John at Wuzzadem has a devastatingly funny piece on how Kelo is going to play out in real life starring Jed Clampett. The piece is called Beverly Domain. His newest is good too.
But, as I wrote here, the outcome of Kelo will definitely not be funny. In fact, my Office Manager just told me something that I find frightening–though it may be coincidental.
She lives in a house located in a community on Lake Travis. The home was built in the late 70′s and is about 1600 sq. feet. It is not waterfront property–but has the best view of the lake of all the properties in the immediate area.
Last night a real estate agent with a large and national company called my OM at 8 pm after the Kelo decision hit the news. The woman badgered my OM to sell her house making such comments as “Do you know who we are?” and “I have 300 potential buyers who would like to buy your property.” The woman would simply not let my OM off the phone until, finally, my OM practically slammed the telephone in her ear.
The thing about the Lake Travis area is that the older lake houses are being replaced by huge mansions that, I am certain, yield far more in property tax revenues than does my OM’s property. What is to stop the realtor from encouraging and aiding a potential buyer who wants to build a mansion on my OM’s property from going to the local governmental entity to convince them that the property should be transferred because of the purported “public purpose” of maximizing property tax revenues? Nothing now.
We on the blogosphere should keep track of incidents like this. Coincidental or not, it is troubling.
Update: Go look at The Cassandra Page. He says:
To repeat myself from yesterday, in the brave new world that our activist courts have given us, you can lose your home to a private developer, but you can have all of the abortions you want and you can euthanize your parents when they get old (or even sooner). Without children or the elderly weighing us down, what do we need private houses for? What do we need extra space for? There is no reason not to move in to that nice federally subsidized apartment that the government has waiting for us. Our lives are one step closer to being completely planned from cradle to grave.
This comment is consistent with Alberto Piedra’s warnings about the detrimental impact on human dignity imposed by an economic system (and judicial system ) that is autonomous from restraints of Natural Law.
