Once again I'm dumb enough to take the bait.
First of all, I don't like eminent domain, but I don't really care about Kelo. Rulings that overturn state law, even when I like the outcome, disempower state governments by empowering DC, so it's six of one or half a dozen of the other. In the long run, my gut says we're better off letting Texas be fascist and Vermont be socialist.
Second of all, the "fair compensation" is bullshit. It's based on what your property would be worth if it weren't about to have a highly profitable business built on it, which it is. I'd like to see some kind of "rent" paid to the dispossessed owner based on the profits the property generates.
Third, you restate my post as an equation of speech rights with property rights. Well, I never thought of it that way, but you don't explain the difference between the right to burn your flag and the right not to have your flag (but not everyone else's) seized before you burn it.
Fourth, "If one is outraged that the Rich can manipulate elected politicians into seizing desirable property, it is not democracy's fault nor is it the fault of the righteous state power of eminent domain: rather, it is the fault of the Rich and the politicians."
Is it truly inconceivable to you that a majority of voters might independently support a government that does things you don't like? I don't know exactly when it was the first time a democracy made an innocent person drink hemlock, but it was probably a couple of years before Santa Clara v. Southern Pacific. That's why we put limits on their power.
I actually agree with some of that.
Except for the thinking in property terms in number three, which is retarded. It's not that one burns his property, it's that one burns a symbol and thus engages in a political statement. Christ, Marxists used to be accused of seeing everything through a materialist lens, but you libs take the cake.
One has a *blanket* right to free political expression in this country according to the Contn. One has a blanket right to human rights of life, free expression and privacy that can only be revoked under well-spelled out extreme circumstances. there is not such similar safeguard to property in the contn or especially in the original declaration. For fuck's sake taxes are property-seizure and *every state* in the fucking history of the world has had to levy them. Taking a portion of your property, or taking much of it but with compensation, is just not the fucking same as silencing you or shooting you in the head on whim or sticking fucking cameras in your home. do you not get it? you arent fucking *entitled* to your Humvee in the same way as you are entitled to breathe and speak and think.
Put another way, do you really think that someone denting your car has done as much of an injustice as someone who has dented your head? Property=human would hold that, yes, it's all the same. But common fucking sense tells you it's not.
And that last was also precious. Look, Greece didnt have a bill of rights. greece wasn't founded on a jeffersonian declaration of human rights. the greece that killed socrates was 2500 years old.
But come to think of it, it's not like the death penalty looms large on the list of fucking libertarian activist causes now does it? otoh, those awful socialist democracies that dont protect precious property as much as libs insist have done away with the practice. in fact, from what I can tell a human death penalty isn;t so bad from the lib point of view, but heaven forbid a corporate death penalty being issued by the state! i hate modern libertarianism with a passion normally reserved for only for overt fascism. property and corps, being held to be "equal" to and indivisible from humans (and human rights), actually fucking trump them every time.
For fuck's sake taxes are property-seizure and *every state* in the fucking history of the world has had to levy them.
I don't know why I bother carefully qualifying statements like "the right not to have your flag (but not everyone else's) seized" when you don't have the attention span to read them. The difference between taxation and other takings is that taxes, properly drafted, don't single out unpopular individuals or groups. Not everyone gets his/her house knocked down for Wal-Mart.
My proposal was to have DEMOCRATS' flags confiscated and redistributed. Just Democrats'. That would seem to violate some right, no matter how one phrases it.
And I'll happily tell you what I think about a subject like the death penalty (though Google can probably do that already) but I'm not going to speak for or try to defend the demonic libertarians that you apparently see every time you close your eyes.
Right. All I have to do is look at Nieporent as see demonic libertarianism. Yes, he's an atypical one on foriegn policy, and he uses "libertarianism" as a lame defense against being called a wingnut (a la glenn reynolds) far too much, but *you* have to admit that in much of the batshit he spews, he's fairly representative of the lot.
But, now that you mention it, didnt you convert because of demonic social dems at college who were supposedly unreconstructed maoists?
Wha? You said something negative about Wal-Mart? can I print and frame it? Weren't you not too long ago defending Wal-Mart's right to bribe --er, im sorry, you call it "speech". Wal-Mart having the government knock down people's homes is the natural consequence of your beloved "speech".
Wha?
That pretty well sums up your reaction to everything I write that's not in total agreement with Mark Steyn.
Commenting by HaloScan
