Wow. I can't really believe the Supreme Court did this one but they did. Connecticut land owners who lived along a riverfront area in a non blighted residential area will in fact have their homes ripped out from them by the local government. The Fifth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States gives assurances and a guarantee to citizens that their government cannot take their property by eminent domain except in cases of public use. That's what the Constitution said. Now it says that your government can take your property and give it to some other person, a richer person, whose use of that property will presumably provide a greater tax income for the government. What this means that you in your home are not safe if Wal-Mart wants to build on your property. In other words, your property, your land, is not your land at all. Your land belongs to you at the whim of the government and of whoever might desire your land at some future date. Unfreakingbelieable. I have to read the decision to see the scope of it but on the face of it this a very very real blow to freedom as people tend to understand it.
Posted by gilbert davis
at 11:09 AM EDT
