Uncle Sam Wants You,(or just Your House!)

[Richard Brand]

                A small framed house with a white picket fence on a quiet suburban street; sound familiar? It should, after all it is the quintessential American Dream. The idea of owning a parcel of land, investing in the future through the value of a home, and having a place to call your own, runs deep in the veins of every American.  It is our own individual “manifest destiny.” After the soldiers returned from World War II, equipped with the G.I. Bill and a strong desire to set roots, suburbia and the idea of personal ownership of houses exploded in America, even while it lessened in Europe. By the 1950’s, even the house lending policies had changed to accommodate more people in their search for a piece of the American pie. It seemed nothing could stand in the way of one’s right to own their piece of America; nothing except the government that is. As the cities grew and the need for improved infrastructure became eminent, governments began to use the policy of eminent domain and claim personal property in the name of progress.

                First, it is important to realize that this is not a new concept. Hugo Grotius penned the phrase (in Latin dominium eminens) in 1625. (www.stanford.edu) He claimed that all property is “under eminent domain of the state, so that the state or he who acts for it may use and even alienate and destroy such property, not only in the case of extreme necessity.” This practice has been used in other countries for centuries, the idea that one person’s rights are not as important as society’s need as a whole. In America this practice became upheld with the Supreme Court case Kelo v. New London in 2005 when the court decided in favor of the city. Of course that opinion expanded the meaning to reach further than literal “public use,” but we will talk about that in a minute. The battle between personal property rights and the need for expansion has been around even before then. The tactic is simple, if you are in the way the city, county, or whichever governing body is directly over you will simply come in and condemn your building. You simply cannot reside in a condemned structure. Once the building is condemned, the city buys your property for “fair market value” which usually means the values of the land it occupies, not the building that has recently been condemned and therefore not worth much. If your piece of land, to even your house sat in the path of a proposed road, or municipal structure, your rights were forfeited for the good of others. The new roadway that might connect two overcrowded thoroughfares might ease the congestion and therefore benefit everyone, unless that proposed spur happens to be right in the middle of your livingroom. It would appear as if they have taken the philosophy from Spock, “the need of many outweighs the wants of one.” There is a question that arises from this, however. How do you determine if it is a “need” of the many or just a “want.”

In the Kelo case, Judge Stevens expanded the idea of “public use” to include the economic development plans. There for the idea of taking a person’s property is no longer limited to simple public use, but for public “betterment.” My favorite example of this is the new Cowboys Stadium or know to locals as “Jerry’s World.” In order to build the massive UFO looking stadium, the city had to remove “104 homes of an estimated 312 residents, forcing the evacuation of an estimated 871 residents from several destroyed apartment complexes, obliterating 32 businesses, everything from restaurants to tire stores to banks to motels,” said Eyes on Texas a local watch group. (www.durangotexas.org/cowboystadium) A few legal cases were filed in an attempt to stave of the forced relocation of residents, but in the end the courts decided in favor of the stadium. Since the stadium was built, the local economy has enjoyed some benefits. The local area has seen an increase of businesses around the arena and there has been a Super Bowl brought to north Texas for the first time. Of course, the city is paying for an increase in police force around these events for everything from traffic control, and patrolling, to handling the influx of prostitution and other crimes. There is the small matter of the tax payer contribution in building the stadium and the fifty dollar parking around the several tourist attractions that were already in Arlington, but the average citizen is better off, right?

                Let’s view the income per capita difference before Jerry’s world and after for three cities; Arlington (the home of Cowboys Stadium), Dallas and Ft. Worth. In 2000 the per capita of Arlington was $47,622, Dallas $37,628, and Ft. Worth $37,074. Arlington, as a suburb between the two cities had a slightly higher income per capita than either of the two major hubs. In 2009, after the massive building project, the per capita per city was $50,938, $39,829, and $47,534 respectively. That means that the net increase over 9 years was as follows, $3,316, $2,201, and $10,560 with Ft. Worth being clearly the highest increase of income. (Data compiled from www.census.gov and www.city-data.com) The idea behind uprooting all of those residents, businesses, and lives was to increase money flow into the city, make the population better off, after all Judge Stevens allowed the definition to include economic development.

                Controversial issues, such as abortion, has rested on the shoulders of privacy. The Third Amendment prohibits the government for quartering soldiers in private houses, because of the respect of private property. America heralds the rights of the individual above all else; even so much as to use force when one nation is trampling the natural rights of their citizens. How is it possible that such an arcane policy as eminent domain can still be in practice today? How can such a practice be justified to increase the wealth of a modern day oligarchy? The Marxist would argue that the masses now have a distraction, a form of entertainment that will placate them. In other words, don’t focus on the fact you lost your house, just look at the bright shiny new toy. The true capitalist would be offended by the idea of government being employed to take the property away from an individual, much less appalled by the idea of earning wealth at the hands of the government.  Here is my question, does the government, any level of the government have the right to take your property? Is it right? Do you agree with Judge Stevens, that economic development is justified as “public uses?”

[Pamela Ann Cameron]

     Richard, first I must say I liked the Spock reference. In response to your eloquently posed questions, let me respond.  The government does not have the right to take private property, in my opinion.  In looking at this issue, one must first examine the Constitution of the United States and learn what the founding fathers believed about private property and property rights.  An author named Rick Lynch wrote an article entitled "Property Rights, Freedom, and the Constitution" in 2009.  It explains very well the framers' perspective:

     In a political context, virtually nothing was as important to the Framers as property rights. As Christopher Collier and James Lincoln Collier point out in their book Decision in Philadelphia, those men had “an almost religious respect” for property, that “the rights of property were inviolable,” and that the Constitution itself is the embodiment of the rights of property as developed primarily by John Locke in the 17th century.

John Adams and James Madison had some pretty weighty opinions on this subject:

The moment the idea is admitted into society that property is not as sacred as the laws of God and that there is not a force of law and public justice to protect it anarchy and tyranny commence. If “Thou shalt not covet,” and “Thou shalt not steal,” were not commandments of heaven, they must be made inviolable precepts in every society before it can be civilized or made free. (John Adams)

Property is surely a right of mankind, as really as liberty. (John Adams)

Government is instituted to protect property of every sort; as well that which lies in the various rights of individuals, as that which the term particularly expresses. This being the end of government, that alone is a just government, which impartially secures to every man, whatever is his own. (James Madison)

Tyranny is a very strong word; however, I believe that John Adams uses it correctly in this case.  It is part of the American Dream to own a piece of land.  If the government (as in the decision of a court) decides to take it away, that government is engaging in a tyrannical abuse of power.

America and its governing philosophy is supposed to be based on the rule of law and the protection of individual freedom.  I believe the majority of eminent domain issues should be settled in favor of preserving individual property rights.  Unfortunately, that is not the philosophy of most levels of government today.

Mr. Lynch, in his article, had some more enlightening things to say about this issue:

Most startling of all, perhaps, was Forrest McDonald’s observation in his book Novus Ordo Seclorum that property rights were so important to the Framers that all but 4 of the 55 men at the Constitutional Convention placed their protection behind only liberty itself as the sacred charge of government. And of the four who disagreed on this point, three of them differed not because they valued property rights less than their fellows but because they actually “put [their] protection ahead of liberty as the main object of society.”

I believe the founding fathers would be appalled at the way Judge Stevens and many others like him deal with this issue.  I believe that the government does not constitutionally have the right to take my property or the property of the poor little lady who refused to move off her land that happened to be in the path of "Jerry World" and was forcibly removed by the sheriff as she watched her home being bulldozed.

Pamela A. Cameron