If you look at examples in history when ordinary Americans suddenly flipped out and killed government agents, you will find that most of these incidents occurred when the government took someone’s land without regard for the owner’s welfare, or “for the public good” without proper compensation. When you consider that one of the few government functions that everyone can actually agree on is that government primarily exists to protect private property from the predations of others, it’s small wonder that people freak out and go to the guns when it’s government that turns into the predator.
Then we had the disgusting Kelo v. City of New London ruling by the Supremes, which basically said that Gummint could take your property and give it to a commercial developer, because his future development would result in tax income for the local authority. (I’m still furious about this piece of unmitigated statist sophistry.)
Finally — and far too late — Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner (R-WI) has done the right thing, and his bill will go to the Senate where it will likely pass by a massive majority (if it doesn’t, it will be time to warm up a few barrels of tar and empty a few down pillows) and be sent to the Oval Office for the finishing touch. (I bet Trump will sign it into law with gritted teeth; but sign it he’ll have to.)
Read the entire article, and feel free to break out into applause at the end of it. As I suggested earlier, it’s just a shame this gross injustice wasn’t rectified thirty seconds after the Kelo ruling, but I’ll take what I can get.
Just *thinking* about the Kelo ruling makes my blood pressure elevate – it’s an utter perversion.
Now overturn Wickard v. Filburn, and we’ll start getting back to how things are supposed to be.
I don’t understand why “(I bet Trump will sign it into law with gritted teeth; but sign it he’ll have to.)”
I’d be thinking that our President would be only to happy to sign The Private Property Rights Protection Act, since it was all the Socialist-Progressives on the court who voted for Kelo, plus Kennedy.
As an aside, I was explaining my motivation for trying to write a novel based on the Kelo decision to a very old friend (yes! I’ve been known to include a few, very few, liberals among my friends) when we began discussing the decision itself (two dentists, not lawyers).
I asked him whom he thought voted yea/nay.
He said, “Of course, the conservatives voted the majority.”
I told him, “Quite the opposite.”
He became very angry, telling me I was wrong and should re-read the entire decision more closely.
We’re still friends; we just don’t discuss my writing any more.
Boron, one of the reasons this last election sucked so much (for me) was that there were 3 statists running – Hillary, obviously; but Trump attempted for YEARS to kick an old woman off her property and out of her house so he could build one of his behemoths, and had Kelo occurred only a few years before, he might have been successful, so he is very much a believer in using the power of the state for a private business to get its way. Hell, even the Libertarian Party ran a statist who believed a private individual can be compelled by the state to provide a service to someone, against his own conscious/religious conviction, if that individual is running a business. But he smokes pot, so that’s all the LP needed for him to get their nomination.