COURT ALLOWS 'PERVERSE' POWER GRAB

The issue: Supreme Court's decision on property rights

Our view: This is a setback to property rights previously guaranteed
by the Fifth Amendment.

Conservatives and plenty of liberals reacted with disdain following
the U.S. Supreme Court's decision Thursday to leave individuals
unprotected from the tyranny of developers who are increasingly in
cahoots with local elected officials.

In a stunning setback to property rights that are as American as
apple pie, the court handed down a 5-4 decision allowing local
government to seize private property under the banner of "eminent
domain" and hand it over to private developers - so long as the area
being developed is targeted for "urban renewal."

Conservatives sought to pin the blame on the court's liberals, though
a cabal of largely GOP-friendly development interests pushed the
landmark appeal to the nation's highest court. Still, the vote turned
conventional wisdom about the court on its head, leaving the
so-called liberals essentially coming down on the side of pave-it-all
development interests.

"The beneficiaries are likely to be those citizens with
disproportionate influence and power in the political process,
including large corporations and development firms," Justice Sandra
Day O'Connor fumed in her dissent.

Further, she said, "the government now has license to transfer
property from those with fewer resources to those with more. The
Founders cannot have intended this perverse result."

Perverse and ironic, indeed. Consider that in a recent ruling,
conservatives such as Clarence Thomas came down on the side of
allowing states to allow the medical use of marijuana. And then
Thursday, conservatives like Thomas came down on the side of
individual rights, while the liberals voted for development interests.

Which just goes to show that outside of a few hot-button issues such
as abortion and prayer in school, conservative and liberal labels are
simply useless when it comes to handicapping this court's penchant
for allowing and enabling unchecked government control over states
and individuals.