Eminent Domain Goes TOO FAR: Thanks David Souter and Liberals

[jimmyjude]

Florida's Riviera Beach is a poor, predominantly black, coastal community that intends to revitalize its economy by using eminent domain, if necessary, to displace about 6,000 local residents and build a billion-dollar waterfront yachting and housing complex.


"This is a community that's in dire need of jobs, which has a median income of less than $19,000 a year," said Riviera Beach Mayor Michael Brown.

He defends the use of eminent domain by saying the city is "using tools that have been available to governments for years to bring communities like ours out of the economic doldrums and the trauma centers."
Mr. Brown said Riviera Beach is doing what the city of New London, Conn., is trying to do and what the U.S. Supreme Court said is proper in its ruling June 23 in Kelo v. City of New London. That decision upheld the right of government to seize private properties for use by private developers for projects designed to generate jobs and increase the tax base.

"Now eminent domain is affecting people who never had to deal with it before and who have political connections," Mr. Brown said. "But if we don't use this power, cities will die."

Jacqui Loriol insists she and her husband will fight the loss of their 80-year-old home in Riviera Beach.
"This is a very [racially] mixed area that's also very stable," she said. "But no one seems to care ... Riviera Beach needs economic redevelopment. But there's got to be another way."

In the Kelo ruling, a divided Supreme Court held that private development offering jobs and increased tax revenues constituted a public use of property, but the court held that state legislatures can draft eminent-domain statutes to their satisfaction.

Dana Berliner, senior lawyer with the Institute for Justice, which represented homeowners in the Kelo case, said "pie in the sky" expectations like those expressed by Mr. Brown are routine in all these cases.

"They always think economic redevelopment will bring more joy than what is there now," she said. "Once someone can be replaced so something more expensive can go where they were, every home and business in the country is subject to taking by someone else."

Last week, the Riviera Beach City Council tapped the New Jersey-based Viking Inlet Harbor Properties LLC to oversee the mammoth 400-acre redevelopment project.

"More than 2,000 homes could be eligible for confiscation," said H. Adams Weaver, a local lawyer who is assisting protesting homeowners.



http://www.washtimes.com/national/20...2623-2136r.htm
http://www.washtimes.com/national/20...2623-2136r.htm


Eminent domain from Black's Law Dictionary: "The power to take private property for public use by the state, municipalities, and private persons or corporations authorized to exercise functions of PUBLIC CHARACTER.

The power is founded in the fifth amendment in the United States of America and also in the individual states constitutions.

Fifth Amendment: No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except in cases arriving in the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual service in time of war or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelle in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, orproperty, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use without just compensation.

[jimmyjude]

http://www.ij.org/private_property/connecticut/

[boedicca]

I've been following the story. The Mayor is the epitome of a double-talking Statist. His stock response involves a comment to the effect that "American values include sacrifice for the common good" - and then he admits that the ED seizure is to increase the tax base.

Fortunatley, FNC is giving this abomination high profile coverage. Inciting public outrage across the country is the necessary to throttle back the Kelo effect.

[86Dude]

Why aren't people rioting over this? Black people and poor people love to riot and here is perfect reason to do so. Why isn't the mayors disembowled corpse hanging from a tree?

[boedicca]

Easy answer: Lawful property owners generally respect other laws as well. They desire to keep their homes - not to use the abuse of ED by the Mayor as an excuse to behave like barbarians.

[86Dude]

When subjected to outright, government sponsored tyranny one should resist by any means available. A few burning police cars and a dead mayor would send a powerful message.

[boedicca]

It is too early for such tactics. Sunlight is the best disinfectant. Let the message get out for a bit so the rest of the country gets riled up. At this stage, violence would only justify the Mayor's claim that the area is "blighted". It isn't - it's just a modest working/middle class neighborhood.

[86Dude]

Obviously, but if all else fails grab your guns.

[boedicca]

Absolutely. If the City starts forcibly removing people from their homes, armed resistance is the appropriate response.

[jimmyjude]

These eminent domain cases where they take the land and give it to another private citizen in order to increase the tax base infuriate me.

They are doing it all over the Jersey Shore also. They call the homes blighted which stretches the imagination.

How come liberals aren't outraged by this? It is mostly "evil" corporations that are the beneficiaries of these actions!!!

And it is the liberals and their henchmen on the court that are authorizing this. What crap.

[86Dude]

Actually, I think most liberals are outraged by this, at least the ones that I've conversed with.

[jimmyjude]

Really? Then why is only FoxNews really paying attention to it?

FoxNews is consistently touted as an arm of the world wide fascist movement, yet they are the ones standing up for the little guy in Florida.

Where is CNN?

Why did the ruling come down on the side of the darlings of the leftist elite on the Court?

Because liberals, the everyday ones you talk to, are effing silent on this case. They think that the judges in dirty robes have a somehow greater ability to discern what it means to be a human than you or I do.

Liberals are comfortable with interpreting the constitution in a manner that advances their soft bigotry and welfare plantation politics.

[86Dude]

People are so eager to obey the law and let the gubmint roll right over them these days. When all is said and done they'll all go peacefully while the government buys their houses at "Fair Market Value" and then sells their land for 10X the purchase price.

[jimmyjude]

But who is responsible for these "laws"?

Liberal judges. Last time I checked it wasn't the responsibility of the courts to write law.

But after 70 years (starting from FDR) the court is the main tool with which the leftist Dmeocrats have tried to legislate. It is their last hope to destroy America.

[jimmyjude]

Originally Posted by 86Dude

Obviously, but if all else fails grab your guns.

Agreed, but as the Dems/Liberals move to re-define the constitution to include the "implicit" privacy right they are at the same time trying to deny the EXPLICIT right of gun ownership.

If they can take both your guns and your land away what makes this so different from the various totalitarian and/or communist regimes that the left have embraced around the world?

[jimmyjude]

I can only surmise that the main reason that liberals/deomcrats want to take guns away from the people is so that they can steal those same people's land without having to face an armed citizenship.

The main goal of the Democrats and Liberals is to increase tax revenue so that they have more largese to distribute to the opressed masses.

Of course the Democrats are the ones oppressing the masses, but I shouldn't have been looking behind that curtain.

[soylentgreen]

Yeah, the whole thing is BS. Liberals suck. They think your private property actually belongs to the government. Of course, they think all your cash and your soul also belong to the government.

[thumper]

Liberals = Reds

[Corporate Avenger]

Laughs..

[SwiftSloth]

Blame republicans everytime someone is murdered with a gun.