I am seldom as stunned as I am by THIS laid out well over at Tech Central Station:
By a 5-4 vote, the Supreme Court on Thursday ruled that governments may seize your business and even your home in order to facilitate private economic development schemes.
It’s well settled, of course, that the government can take your property in order to devote the land to some public purpose. The Binghamton campus of the State University of New York, for example, was built in part on land that the state took away from my family. In the case before the Supreme Court, however, the City of New London wanted to seize a neighborhood and turn the land over to a private developer who would then raze the homes and build a big industrial park…
There is a round-up of the government taking of private land here.
Hat Tip: InstaPundit
We had a similar deal 15 years or so back in New Orleans. A guy owned a seedy bar adjacent to the Marriot on the edge of the French Quarter and he wouldn’t accept Marriot’s offers. Low and behold the police ran a sting out of his building. They directed all ladies of the evening to the block where the bar was or they would be arrested. After having set up the bar as a pros free fire zone then they arrested the building owner and seized the propery as being involved in criminal activity. Marriot then bought the propery for less than the asking price before. Just a coincidence, I guess.
Comment by r gambel — June 24, 2005 @ 1:32 pm