Government Can Now Seize Your
Home toGenerate Hight Taxes
The government can now take your home and sell it to a private developer so that the government can gain greater tax benefits!
“Nothing is to prevent the State from replacing any Motel 6 with a Ritz-Carlton, any home with a shopping mall, or any farm with a factory.” Those are the words of Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor in her dissent on the 5 to 4 draconian Supreme Court ruling on June 23, 2005 in the case of Kelo v The City of New London.
The
Kelo
decision is an outright repudiation of the most basic of American principles;
constitutional protection for life, liberty, and property. And we are not about
to take this assault on our God-given liberties laying
down!
This
ruling should scare your socks off!
In actuality, the government has always maintained the “right” to take
your house and property, but there were constitutionally mandated limits.
Under the 5th Amendment to the Constitution, governments could exercise
“eminent domain” to turn you out of house and home if they paid you “just
compensation” -- although what you may consider just and what the government
may consider just could differ tremendously. Moreover, the “seizure” had to
occur for a legitimate “public use” 
i.e.
roads, utility lines, sewers, schools etc., or to rid the community of a “blighted
area.”
The Supreme Court however, totally
perverted the concept of “public use” and has effectively set up a system
whereby governments can and will collude with corporate interests to deprive
you of your property. O’Connor added in her dissent, “... property may now
be taken for the benefit of another private party... the fallout from this
decision will not be random. The beneficiaries are likely to be those citizens
with disproportionate influence and power in the political process, including
large corporations and development firms. As for the victims, the government
now has license to transfer property from those with fewer resources to those
with more. The Founders cannot have intended this perverse result.”
This Supreme Court ruling is the
textbook definition of FASCISM!
Kelo is more judicial abuse
Just in case you still don’t believe that the government can “seize” your home at the behest of a Bill Gates or Donald Trump, consider the actual circumstances of the Kelo case.
The case, titled Kelo et al v. City of New London, was brought by homeowners (Susette Kelo being one of the
homeowners) in New London, Connecticut where officials plan to tear down a 15 home
neighborhood community near the Thames river to make way for an office complex.
In 1997, Pfizer -- a large
pharmaceutical company -- approached state and local government officials. Pfizer
wished to build a 90 acre complex to include a conference center, a hotel
complex, offices, condominiums and, eventually, an aquarium directly across the
river from their existing plant in a neighborhood called New Trumbull. Apparently,
Pfizer liked the view this location afforded them.
City planners, backed by the liberal
National League of Cities, argued that throwing the homeowners off their
property would create jobs and generate more tax revenue for the city.
In response to Pfizer’s
request, New London’s city council declared this waterfront middle-class neighborhood,
“blighted,” condemned the properties, told the home-owners to leave -- after
offering a “compensation package” that many of them rejected -- and transferred
eminent domain power to the New London Development Corporation, a private
company. And yes, there were allegations of graft, kick-backs and corruption.
Susette
Kelo and a group of homeowners, many
of whom have deep roots in the community --including a married couple in their
80s who have lived in the same
home for more than 50 years -- took their case all the way to the Supreme Court.
On June 23 Supreme Court Justices
Kennedy, Breyer, Souter,
Ginsburg, and Stevens -- totally ignoring the argument that the “blighted”
designation was totally bogus -- ruled
5 to 4 (O’Conner, Rehnquist, Scalia and Thomas dissenting)
that the government could exercise “eminent domain” anyway because the Pfizer
complex would generate more tax revenue and thus benefit the community.
The rest, as they say is history,
but the history books aren’t closed on this one!
Kelo is not an isolated incident
The Institute for Justice, a public
interest law firm committed to protecting property rights, estimates that
over 10,000 homes nationwide are in danger of being destroyed by aggressive
local governments. The Kelo ruling sets
a precedent that officials may proceed with their
plans to seize the homes of private citizens to foster whatever they conceive
to be the “common good” and generate more tax income to fuel big government
spending programs.
Consider the following commentary from the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers
Association: “For many homeowners, the city’s argument (in Kelo) has all the subtlety of the
schoolyard bully who justifies taking your lunch money because, he says, he
has a better use for it. In California, we’ve seen redevelopment agencies
run roughshod over property owners for years. Unspoiled homes and other property
are declared ‘blighted’ so they can be condemned and turned into car dealerships
or supermarkets that will produce more tax revenue. The actual condition of
the property that is condemned seems to have little relevance -- in at least
one instance a golf course was declared blighted because it suited the goals
of the redevelopment commission. Back in New London, the homes targeted by
the city would be regarded by most people as middle class. Bad behavior by
redevelopment agencies is not all that surprising when one realizes that in
many communities the redevelopment commissioners are city council members
wearing a different hat. What better way to repay a developer’s campaign contribution
than to reward them with a piece of prime property for a new shopping mall?”
The Kelo decision ladies and gentleman, aside from being a formula for graft
and corruption, is outright tyranny.
This land is NOT your land: This land
is MY land!
Our Founding Fathers must be rolling
in their graves over the Supreme Court’s decision to allow the government
to collude with large corporations so that they can dispossess people of their
land and property. We fought a war over 200 years ago over this same type
of tyranny!
The Kelo ruling is FASCISM plain and
simple -- a diabolical hybrid of big government and big corporations: where
competition is limited and profits and tax revenues are maximized. The Kelo ruling is not
just un-American -- it represents a clear and present danger to each and every
American. No home is safe and your home could be next!
David Keene is the Chairman of The American Conservative
Union (ACU), the nation’s oldest conservative lobbying organization. ACU’s
purpose is to effectively communicate and advance the goals and principles
of conservatism through one multi-issue, umbrella organization. The Statement
of Principles makes clear ACU’s support of capitalism, belief in the doctrine of original
intent of the framers of the Constitution, confidence in traditional moral
values, and commitment to a strong national defense. For information on ACU
visit their web site at www.conservative.org.
