Lazarus Austin is a junior majoring in history. He can be contacted at [email protected].Do you like where you live? Been living there for a while? Does your home have a long history?
Well, too bad. A bunch of people want a shopping mall nearby, and your land is the perfect place to build one.
Don’t have the means to fight it? Again, too bad. Rich corporations and politicians don’t care.
Well, guess what? Many local governments actually have the power to do just that to your home, all for “public use.”
It happens all the time. Recently, it has happened in Garfield Heights, Ohio; New London, Conn.; and even in Canton, Miss.
It’s called Eminent Domain. The justification, or legal basis for it, is ironically the Fifth Amendment, which, to paraphrase it, says private property shall not be taken for public use without just compensation.
I will spare everyone the long history of the subject, which can easily be found on the Internet.
Let me clarify though that, in the past, a lot of good has come from Eminent Domain, particularly the 42,000 miles of Interstate we take advantage of today.
In the past fifty years however, the Takings Clause, as it is called, of the Fifth Amendment has been abused by trigger-happy politicians and by rich, ambitious businesspeople.
Originally, governments only seized people’s property to use for government-related functions such as roads, schools, post offices, etc. Recently, however, they have started taking peoples’ property, without their consent, to give to other private entities, usually big corporations.
In the words of former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor, this “eliminates any distinction between private and public use of property-and thereby effectively deletes the words ‘for public use’ from the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment.” The new legal system has completely changed and misconstrued the phrase “public use.”
As a result, the government is effectively taking from the poor to give to the rich. The primary beneficiaries of these actions will be those who profit from the business-the corporations and their owners.
Eminent Domain is encouraging the divide between the poor and the rich and granting the rich unprecedented power over the poor, an obvious violation of our basic rights.
As a result, the potential for abuse is too enormous. The temptation for politicians and businesses to fill their pockets is not avoidable. Already, local governments across the country are taking advantage of the power of Eminent Domain to replace people’s homes with condominiums, luxury hotels, shopping malls and other so-called “public” facilities.
This trampling of people’s basic liberties is against everything this country stands for. Our country is founded on a deep respect for the individual and his basic rights. The trampling of the individual to meet the needs of the whole is a utilitarian approach that is a perfect example of another very successful ideology: Communism.
The victims of this communist policy should at least be given the “just compensation” they are promised by the Constitution.
But they are often denied even that. Most governments will only compensate them for the fair market value of the home they are seizing, if that much.
The market value of the victim’s property alone is not nearly enough compensation for their trouble.
We have to consider all the other non-tangible things, such as the inconvenience factor, the sentimental value of the property and the displacement.
And to make things worse, many of these scenarios are avoidable.
In 2001, the state of Mississippi tried to seize the Archies’ family property so that it could be used for part of the development of the Nissan auto plant. After taking the case to the Mississippi Supreme Court, the State eventually revoked its decision, and Nissan simply decided to redesign its truck manufacturing facility.
There are often alternatives to using Eminent Domain, but they are often overlooked to accommodate the demands of private corporations.
In the case of the Nissan plant, the state simply wanted to save face and show Nissan and other potential incoming companies that they would do what they said they would do.
Although Eminent Domain has done a lot of good, its modern day version has been diluted from its original conception and misused by those in power.
Its use needs to be strictly limited to the public’s needs and very rarely should include taking someone’s property to give to someone else.