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Wednesday, January 04, 2006

AH, Kelo

Even while Democratic Underground is bewailing the horrible danger that SC Justice Alito would pose to our way of life, they maintain the delusion that it is the conservative wing of the Supreme Court that handed down the Kelo decision. See this thread on DU reacting to a story about a lady who had her home taken for a Walgreens:

1. that's a bunch of BS
eminent domain is bogus, and should have been struck down, rather than upheld by SCOTUS, IMO.
and:

12. Been going on for decades. Here in Tacoma 20 years ago the city... ousted an
entire 30-block working-class residential neighborhood dating from Victorian
times to build its TacomaDome and the vast wasteland of the adjacent parking
lots: a huge windfall for Big Business. Knoxville, Tennessee did the same thing
in the late '50s -- destroying an old, traditional and very stable Afro-American
community known (if memory serves) as "Happy Hollow" -- this to build a civic
auditorium and coliseum that benefited only the white aristocracy and their
white middle-class imitators. ... Old, bitter story of
government as the
servant and goon-squad of the oligarchy
: yet another indisputable proof
of the ultimate evil of capitalism, now
merely underscored by the
Bush Court's decision.
and:

28. Should be restricted to *exclusively* public needs, not
for-profits
Once you accept that helping out a business serves the "greater good" because it brings in more taxes, don't you then accept that other "help" to businesses is also justified for the greater good? How about relaxing workplace safety regulations? Environmental regulations? Of course this is what the Repugs have been trying to do all along. Now the party that has done everything it can to minimize business taxation is using the argument of "maximally effective taxation" to help businesses acquire property at most favorable prices, using a one-sided legal "justification" not available to private citizens!
and:

29. If the ACLU had a brain in their heads they would be on
this If only to see the RW talking heads pop like popcorn.


They simply seem unwilling to accept reality. The court that handed down the Kelo decision contained no appointees by President Bush, although I believe President Clinton's appointees voted for Kelo. The Democratic party is not the party trying to protect property rights. Very, very few citizens of this country believe that what is happening is right or constitutional. Why aren't we able to get Congress to follow our wishes?

The last commenter is right about the ACLU, although it isn't the rightwingers who are supporting eminent domain a la Justice Breyer. It's the left.

Comments:
I've had this discussion with quite a few people complaining about this decision by the conservative supreme court. however you want to spin it, when the dissenting justices are O'Connor, Rehnquist, Scalia and Thomas, three of whom are constantly being trashed for being radically conservative, you can't complain about it being a conservative court decision.
 
Great post!

Anyway, you are in fine form- the world is right again.

As for the rational and intelligent discussion, your looking at Kos and DU?
 
Tommy - but did you win the arguments? How can people maintain this delusion?

SC&A, there is a different tone at DU these days. They seem a lot more thoughtful. I think they are trying to figure out what they want out of the 2006 elections, and so have sacrificed ire for constructive thinking (comparatively, at least).
 
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