Eminent Moonbeam

by Paul Jacob

You don't have to be weird to advocate weird notions. You can just be on the U.S. Supreme Court.

The Supremes decided, in the now-notorious Kelo case, that all a local, state or federal government has to do to grab your property is mumble a little bit about economic-benefits-to-the-community. Forget the Constitution—you don't need any kind of proposed "public use" for the property at all.

Some owners are upset about this, especially, for example, those whose property is being threatened by collusion between local developers and local politicians. These owners even sometimes think that the persons trying to grab their property are bad persons.

Now, some might say that kind of moral assessment is another weird notion. Because, hey, what the property grabbers are doing is legal, and anything legal is also moral, right?

Some might say that -- not me.

I myself sympathize with Terry Sanders of Oakland, California, who owns a home in a part of town that the city, led by Mayor Jerry Brown, wants to tear down. This "taking" would make way for condos. Sanders and other neighbors like where they live, and have fought the city. They've won a battle recently, on a technicality, but the city will probably go after their neighborhood again.

Developers think it's unfair that they're being portrayed as evil. A reporter asked Sanders about this, and Sanders simply replied, "They ARE evil." After all, they tried to take his home, a home that did not belong to them. Which is a very bad thing to do. Legal or not.

Common Sense is published by Americans for Limited Government. Their website can be visited at www.limitedgov.org