Some of you who've been reading my scintillating blog posts for long enough may remember me posting about eminent domain about this time last year. If you don't, reading this might help you catch up.
Anyway, so, the government is all in a tailspin of horror and Really Bad Things, but even so, every once in a while some member of government does something 100% right. Even if that someone is the Massive Fuckup In Charge, (henceforth referred to as MFIC.)
Just business as usual on Friday, June 23rd, at the White House: fucking up our economy, fucking up on immigration, fucking up our freedoms and Constitutional protections, protecting the property rights of American citizens against eminent domain abuse, fucking up the military, fucking up our international relationships...
...Wait, what?
Protecting our property rights?
How'd that get in there?
Well, actually it got in there like this:
By the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, and to strengthen the rights of the American people against the taking of their private property, it is hereby ordered as follows:Where'd that come from, you ask? Why, from the desk and pen of George W. "MFIC" Bush, himself, actually.
Section 1. Policy. It is the policy of the United States to protect the rights of Americans to their private property, including by limiting the taking of private property by the Federal Government to situations in which the taking is for public use, with just compensation, and for the purpose of benefiting the general public and not merely for the purpose of advancing the economic interest of private parties to be given ownership or use of the property taken.
You can read the whole thing here; basically it eliminates the powers of eminent domain as approved by the Supreme Court last year, preventing the local government from snatching your property except for compensated, specific (and LISTED) uses - which means that "increasing the local tax revenue" and "revenue-generating efficiency" are no longer an allowable reason for the local city coucil to steal your house.
WTF?!?
Well, honestly, after the ginormous fit I pitched last year when I read the Supremes' decision regarding New London, Connecticut, I'm not really in a position to complain about this whole thing TOO loudly. After all, for once, I totally agree with the MFIC that this is the right thing to do. Eminent domain was originally envisioned as a way to guarantee that if the public needed a new water processing station, one asshole with a house couldn't fuck it all up for the rest of us, not as a way for local government to build more strip malls. This takes things back to how they were originally conceived, and I for one cannot support this more.
