Our Rights Are Being Continually Eroded

[lehighguy]

I'm pretty sure teh patriot act states that you can pull any american off the street at any time for no reason and hold him without charges. It's been awhile since I looked at the thing, but I believe it's in there.

[lehighguy]

They seemed to be talking about doing just that for weeks if I remember.

[ACPlayer]

I believe the exact opposite.

Well, there lies the difference. A democratic society runs on the basis of it being a society. The principles of freedom of speech, assembly and privacy is the fabric that make the society work for all of us. While you may not see the effect on you on a daily basis, they effected those who lived under the KGB, even if they happened to never had their meager property taken from them (although the threat was there to be sure).

As long as we have the freedom of speech, we have the chance to change property rights. Once the basic freedoms are lost we have little chance to change anything easily. The slippery slope that we are on of diluting personal rights is far more dangerous than the slippery slope we are on of diluting property rights. Although they both are not good.

For the record, I have read all four opinions in the New London case and generally find for the majority -- although it is close and am glad that the dissents have been entered.

[JoshuaMayes]

[ QUOTE ]
I'm sleeping fine tonight.

[/ QUOTE ]

Thats because it wasn't your family's house that was handed over to Pfizer.

[JoshuaMayes]

[ QUOTE ]

Secondly, anyone that believes the Constitution 'demands' the judiciary intercede on behalf of an aggrieved minority against the will of legitimately elected officials sounds like a call for judicial activism - judicial activism, mind you, that the right so thoroughly and consistently derides.

[/ QUOTE ]

Enforcing the explicit textual provisions of the Constitution is not judicial activism, it is judging.

As for your challenge, see U.S. Const. amend. V ("[N]or shall private property be taken for public use , without just compensation."); U.S. Const. amend. XIV ("No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law. . . .").

[JoshuaMayes]

[ QUOTE ]
I'm sure there is enough leway in the actual words of the constitution that they can justify it.

[/ QUOTE ]

What leeway is there in the words "public use?" I could have defined those words for you when I was ten, without a law degree, briefs or oral argument.

[JoshuaMayes]

[ QUOTE ]
I place a higher premium on privacy rights, freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, freedom of religion over property rights.

[/ QUOTE ]

Translation: please take all my things, leave me homeless and hungry, so long as you don't take away my right to burn the flag in protest and pray for a better day. I must say, I think the abundance of food, clothing and shelter in this country has skewed your priorities . . . .

[lehighguy]

There is an amazing human capacity to rationalize anything. If the courts goal is to implement policy, it can come up with any wacky rationalization it wants. Hence the reasoning in this case:
Taking property from one private party and giving it to another will benefit the community (public use).

Now this might not be the way you, I, or any sane rational person would define public use, but it is the way the court has once it defines the words and terms to mean whatever it wants.

The only decision from the supreme court I've read that makes absolutely no logical sense, I mean they didn't even try, was the affirmitive action case (Bakke).

[shots]

But if you severely twist the obvious intention of what the consttitution says to suit whatever your purposes are is that not ignoring the constitution? You can justify under some flimsy pretext of an interpretation but just because you call it that doesn't mean that's what it is.

[lehighguy]

I agree. I'm just pointing out that they are legally correct. Morally or ethically correct has nothing to do with legally correct.

After all, who's going to tell them thier interpretation is the wrong one.