getting hystercal

Jefferson must be spinning in his grave: trust Federal officials--who are far away and hard to control--over local officials, who are close to their communities? Not a position the enemy of federal power would have been likely to endorse.

Cc:
Re Getting Hysterical

Mark Wallach, mwallach@... wrote: RE: time is running out..

Stop getting hysterical, everyone. Eminent domain has been around
for hundreds of years.-

You miss my point, which is that Eminent Domain belongs in the hands
of the federal Govt., Not in the hands of any local Government which
would abandon the legacy of Rousseau, Locke, Jefferson, etc. in the
interests of mere venality.

Apparently the principle of Sovereignty is no longer appreciated. The
meaning of the word "Public" is given lip service [I suppose] in the
dissenting opinions but even those 4 judges have failed to make the
point that the word "Public" as originally used is in regard to the
Power of Sovereignty held by ALL citizens of a given society vis a vis
each individual citizen.

Now the term" Public Use" originally understood as 'use by the
sovereign' has been redefined as "[a]Public" use", not "[The] public
use" and is given any one of various abstracted "interpretations",
such as "Public benefit", "Public purpose", i.e., anything deemed of
benefit to the public; the public being now defined not as All members
of the society but simply as more than just a few individuals.

Now any community large enough to assess taxes may presume to
hold Power of Eminent Domain, a power formerly and properly reserved
to the state or the nation. And exactly how many needy individuals are
required to constitute "a" Public has not been defined...

These "public uses" are, in effect, nothing more than
"Local Charities".

And since when is government in the business of deciding that
a property owner must give up his home in order to donate it to a
charity not of his own choosing?

It has been said that there is nothing more dangerous than a
minor official.

In the hands of clever, finagling lawyers and venal local officials a
citizen's Title or Deed to property is no longer worth the paper it is
printed on.

A sacred trust as embodied in Our Constitution has been violated and
no one seems to understand or care...

RKH

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