Put yourself in the homeowner’s
shoes. You buy a home for your family. Perhaps it’s even handed down from your
farther or grandfather. It’s a place you can afford in a neighborhood you like.
The children have made friends. You intend to stay for the rest of your life.
As you plant your garden, landscape
the yard, put up a swing set for the kids, and mold your land into a home,
unknown to you, certain city officials are meeting around a table with
developers. In front of them are maps, plats and photographs – of your home.
They talk of dollars – big dollars. Tax revenues for the city, huge profits for
the developer. A shopping center with all the trimmings begins to take shape.
You’re not asked for input or permission. You’re not even notified until the whole
project is finalized and the only minor detail is to get rid of you.
Then the pressure begins. A notice
comes in the mail telling you that the city intends to take your land. An offer
of compensation is made, usually below the market price you could get if you
sold it yourself. The explanation given is that, since the government is going
to take the land, it’s not worth the old market price. Some neighbors begin to
sell and move away. With the loss of each one, the pressure mounts on you to
sell. Visits from government agents become routine. Newspaper articles depict
you as unreasonably holding up community progress. They call you greedy.
Finally, the bulldozers move in on the properties already sold. The
neighborhood becomes unlivable. It looks like a war zone.
Like being attacked by a conquering
army, you are finally surrounded, with no place to run, but the courts.
However, you’re certain of victory. The United States was built on the very
premise of the protection of private property rights. How can a government
possibly be allowed to take anyone’s home for private gain?
Under any circumstances this should
be considered criminal behavior. It used to be. If city officials were caught
padding their own pockets or those of their friends it was considered graft.
That’s why RICO laws were created.
Finally, five black robes named
Stevens, Souter, Ginsburg, Kennedy, and Breyer shock the nation by ruling that
officials who have behaved like Tony Soprano are in the right and you have to
vacate your property.
These four men and one woman have
ruled that the United States Constitution is truly meaningless. Their ruling in
the Kelo case declared that Americans own nothing. After declaring that all
property is subject to the whim of a government official, it’s just a short
trip to declaring that government can now confiscate anything we own; anything
we create; anything we believe.
Astonishing. The members of the
Supreme Court have nothing to do but defend the Constitution and keep it the
pure document the Founding Fathers created to recognize and protect the rights
with which we were born. They sit in their lofty ivory tower, never worrying
about job security with their life-time appointments. And yet, they have
obviously missed finding a copy of the Federalist Papers, which were written by
many of the Founders to explain to the American people how they envisioned the
new government would work. They have missed the collected writings of James
Madison, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams and George Washington, just to mention a
very few. It’s obvious because otherwise, there is simply no way they could
have reached this decision – unless implementing another agenda was their
purpose.
I don’t have the benefit of the
Justices’ grand staffs or unending salaries. But just a little research has
turned up pretty much everything Stevens, Souter, Ginsburg, Kennedy, and Breyer
would have needed to reach a logical conclusion that protection of private
property rights are the most important rights, vital to the very foundation of
a free society.
Our Founding Fathers left no doubt
in their writings, their deeds, or their governing documents as to where they
stood on the vital importance of private property. John Locke, the man whom the
Founders followed as they created this nation said, “Government has no other
end than the preservation of property.” John Adams said, “The moment the idea
is admitted into society that property is not as sacred as the laws of God; and
there is not a force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and
tyranny commence.”
One would be hard pressed to find a
single word in the writings of the Founding Fathers to support the premise that
it’s okay to take private property for economic development. To the contrary,
they believed that the root of economic prosperity is the protection of private
property.
So how did Stevens, Souter,
Ginsburg, Kennedy, and Breyer miss such a rock solid foundation of American
law? Perhaps they didn’t. Perhaps they chose to ignore it in favor of another
agenda. Specifically, Agenda 21.
