Eminent Domain and Property Rights

The recent ruling by the Supreme Court on the New London Conn eminent domain case came as no surprise to me, in the sense that it is an old unsettled issue.

Why so many Americans are surprised is beyond me. For decades, the Government has used "eminent domain" to take people's properties away.

Perhaps another sign of basic American ignorance in their own civic matters.

"Eminent domain" was inherited from the British Common laws, it is a fundamental recognition of ultimate State ownership of all property.

This too should not be a surprise. I have said many times, that we don't really own any land in any country.

Here, in US, we have to pay real estate property tax each year, even if we do nothing with the land, and no income is derived from the land.

It's a small percentage tax to be sure, but still we must pay the "tax" or the government will seize our land, and perhaps sell it off.

What sort of "property" is it that we must constantly pay "tax" on?

Answer: It's not "property" that we own, but "property" we RENT. And it is not "tax" we pay, it's "rent" we pay.

"Eminent domain" is the precise legal recognition of that arrangement, ie. if the Government really wants to, it can kick us "renters" off the property.

Now, it is willing to compensate us for our troubles, but make no mistakes in illusions, we do not OWN any land, the Government does.

Why this arrangement? Ultimately, it is national security. We can't have foreign countries come in and buy up all the land, and then proclaim the land as theirs once and for all. Even embassies are technically "rented", and can be taken away.

The other reason for this arrangement is economic. Long time ago, when currency is pegged against local economies instead of GOLD, currency and national property value became linked in value. In other words, the power/value of the US dollar is pegged to precisely how valuable the US land is worth.

What we have is not really Capitalism, it's a form of Advanced Feudalism. In old Feudalism, the King owned EVERYTHING, which meant, the Lords and other subjects merely "rented" from the King, and thus must pay the King tribute for the use of the land.

The British recognized this in Magna Carta, in that they did not dispute King's ownership of everything in/on the land, merely that they restricted and limited the King's ability to kick off "renters".

However, this is still open to abuse, and the power transferred to the British Parliament, who could exercise "eminent domain" in the name of the King.

In Colonial days, British military also exercised "eminent domain" on various corners of the British Empire.

When the Americans established independence, they tried (without much luck) to establish additional limits on the "eminent domain" power, ie. via the legal term "public use".

Trouble is, no one in the federal level ever passed a law to define "public use". The Founding Fathers, being somewhat emphatic about State Rights, left it up to the States to define "public use" as they saw fit.

But again, like so many other issues, State rights have led to trouble.

It used to be that "public use" was more or less that, "public use", ie. for building public projects, highways, government offices, etc. But later, "public use" became stretched to mean private development of "blithed" areas.

In the New London case, the City council sought to buy out a group of home owners, in favor of a group of corporate developers who wanted to build office space and hotels.

The case was first heard in the local court, who ruled in favor of the home owners.

Then it was heard in the Conn Supreme Court, who overturned the verdict, and ruled in favor of the City of New London.

Finally, the appeal reached the Supreme Court, which affirmed the Conn Supreme Court ruling, narrowly, by 5 to 4.

This decision is though not so clearly cut along idealogical lines, O'Conner, a traditionally liberal judge, was in the dissenting minority, which did not see New London's "eminent domain" use as proper in this case.

The 3 traditionally Conservative judges, Rheinquest, Scalia, and Thomas, all dissented.

Stevens, Kennedy, Ginsberg, Souter, Breyer, affirmed the Conn Supreme Court.

(1) Legally, strictly by the words of the law, this decision was a CORRECT one, based upon all available arguments.

The counsel for the home owners argued that this development of their land cannot constitute "public use".

This argument, by all legal standard, is flawed, because it asked the Supreme Court to impose a new definition of "public use" over US and all 50 states, which the Supreme Court cannot legally do.

For one, there is not a single piece of federal legislation that defines "public use" in "eminent domain" for all 50 states.

The 5th Amendment was deliberately left as a State right to define "public use" in "eminent domain", thus the Supreme Court cannot intervene without any established federal definition of "public use".

Thus, the 5 justices of the majority, voted correctly, to affirm the right of the State of Conn and the city of New London to define "public use" as they see fit.

Thus, the Plantiff's counsel's legal strategy in this line of argument is extremely flawed, and lacking in basic legal understanding. Clearly, they are no specialists on Constitutional law.

The basic power of "eminent domain" cannot be challenged, nor can the right of the local government in defining "public use". The courts are not in the position to challenge these powers.

(2) however, Plantiff counsel should have approached this via another position.

That the City of New London acted in breach of Separation of Power.

Namely, the City of New London acted as an extra-judicial arbitrator for 2 groups of private entities in a private dispute.

If Plantiff party does not wish to sell to developers, the City cannot rule in favor of the developers. The city council is not a court of law, designed to settle such disputes.

Property rights as far as eminent domain is concerned, should not be legislated on the fly any more than individual rights can be legislated on the fly.

States, for their definition of public use, should be established by prior legislations and legal precedences. This particular legal dispute, should have been between the home owners and the developers. The city council should not be involved in such an economic dispute, any more than any legislative body has any business in any merger/acquisition negotiations between any large corporations.

In this very sense, this new definition of "public use" is establishing a new precedence of economic control by the Government.

