I went to bed and woke up in Zimbabwe

So, the Supreme Court has issued an opinion (CNN Story, Actual Opinion On FindLaw) that local governments can seize private property for any reason as long as they state that it is for the public good under the “Eminent Domain” clause in the Constitution. This includes taking someone’s home and handing it over to a developer to build a mall or anything else. So long as the government officials state that the community would receive benefit from the transaction, it’s okay.

Where do I live again? It appears that property ownership in the U.S. is now a complete and utter farce. You can work your whole life to own a beautiful piece of property, spend thousands of sweat hours creating your dream, only to have a developer convince the government that a business would look better there. Or how about a parking lot? Whizzo, whammo, you get to start all over somewhere else.

So much for picking a house or property because you think it’s beautiful. If it’s river front or lake front, you’d better consider whether a developer would want it as well. If they would, you might just walk away while you have the chance.

I am utterly furious that the Supreme Court could rule this way. They have often erred on the side of caution, often suggesting a check-and-balance be put into place before issuing such a damaging ruling.

As far as I can see, homeowners now have no right to dispute their local government when they come knocking on (down) the door. The ruling states that “Though the city could not take petitioners’ land simply to confer a private benefit on a particular private party, see, e.g., Midkiff, 467 U. S., at 245, the takings at issue here would be executed pursuant to a carefully considered development plan, which was not adopted “to benefit a particular class of identifiable individuals.””

 To me this seems to say that if you can’t identify a “class” of individuals who would solely benefit from the transaction, then there is nothing that can be done to stop it.

So, if a group of politicans decides to go on a campaign to weed out undesirables in a community, they can simply pick and choose houses or businesses to seize, give them to private developers, and be done with the matter. That’s what is going on in Zimbabwe — government officials punishing the poor for voting against them in recent elections by razing their homes and businesses, confiscating their belongings, jailing some who oppose them, and transporting the rest into the forest and dumping them there to fend for themselves.

Will it come to this in the U.S.? I hope not. But it seems like the Supreme Court has decided that governments now have the right to take away property as they see fit. So, who really owns property in the U.S.? It seems that the government does.

Mark