For several years, certain members
of the Supreme Court have been discussing the need to review international law
and foreign court decisions to determine U.S. Supreme Court rulings. Justice
Breyer has been the most outspoken for this policy, saying, “We face an
increasing number of domestic legal questions that directly implicate foreign
or international law.”
What international laws are these?
In general, the most pervasive are a series of UN international treaties,
including several that address issues of climate, resource use, biological
diversity, and community development. Specifically, Agenda 21, signed by the
United States at the UN’s Earth Summit in 1992, calls for implementing what
former Vice President Al Gore called a “wrenching transformation” of our
nation, through a policy called Sustainable Development. Sustainable
Development is the official policy of the United States and almost every single
city and small burg in the nation.
Sustainable Development is top-down
control, a ruling principle that affects nearly every aspect of our lives,
including; the kind of homes we may live in; water policy that dictates the
amount each American may use in a day; drastic reductions of energy use; the
imposition of public transportation; even the number of inhabitants that may be
allowed inside city borders. Most Americans have heard of a small part of this
policy operating under the name Smart Growth. Agenda 21 outlines specific goals
and a tight timetable for implementation. In June, 2005, the UN held a major
gathering in San Francisco where the mayors of cities from across the nation
and around the world gathered to pledge to impose Sustainable polices.
In order to meet such goals,
federal, state and local governments are scrambling to impose strict policies
on development and land use. The use of Eminent Domain has become a favorite
tool. Sustainable Development calls for partnerships between the public sector
(your local government) and private businesses.
Now, as the public/private
partnerships move to enforce Sustainable Development in local communities, an
unholy alliance is also forming, allowing corrupt politicians to line their
pockets and gain power as they partner with select businesses and developers to
build personal wealth and power. They plot to take land that isn’t theirs for
personal gain, while claiming it’s for the “public good.” That’s all the excuse
they’ve needed to hide their true intent.
However, things have been changing
as such brutal, organized theft has spread across the nation in the name of
community development and environmental protections. American have started to
fight back to protect their property. In Oregon, people went to the ballot box
and shocked lawmakers by passing Measure 37, which says the government must
either pay full price for any land taken, or waive the regulation and leave the
property owner alone. In Wisconsin, the state legislature passed a bill to stop
Smart Growth policies that are destroying property owners. In Michigan, the
state Supreme Court overturned the precedent-setting ruling it made more than
20 years ago that allowed the use of Eminent Domain in taking property for
private use. In fact, it was that original ruling that had been used by
communities across the nation to justify their own Eminent Domain takings.
Clearly, the nation has started to
rise up to stop this assault on private property. Without the power to grab
property at will, the ability for communities to implement Sustainable
Development has come into question.
Those who support Sustainable
Development and Agenda 21 needed something big to put things back on track. The
Supreme Court, which has already stated that it must look to international laws
and treaties to decide American law, provided the answer. Stevens, Souter,
Ginsburg, Kennedy, and Breyer chose Sustainable Development and Agenda 21 over
the Constitution of the United States.
However, the effort may well be
backfiring on the Sustainablists as the nation is reacted in force to protect
property rights. Now, state legislatures and the U.S. Congress are rushing to
produce legislation to restore property rights protections. Even Americans who
have rarely uttered a political thought are suddenly becoming feverish with
zeal for the Fifth Amendment. Americans may be learning all over again what the
Founding Fathers knew – that the right to own and control private property is
the most important right
That is all well and good, of
course, but Americans must do much more than just get upset. They need to get
behind those legislative efforts at every level of government to assure
passage. They must dig in at the local level to foil efforts by their mayors
and city councils to impose Eminent Domain against their neighbors. We must run
this organized theft (now masquerading as the “common good”) out of town on a
rail. And don’t forget to leave room on that rail for Stevens, Souter,
Ginsburg, Kennedy, and Breyer.
Tom DeWeese is one of the nation’s
leading advocates of individual liberty, free enterprise, private property
rights, personal privacy, back-to-basics education and American sovereignty and
independence.
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