Julian has nailed the upshot of Kelo:
Now that the “liberal” justices on the court have sided with the drug warriors against cancer patients, and with a plan to rob people of their homes for the benefit of wealthy developers, will some court-watchers on the left begin to question the wisdom of having let economic freedom become the red-headed stepchild of modern jurisprudence?
. . . The straightforward implication is that any taking of a private residence to hand it over to a business, or just from a poor person to a wealthy person, will be a taking in service of a public purpose: As a general rule, the rich pay more taxes than the poor, and businesses pay more taxes than households.
That is, if you have something somebody richer than you wants, watch out. Good work, egalitarians, good work.
Don Boudreaux has a strong reaction, too.
I think there’s a focus on a wrong thing here. The government has the eminent domain right to take your home. If government can do it, why not private companies? If there’s so much indignation, why is it not directed at the government? Aahhh, because government knows better what is good for the public! Right? I don’t htink so.
This is a storm in a tea cup. If you agreed to the government’s right to take your home, why are you indignant at the extension of this right to others.
In any case, it takes a lot of litigation, hearings and obtaining permissions to start doing anything under this law. It’s not like Wal-MArt will tell you, “Get out! It’s my land now.”
It’s a knee jerk reaction, really.
I think most people are idignant about government: that’s to say, they are indignant that government would turn over land to private developers.
1. Most people recognize some public uses. I don’t, but most people do, and I can understand why they do think gov’t should have the power to use land to build streets, bridges, etc.
2. Most people intuitively understand that if you open up the range of takings possibilities, more people will line up at the trough, so to speak. It’s a matter of institutional rules. Even if there is no moral difference between government using force to take land to build a school and government using force to take land to give to a developer to build a private school, once you open up the rule, all bets are off in the real world. Moral philosophy can help you in some respects, but it’s a starting point, not a stopping point, when pausing to consider what real-world rules are in order.
I’d blame Epstein and Barnett. Since liberals can read, and since they know that there is a well-organized bar hoping to expand takings law (and federalism jurisprudence) until it invalidates the New Deal, liberals will naturally resist. Given the precedential nature of law, that means they will resist even in cases where no great harm would befall liberalism if it went the other way.
On a more principled basis, most moderate liberals believe strongly in the democratic process. They figure that state autonomy is better protected by Congress, and property owners by state legislatures, than by the federal courts. They figure, on the other hand, that federal courts, as representatives of the national elite, will be better on unconventional expression and sexual practices.
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I think there’s a focus on a wrong thing here. The government has the eminent domain right to take your home. If government can do it, why not private companies? If there’s so much indignation, why is it not directed at the government? Aahhh, because government knows better what is good for the public! Right? I don’t htink so.
This is a storm in a tea cup. If you agreed to the government’s right to take your home, why are you indignant at the extension of this right to others.
In any case, it takes a lot of litigation, hearings and obtaining permissions to start doing anything under this law. It’s not like Wal-MArt will tell you, “Get out! It’s my land now.”
It’s a knee jerk reaction, really.
I think most people are idignant about government: that’s to say, they are indignant that government would turn over land to private developers.
1. Most people recognize some public uses. I don’t, but most people do, and I can understand why they do think gov’t should have the power to use land to build streets, bridges, etc.
2. Most people intuitively understand that if you open up the range of takings possibilities, more people will line up at the trough, so to speak. It’s a matter of institutional rules. Even if there is no moral difference between government using force to take land to build a school and government using force to take land to give to a developer to build a private school, once you open up the rule, all bets are off in the real world. Moral philosophy can help you in some respects, but it’s a starting point, not a stopping point, when pausing to consider what real-world rules are in order.
I’d blame Epstein and Barnett. Since liberals can read, and since they know that there is a well-organized bar hoping to expand takings law (and federalism jurisprudence) until it invalidates the New Deal, liberals will naturally resist. Given the precedential nature of law, that means they will resist even in cases where no great harm would befall liberalism if it went the other way.
On a more principled basis, most moderate liberals believe strongly in the democratic process. They figure that state autonomy is better protected by Congress, and property owners by state legislatures, than by the federal courts. They figure, on the other hand, that federal courts, as representatives of the national elite, will be better on unconventional expression and sexual practices.
I couldn’t understand some parts of this article Keloathing, but I guess I just need to check some more resources regarding this, because it sounds interesting.
I couldn’t understand some parts of this article Keloathing, but I guess I just need to check some more resources regarding this, because it sounds interesting.