Reality Check
By James Scott Bell

Welcome to Moscow

Ever wonder what it must have been like in Moscow around 1919?

No?

Okay, did you ever wonder what it must have been like to be Sherman going back in time with Mr. Peabody, via the "Wayback Machine" and arrive in Moscow , 1919?

No again?

Well start thinking about it, because we're getting a taste of Leninism right here in the good old U. S. of A.

I speak of the decision of the United States Supreme Court called Kelo et al. v. City of New London (decided July 23, 2005). In a 5-4 decision (which means five, count 'em, five black robes set the policy), the Court holds that a city can take away your private property just because they think some other group is going to make better use of it.

This unprecedented holding makes a mockery of the Constitution and should give us all a shudder.

First, the facts.

The Petitioners all owned homes in the Fort Trumbull neighborhood of New London , Connecticut . Wilhelmina Dery was one of these. She currently lives in a house that has been in her family for over 100 years. She was born in the house in 1918; her husband, petitioner Charles Dery, moved into the house when they married in 1946. Their son lives next door with his family in the house he received as a wedding gift. Theirs is only one of many stories in that neighborhood.

In February 1998, Pfizer Inc., the pharmaceuticals manufacturer, announced that it would build a global research facility near the Fort Trumbull neighborhood. Two months later, New London 's city council saw this as an opportunity to "revitalize" the city, and decided they'd take over the Fort Trumbull neighborhood, boot out the residents and pay them for their trouble.

Problem is, a bunch of them don't want the money. They don't want to move. They are attached to their homes. They have views of the water, and sentimental memories, and . . . well, it doesn't really matter WHAT they have, because it's THEIR property!

You know, the Founding Fathers had a funny idea about private property. They believed that the OWNERS got to keep it, and THEY got to decide if they wanted to sell. They did allow one little exception, and put it in the Fifth Amendment of the Bill of Rights. The exception says, "[N]or shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation."

This is sometimes called the "takings clause." It says that public USE is the only exception, and even then "just compensation" must be paid.

Naturally, what constitutes "public use" is the big question. Well, one of them, because what "just compensation" means in most cases is "well below market value."

In this case, it's not public USE being talked about, but rather a public "benefit" the City of New London thought it saw. In other words, they decided they liked another plan for the property over private home ownership.

To which I answer, SO WHAT? It's not your property!

No problem for this city council. They decided flouting the Constitution was the better way to go.

Well, some of the folks of New Trumbull filed a lawsuit and won in the lower court. But the Connecticut Supreme Court overruled, and found for the city.

Incredibly, five members of the Supreme Court agreed! The four dissenters--O'Connor, Rehnquist, Scalia and Thomas--were scathing in their disagreement.

The most lucid of all was Thomas, who is the great champion of sticking to the TEXT of the Constitution, which is a novel idea these days (but wasn't to the Founders). Here's part of what Thomas had to say in dissent:

"The most natural reading of the [Takings] Clause is that it allows the government to take property only if the government owns, or the public has a legal right to use, the property, as opposed to taking it for any public purpose or necessity whatsoever . . . The consequences of today's decision are not difficult to predict, and promise to be harmful. So-called "urban renewal" programs provide some compensation for the properties they take, but no compensation is possible for the subjective value of these lands to the individuals displaced and the indignity inflicted by uprooting them from their homes. Allowing the government to take property solely for public purposes is bad enough, but extending the concept of public purpose to encompass any economically beneficial goal guarantees that these losses will fall disproportionately on poor communities."

The Kelo decision is an embarrassment to the great principles of our founding, another crack in what we thought was the armor of individual rights.

Moscow . 1919? Maybe not. But I sure wish Mr. Peabody would put James Madison and Alexander Hamilton in his Way Back Machine, bring them here to the present day, and set them in the Supreme Court so they could give those 5 Justices a verbal spanking.

www.jamesscottbell.com

Send me your opinions at jsbell@netlistings.com