The abuse of eminent domain
Big government gerrymandering tax laws (or sidestepping them) so as to ram through billion dollar corporate projects, dolling out corporate welfare money to huge (profit turning) multi-nationals, not to mention, taking land or expropriating it for legitimate public use and turning it over to politically connected private developers. What do the above all have in common? Yours truly, nb taxpayer, despises them all.
Anyway, since I have spoken ad nauseam about both corporate welfare and the gerrymandering of tax laws, I thought I would change the channel on here and delve into a concept, that is coming up more often south of the border, known as eminent domain. For those who have never heard of this term, it is legal principle which allows government to take private property for a "public use," such as a school or roads and bridges, in exchange for just compensation. In other words, the government can unilaterally and legally seize your private property (land) as long as they can prove that doing it will serve what's called "the public good". Government having that kind of power over citizens and their private property, for any reason, is enough to make a libertarian like myself puke.
However, what is even worse is that government's have abused this practice and are now forcing people off their land so that private developers can build more expensive homes, offices and big box stores that will pay more in property taxes than the buildings they're replacing. Not exactly what you call a "public good", IMHO.
If you are curious to know more, I urge you to watch this mini-documentary as "Reason.tv host Drew Carey visits National City, California, where the local government is taking eminent domain abuse to new lows". Even if you're not a libertarian, I guarantee you will be fuming about the lack of concern from big government. Have a look.
Anyway, since I have spoken ad nauseam about both corporate welfare and the gerrymandering of tax laws, I thought I would change the channel on here and delve into a concept, that is coming up more often south of the border, known as eminent domain. For those who have never heard of this term, it is legal principle which allows government to take private property for a "public use," such as a school or roads and bridges, in exchange for just compensation. In other words, the government can unilaterally and legally seize your private property (land) as long as they can prove that doing it will serve what's called "the public good". Government having that kind of power over citizens and their private property, for any reason, is enough to make a libertarian like myself puke.
However, what is even worse is that government's have abused this practice and are now forcing people off their land so that private developers can build more expensive homes, offices and big box stores that will pay more in property taxes than the buildings they're replacing. Not exactly what you call a "public good", IMHO.
If you are curious to know more, I urge you to watch this mini-documentary as "Reason.tv host Drew Carey visits National City, California, where the local government is taking eminent domain abuse to new lows". Even if you're not a libertarian, I guarantee you will be fuming about the lack of concern from big government. Have a look.
7 Comments:
We did a post on this a while ago which you may be interested in reading.
http://tinyurl.com/yo4sxw
In Canada, there is no constitutional protection of property rights...
Every time this comes up I shake my head.
The last one I heard of was a farm outside of a suburb being confiscated in order to build a strip mall.
Ownership should be a fundamental right and carry guaranteed protections and duties.
I agree with zip as protecting property rights is essentially a human right.
Conservatives should push for property rights to be enshrined in the constitution.
Last year, an SES poll found that 69 per cent of Canadians supported property as a right protected in the Charter.
Thanks for all the comments folks (and the link dubya dubya). It's definitely an interesting topic and one that needs more serious discussion from the conservative government of the day.
Absolutely, property rights should be sacrosanct-in other words given back to the original owners.
Absolutely, property rights should be sacrosanct-in other words given back to the original owners.
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