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June 23, 2005
Recent Supreme Court Decisions: Wrong But Not Evil
Today the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 to allow local jurisdictions to take private property by imminent domain and give it to private developers. This ruling in KELO et al. v. CITY OF NEW LONDON greatly broadens the legal meaning of the words “public use” in the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution. In effect, the Court ruled that "public use" could mean "private use" if such private use was deemed in the greater public good. This ruling joins RAICH v. ASHCROFT against the private the medical use of marijuana as rulings with which I strongly disagree. You can read Ed Brayton's take on both here and here. In both cases, he offers links to other analyses. With perhaps a quibble or two, I agree with Ed on both these rulings. In addition, he is far more qualified than I am to have an opinion.
My own take is that the Court, whether the majority is "liberal" as in Kelo or "conservative" as in Raich has shown a tendency to favor government policy over individual rights in many of its recent decisions. This trend, if it is one, is alarming. However, I have an even greater concern. That has to do with the reaction to many of the recent Court rulings. While Ed is not guilty of this, I am concern that many reactions feed into the hands of those who would denigrate the Court and weaken the balance of powers. I worry that some of the reactions come too close to this error. I feel the article on the WorldNetDaily comes close to over reacting and Right Wing News crosses the line with things like,
So much for private property rights. Kennedy and Souter voted with the majority, proving once again just how essential it is that Bush pick somebody reliably - and permanently - conservative when there's an opening.
and
. . . it's a moral outrage.
And Right Wing Howler is even more hysterical,
I think it is time we look into impeachment procedures for Supreme Court Justices.
I'll let you find others on your own.
I have written on this issue before. All of us who value the balance of powers need to be sure that in our criticism of individual rulings we don't confuse decisions with which we strongly disagree with evil decisions. Let's leave that to others.
Posted by DuaneSmith at June 23, 2005 08:02 PM | Read more on Current Events |
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Comments
The hilarious thing is that all these sky-is-falling types don't realize that this was ALREADY THE LAW.
Posted by: Eli at June 24, 2005 08:18 AM
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