Thursday, June 23, 2005

SCOTUS Screws Property Owners

By a 5 to 4 majority, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that local officials can seize private property, homes and businesses, from any American citizen whenever they decide to. Presumably, the seizures will occur for economic development.

I predict that this ruling will lead to an exponential increase in bribery of local officials. A man's home is no longer his castle if he has to rely on the government to decide whether he can keep it.

I also predict that this ruling will be revisited by the Supreme Court due to unintended negative consequences. As an example, what prevents local officials from maliciously bulldozing a church or entire community (i.e. a fringe religious sect) for the sake of nefarious "economic development?" Also, I don't see any mechanism to prevent a majority party from selectively targeting the businesses and homes of their opponents for seizure.

The five justices in the majority should have their property seized, not for economic development (although I'm sure that could be factored in), but for being complete dumbasses. In my estimation, heretofore unimagined avenues for corruption have been created.

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