Kelo v. New London: Mob Rule and Might-Makes-Right

In what will go down in history as perhaps one of the most significant nails in the coffin of American Liberty, the U. S. Supreme Court today, by a 5-4 vote, expanded the right of a city (New London, CT) to take any private property it wants so that ‘private’ development which has some ‘public good’ (such as increased tax revenues) may proceed.

In this case, the private property consists of people's homes. Never mind that one family lived in the same house for 60 years. Never mind that one man sold sandwiches for 21 years to buy his house.

The City Planners decided that they would prefer an upscale, tourist-and-shopper retail experience, and decided to take these homes by eminent domain – and in the process, enrich favored city developers. And they decided that "the people" – acting through their elected officials – have the right to run roughshod over the property rights of the minority simply because they were (1) numerous or (2) powerful. Oh, and yeah, (3) Because They Wanted It. (I weaned my children of the notion that they can take something simply because they want it when they were about three years old...)

Might Makes Right. The Mob Rule (and Reign of Terror) of the French Revolution is here.

Frederic Bastiat explained this over 150 years ago in his treatise, “The Law:”

“… the fatal tendency that exists in the heart of man to satisfy his wants with the least possible effort, explains the almost universal perversion of the law. Thus it is easy to understand how law, instead of checking injustice, becomes the invincible weapon of injustice. It is easy to understand why the law is used by the legislator to destroy in varying degrees among the rest of the people, their personal independence by slavery, their liberty by oppression, and their property by plunder. This is done for the benefit of the person who makes the law, and in proportion to the power that he holds….”

…imagine that this fatal principle has been introduced: Under the pretense of organization, regulation, protection, or encouragement, the law takes property from one person and gives it to another; the law takes the wealth of all and gives it to a few — whether farmers, manufacturers, ship owners, artists, or comedians. Under these circumstances, then certainly every class will aspire to grasp the law, and logically so.

…As long as it is admitted that the law may be diverted from its true purpose — that it may violate property instead of protecting it — then everyone will want to participate in making the law, either to protect himself against plunder or to use it for plunder. Political questions will always be prejudicial, dominant, and all-absorbing. There will be fighting at the door of the Legislative Palace, and the struggle within will be no less furious. To know this, it is hardly necessary to examine what transpires in the French and English legislatures; merely to understand the issue is to know the answer.

….how is…..legal plunder to be identified? Quite simply. See if the law takes from some persons what belongs to them, and gives it to other persons to whom it does not belong. See if the law benefits one citizen at the expense of another by doing what the citizen himself cannot do without committing a crime.

Then abolish this law without delay, for it is not only an evil itself, but also it is a fertile source for further evils because it invites reprisals. If such a law — which may be an isolated case — is not abolished immediately, it will spread, multiply, and develop into a system.

….Do not listen to….sophistry by vested interests. The acceptance of these arguments will build legal plunder into a whole system. In fact, this has already occurred. The present-day delusion is an attempt to enrich everyone at the expense of everyone else; to make plunder universal under the pretense of organizing it. “

Would that we would listen to this man.....In the meantime, perhaps a boycott of New London might be a response for those who still believe in Liberty...

Kelo