Media in Trouble: All the news thats UNfit to print!: Business wins again!

"The information of the people at large can alone make them safe, as they are the sole depositary of our political and religious freedom." --Thomas Jefferson 1810

Thursday, June 23, 2005

Business wins again!

Now this is perhaps one of the most misleading headlines out there. Justices, 5-4, Back Seizure of Property for Development. Nope Let's see if the lede clarifies things a bit:
A divided Supreme Court ruled Thursday that local governments may seize people's homes and businesses against their will for private development in a decision anxiously awaited in communities where economic growth often is at war with individual property rights.


Thats the crux of it. Sure governments now have the right to seize your house. This isn't new. They have always had this right, they pay you to leave so that they can build a highway or some other public function for your property.

What is new about this ruling, and I don't know how the hell this ruling has come to pass, is the change in scope of purpose governments now have access to your property for. Where before governments sought to own private property for the public good, now they seek private property for another private interest.

WOW! Where are all the people who fear fascism on this one?

You mean to tell me that if I own a business, and I want your land but you won't sell, that I now have the right to go to the local government and petition them to seize your property so that I can then buy it from the state?

Meaning if I have money, now everyone has a price.

Meaning that if I have money I can buy anything, even your personal nest egg of a home that you may or may not have grown up in or lived in, have memories in. All these things can be wiped away with a few lobbying efforts?

Perhaps the worse part of this decision is that now twice my opinion stands with Scalia and Thomas and the likes of those folks. If the "liberals" on the courts are making pro-corporate decisions, then why and how are they liberal? I have gone cross eyed with this one.

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