The Kelo decision

Our old friend GeoBandy has two posts up regarding the awful (but not entirely unexpected) Supreme Court decision in Kelo v. City of New London. The first, posted shortly after the decision was announced, is an essentially factual entry in a more or less "breaking news" style, with quotes from the majority opinion and Justice O'Connor's dissenting opinion.

The second is more analysis and opinon, written after he'd thought about it a bit, and seen some sites explaining that the decision is actually a victory for states' rights. I don't think he's buying that interpretation:

I have seen some bloggers, and commenters, trying to cast this abomination as a victory for “states’ rights”.

Hogwash.

It has long been established that the Bill of Rights applies, in toto, to the states. It is therefore the absolute duty of the federal courts, and in particular the Supreme Court of the United States, to defend the liberties guaranteed by the Bill of Rights against incursion by state government.

He manages to get to the point of the horrendous nature of this decision without a lot of legal mumbo jumbo, using a simple example and concludes with an explanation that reduces all the legalistic discussions of the last few days down to the common sense real-world ramifications of the court's decision:

The Supreme Court ruling in effect means that if the local government wants that additional tax revenue, we have no choice but to sell to the developer. We can not refuse to sell. We can not hold out for a better price (like maybe, what we would get if we cut up the parcel into postage stamp lots and sold six of them ourselves). Because if we don’t sell, the government will forcibly take our land and give it to the developer, and we will get what he was willing to pay.

That is not a victory for “states’ rights”. It is a victory for government power over the individual’s property rights. It is a victory for wealthy developers and big development companies over middle and lower income home owners, because it’s a cinch nobody is going to be seizing a bunch of upscale homes of the wealthy in order to build a Starbuck’s.

This is a crushing blow to the ancient roots of Anglo-American property rights, to one of the fundamental principles upon which our law, and our nation, was based.
Consider this explanation of personal property rights by William Pitt, the British prime minister in the late 1700s and early 1800s:

"The poorest man may in his cottage bid defiance to all the forces of the Crown. It may be frail. Its roof may shake, the wind may blow through it - the storm may enter, the rain may enter, but the King of England cannot enter; all his forces dare not cross the threshold of the ruined tenement."

It may still be that the King of England cannot enter your cottage, but as of yesterday, the city council can force you to sell it to a guy who wants to build a pizza shop.

If you haven't already overdosed on Kelo articles, it's worth reading both posts in their entirety.