So when I heard the news about the Supreme Court decision that allows local governments to seize personal property and sell it to developers I demurred. 

     “No, that can’t possibly be what the decision means” I said to myself, “The incompetent, sensationalist, mainstream media has got it wrong somehow.  That’s got to be it.”

     I figured that maybe it was a case of property being seized for back taxes and sold to a developer, or maybe an application of eminent domain that included a hospital run by a private corporation in a community that needed a hospital…something maybe disturbing…as any seizure of private property is…but something at least arguable.

     Let me clarify this so nobody makes a mistake about my opinions.  I support the concept of eminent domain.  Public health and public well-being cannot be obstructed by hold-outs.  If we need a school, or a highway, waste treatment plant, landfill, water tower, airport, hospital…whatever…then we need it.  It would be nice if the government actually had to pay what you could get for the house on the open market …and in most cases they don’t…but at least the public good is served, and the individual gets compensation.

     But seizing personal property so that a private developer can build a hotel, a health club and some office buildings?  No.  That’s not OK. 

     Maybe these businesses WILL help the economic health of the city, but there are other ways to accomplish this.  Actually approaching all the property owners and offering to buy their property, for one.  Giving them relocation funds, and maybe – oh, I don’t know, call me crazy – making it worth their while to part with their property?

     Dear Mr. Developer,

     You want to knock down my house, and the houses of a couple dozen of my closest neighbors in order to build a health club, a hotel and an office park?  You stand to make millions of dollars, and the city stands to make hundreds of thousands of dollars per year in additional taxes?

     Hey, looks like I hit the jackpot.  Let’s start negotiatin’  talk to me baby, let’s see if we can make a deal.

     Last guy standing gets the big bucks.  It’s not fair, but life’s not fair.  Deal.  You’re a multi-million-dollar-developer.  You’ve got a $1000 suit, and a manicure, and a really really nice hair-cut.  This is what you were raised in that test tube and programmed in that private business school to do.  Talk to me and make your daddy proud.

Sincerely,

Concerned Citizen

     Not anymore.  Now, Mr. Developer throws some heavy cash around the elected city officials, throws a party or two, and suddenly their first offer is their last offer, and you can take it or not, but here’s the date the bulldozers will be showing up.

     It has been an off-and-on discussion amongst people I know for quite some time that the Federal Government is not the biggest danger to our personal freedom and independence…that big money and big corporations are.

     It wasn’t that long ago that your employer could spy on you, film you without your knowledge or consent, profit greatly from your untimely death, etc. and the Federal Government couldn’t, for instance. 

     Then the Patriot Acts came along and the government surged ahead…

     But now, big business is in the lead again with a strange new ally and the blessings of a branch of the Federal Government.  You get to elect the strong-arm big-money enforcers who bully you into giving in to the big man.  Progress!…but cheer up.  At least that elderly couple who scrimped and saved and sacrificed to buy the home they hoped to live in until they died won’t get in the way of the new mall.

     Sure it’s sad for the old couple…but now you’ll only have to drive 10 minutes instead of 20 to get your Cold Stone Ice Cream, your Culver’s Butterburger, and your Krispy Kremes.  The public good is served.

     God Bless America.

     But on the bright side (because I always look on the bright side), maybe people will pay more attention to local politics from now on.