Eminent Domain -- The Original Sin of Government

From the OC Register via LRC comes Steven Greenhut's very solid article on the failures of the Supreme Court Justices to understand the real dangers inherent with Eminent Domain. This was in issue here in Florida during the 2004 election cycle, or, at least, became one after being trumpetted by some Libertarian candidates such as newly-elected vice-chair of the LPF Walt Augustinowicz.

With the Kelo case making big headlines this seems like a strategic opportunity for us to capitalize on for the coming election cycle in 2006. There has been a lot of talk within the LPF EC (Lib. Party of Florida Executive Committee) and our current crop of Legislative Candidates (of which I'm a member, as At-Large Director #3) about hitting this particular issue hard. Having just been appointed Chair of the LPF Strategy and Platform Committee guiding these decisions have become my responsibility. In some ways, this post is a call for help from the 3 or so other people who read this blog regularly about what it is that our issue strategy should be.

Eminent Domain, at it core, is a decidely un-Libertarian concept and had I been a member of the Constitutional Congress would have fought against the wording of Amendment V because of it. It is, like the General Welfare and Interstate Commerce clauses under Article I Section VIII of the Constitution, a mechanism for broad, injurious interpretation of the phrase "...without just compensation." It presumes that the Government has a great ownership of your property than you do, and as such, will ultimately be able to do with your property as it deems fit.

In a place where property tax rates are tied to the market value of the property itself, it is not a stretch to understand the taxing entity's desire to maximize it's revenue (like any good free marketeer) especially in light of the its position as 'working in the public interest,' which anyone moron can argue against the text of the 5th Amendment.

The important point to make about Eminent Domain is the codification of mechanism for the taking of private property and the economic effects on the landscape thereof. Without the 5th Amendment there is no definition for just seizure of property, with it there is now a mechanism by which a legal argument can be made. Once that is accomplished the ball 'rolls downhill.' Now there is a ritual by which property can be seized and those doing the seizing can wash their hands of the responsibility of their theft by hiding behind the law and the procedure.

As a campaign issue I think this is a potentially brilliant issue to build a strategy from.

Ta,