This is fucked up

Apparently, if the city of Dana Point wanted to raze my neighbourhood to build an ocean front hotel (I live walking distance to the beach), it could. Now apply this concept everywhere.

Corporations > People, don’t you understand that? If not, I can find you a nice home down in Guantanamo Bay area…

Nobody has ever heard of Eminent Domain? That’s what happens to people who live in the way of planned highways and land that businesses want.

Isn’t the government forced to pay or relocate the people they displace, though? (Not that it makes up for this affront.)

There’s a difference, though. Eminent domain applies when the government wants to build a federal highway, or some other project for “public use,” on land that is currently privately owned. The ruling that Sinistral is referring to holds that the government can seize property from somebody, and simply give the exclusive, private ownership rights to that property over to somebody else.

Dark Knight is right, y’know, Corps generally win whatever they try against the little guy.

Yes, the government does have to pay for the land, but they pay a rate based on the
CURRENT value of the land based on their own appraisers. If the appraisal says “This land is worth 10k an acre now, but will rise to 50k an acre in 1 year,” The government pays 10k an acre, and laughs at you.

This is similar to what “W” did in Texas as governor. He seized land for the government, then they built Rangers’ Stadium on that land. He is still being sued over that little bit of illegality.

Basically, it appears that they have expanded Eminent Domain to include for-profit business deals. Wow, just typing that line made me cringe.

Eminent Domain Abuse has been a hot topic among Libertarians for a while now. I’ve heard Neal Boortz harp on the issue for a while now. It’s a power that needs to exist for justifiable public works such as roads, but taking land then giving (or selling, whatever) it to Wal Mart or any other private business is just “guh.”

Given this corporate pocket-lining ruling, I see no end to other such schemes such as indefinitely lengthening copyrights. I like capitalism and all, but corporatism just makes me sick. :confused:

I was just listening to this on NPR, actually. They said that local governments can seize land for private use if they consider it to be for the public good, such as economic growth.

This has been happening for so long around me.

First they destroyed a bunch of homes (and by bunch, i mean one metric fuckton of homes), to build the “blue route” so people could get into philly faster.

Then they started taking down whole neighborhoods for “renewal” but replacing them with buildings zoned for commercial business instead of residential living.

And lately, in my own town, sprawl is a HUGE problem. The developers like Toll Brothers, Ryan Homes, whoever, get rights to tear down historic buildings (shit from like, the battle of the brandywine) so they can build a new yuppie-haven development.

THIS is fucked up:
http://img240.echo.cx/img240/9971/iburnedmygfscooter17hd.jpg

Exactly, there going to do that over the Cowboy stadium over here as well, or for some other project. People are trying to fight it, but so far they’ve lost. I’d be pissed too if the government came to my house and told me they were going to place a freakin’ stadium over it.

And? They’ve technically been able to that here for long It’s called zoning. ( byplanlegging in Norwegian. )

Long story short: Sometime in between President Johnson and President Reagan, the “War On Poverty” got transformed into the “War On Poor People.”

And funnily enough, it’s the conservative justices that voted against this decision. It’s the more liberal ones that expanded Eminent Domain.

I guess this is what happens when Setz isnt allowed to post that kind of shit HERE anymore

In Brazil the government can’t take your land if it’s built in a zoned area. There are people who simply come and build in unzoned areas. There are even companies who build there and sell the homes. But if the government is to take those homes down, they must pay the value of that home AND give the owner some land, with houses or apartments provided, of at least equivalent value to the ones being taken, prior to driving the owner out of his property.