Afterall, "Community development" itself is not legislated in any fashion. If indeed "eminent domain" and "public use" can be proclaimed by the most loose definition of "Community development", then why could not the city of New York take control of the NY stock exchange with "eminent domain" and turn it over to the management of any specific corporation in the name of "Community/economic development"?

Indeed, in such a deed, the "eminent domain" smacks of illegal Government acquisition of private assets.

In defining the limit of "eminent domain",

The unique strength of the culture of "play" in America

One may warn and lament the possible downfall of America, and the rise of China or some other nations.

It is true that China has a culture of thriftiness and education and single-minded potential of an upcoming superpower.

There is nothing I would personally wish more than to see my fellow countrymen in China enjoy better standards of living, and be proud of a strong and prosperous nation.

But reality sinks in, and I must be frank over the real possibilities.

And the truth is, there is one unique strength of American culture which the Chinese people have not truly learned.

Because it is a strength that often has been said to be a weakness in American Culture.

A statistics commonly quoted, is that Americans, some 280 million people, are attributed to 40% of all world wide resource consumption.

This, many of us have said, is a waste, a sign of American decadence, weakness, and future downfall.

That is true to a degree.

We have seen the down side of this mass consumption in America, poor people spending more than they can earn, on "credit". The American debt system overburdens the entire society.

However, there is a serious upside to this life of "luxury", and it is in the way Americans "play".

The closest analogy I can draw to this talent, is how a lion cub learns to hunt by "playing", with food, and siblings.

Cats, in their nature, instinctively like to "play" to hone their hunting skills. Even household cats play sometimes by pretending a ball or a feather is a prey.

By equal token, I have surmised, that the success of American culture in the 20th century is actually largely due to its nature of "play" and "leisure".

Americans are not a very serious people, by comparison to say, the Germans or the Chinese. Americans spend enormous amount of energy and wealth and resources on leisure activities.

And yet, this is the very thing that spurred many inventors and technologies, in both civilian and military applications.

Afterall, even the early German program of rocketry was manned by people like von Braun, who started as a member in a rocketry club. "Playing" becomes serious business over time.

I am also reminded by the Chinese history of the Han Wu Emperor, who ascended the throne when he was very young. He was prevented from making serious decisions by his Grandmother. So the figurehead young emperor prepared for his career by organizing "hunting expeditions" with his personal body guards. He trained 800 of his body guards to be future generals, by pretending herds of deer as enemy calvary troops, and making his "hunting expeditions" into grand scale battle scenarios. In such exercises, in "playing", he managed to hone his skills and the skills of his men in battle.

Yet in nations, governments alone cannot make the people learn to "play". The people learn to "play" by themselves.

And in "playing", the people hone their diverse skills in all fields.

The American ingenuity, comes from their constant "playing" with everything they can get their hands on, from cars, boats, to computers and cosmetics.

Afterall, the Personal computer industry came from a bunch of computer geeks who "played" around with spare parts in their own homes. And from that, arose Apple, IBM.

We Chinese, lack a tradition of "playing", but we can still learn.

Sometimes, we Chinese look down upon our own young, who spend too much time playing.

But this is a wrong attitude.

The young should "play", as long as they still work and study. Let them work hard and play hard.

Let us not be so serious as to only think about work and family.

"Playing" is good for the creativity of our society and our people, which will hone our skills for the future, give us new ways of looking at things.

On Capitalism

As everyone knows, Capitalism, or free market economy, is devoid of guarantees of fairness.

And this is dangerous in 1 way that it enables secret "trade wars" to be waged between parties, be they individuals or even nations.

Afterall, there is nothing in laws any where that can prevent one's enemies from leveraging you to pay for a higher price than they would normally charge their friends.

So, without much public declaration, "trade wars" are secretly being engaged everywhere in most part of the world.

Some we call "competition", which is valid, because they are limited to the extent of delivering better prices and products for the consumers.

While others are more destructive, in that they create addictions and dependencies.

Capitalism, or free market economy, is a sort of legalized system of voluntary slavery and servitude, with the ultimate aim of the powerful obtaining sufficient wealth and control of resources to force the not-so-powerful to succumb to material dependence.

The only redeeming quality of this system, is the possibility of the not-so-powerful becoming powerful by playing the game of Capitalism.

Sarcastically, Capitalism is based upon the inherent weakness of human beings to degenerate.

Capitalism functions, by taking social restraints away, so that the spiritually weak and hopeless, will continue to conduct self-destructive acts, while the strong may profit from these acts, and the system can collect taxes in the transaction.

It is a games of "who's the biggest loser", where the entire society is set up like a giant casino with glittering lights to lure the "losers" in to loser more and more money.

But the "losers" are quite happy while losing, being dazzled by the lights of it all.

The casino, and hence Capitalism, is in the business of making people feel good, while they lose money.

The casino is not fair, but no one is forcing anyone to gamble. That's the justification behind the game. That's the system.

That's the undeclared "trade war" between you and the casino/system.

Why? Because in this relationship, there is at least 1 clear loser, you, John Q. Public Consumer who does not own the Casino.

And the only way you can win, is if you built your own casino and got into the gaming industry yourself.