’t our father’s country, friend.
Not to mention conservatives as well, at least those who are concerned with assaults on the Constitution.
Agreed. I just cited a paraphrase of Voltaire in the other thread. Conservatives too are horrified by authoritarianism.
:smack: Ah! I should have discerned that for myself.
Cliffy, in a perfect world, your argument might make sense. In a world where government officials were trustworthy and beyond reproach, we probably could all feel secure about this decision. Unfortunately, we live in the real world --a world where we live by the NEW Golden Rule: “He who has the gold, makes the rules.” Believe me, this decision is just **begging ** to be abused, and don’t think for a minute that unscrupulous developers aren’t positively salivating at the opportunity! If you truly believe that this is still “government by the people, for the people, and of the people”, you obviously haven’t been paying attention. Mark my words, the ramifications of this decision will make the Poletown situation look like nothing! Trust in government is not given, it is earned; this government has a lot of earning to do.
I just came back from my Florida vacation. I suppose the million dollar condo builders will now take everything on the ocean side, provide jobs for the locals cleaning rooms and stuff and prevent all beach access. That way you can live in a beach town but never be able to go to the beach. There are already problems with beach access in many of the more popular tourist spots. We spent a few nights in a Days Inn that was just across the road from the beach. We could see the beach, between the high rise hotels and condos but they had it all fenced off so you had to go two miles down the road to get to a public access spot. No more quaint little beach house rentals or individual houses will be left. What a bad decision.
You’ve just hit the nail on the head. Some people here have said that “public use” is a vague term, but that’s not true. For over 200 years, the term has been understood to mean that the land siezed will end up being owned and used by the public, not by a private entity. Some exceptions have been made, where the land ended up in private hands, but provided a really good benefit to the community (like a factory with thousands of desperately-needed jobs) but they were exceptions that ran against the general rule, and were justified by extraordinary circumstances.
Now, the Supreme Court has said “Fuck it. The cities can make up whatever definition of ‘public use’ they want.” Now, if my city wants to tear down my house and put in a gas station, how can I possibly fight them? The only definition of “public use” is whatever definition the city finds convenient. This is a decision that just begs to be abused.