Kowabunga

The Supreme Court got it wrong this week in a ruling that greatly expanded government's power to seize your property and sell it to the highest bidder. From NewsMax>

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.

The 5-4 ruling - assailed by dissenting Justice Sanday Day O'Connor as handing "disproportionate influence and power" to the well-heeled in America - was a defeat for some Connecticut residents whose homes are slated for destruction to make room for an office complex. They had argued that cities have no right to take their land except for projects with a clear public use, such as roads or schools, or to revitalize blighted areas.

The takings clause, normally refered to in common law as eminent domain, was intended to provide government with the means to acquire land to build public structures such as military bases, police and fire stations, courts, prisons, and undeer modern understanding, highways and airports. It was never intended to be used to take private property and resold under the guise of “this land will be better utilized as a strip mall than as a private home.”

This brings back to mind my feud with BestBuy several years back, when the City of Richfield, Minnesota, blighted an area, condemning businesses and homes and then selling much of the land acquired through the process of eminent domain to BestBuy so that they could build there new headquarters. The reasoning was that it would result in greater tax revenues for the city. ot to mention a tidy profit in the sale of said land to BestBuy.

Now, with this Supreme Court ruling, governments have been given Carte Blanche to seize whatever property fancies their eyes, and only those with the big bucks and influence over the local leaders will be be able to avoid this confiscatory practice.

Perhaps it is time for a Constitutional Amendment that fully defines the purpose of Eminent Domain and end this practice of seizure for profit being practiced by local governments throughout the United States. Otherwise, we shall soon learn that none of us are entitled to private property rights. It all belongs to government.