More on Eminent Domain

March 27, 2006

Socialism, Mindspeak and Eminent Domain

Mike King is a member of the editorial board at the AJC. His weekly columns portray what we have come to expect from the liberal, nearly socialist viewpoint of the Al Jazeera Constitution.
Today he wrote about eminent domain as if FDR had just announced a work program in the 1930s. It will save us all. It is the answer to prevent sprawl. It is the basis for “the remarkable transformation of Smyrna.” The mere threat of eminent domain, writes King, is what saved Atlanta Road from remaining pockmarked with crumbling apartment complexes, half-vacant strip malls and blighted houses.

Proving he does not understand private property rights, King apparently believes all property belongs to the state – we simply pay quit rents (taxes) in order to use it on a temporary basis. He said of the Stockbridge case, “you'll find an otherwise routine use of eminent domain where the buyer and seller can't agree on the price and a judge ultimately decides what's fair.”
He acknowledges, “The law should prevent public development agencies from razing viable neighborhoods or commercial strips simply to make it cheaper for a private developer to move in; but it need not raise the bar for invoking eminent domain.” Yet he says that redevelopment of aging neighborhoods should be a high priority for state and local officials.

Ignorance is bliss. And the socialist mindset cannot comprehend and assimilate the reality of use of eminent domain coupled with private development. Stupidity is a better description since so much has been said and published and debated about the improper uses of eminent domain. Above all else the greed factor is completely ignored. Unscrupulous politicians in league with profit-hungry developers have become the standard fare in Georgia. And it is true stupidity to believe there is no personal profit motivation behind actions like we have seen in Stockbridge.

It is unfortunate that the only major daily newspaper in Atlanta would emulate the left-wing, socialist agenda of other rags like the New York Times. In another time the slogan “Covers Dixie Like The Dew” aptly described the scope and nature of news and editorial policy offered by the AJC. Although Marx is dead, the Berlin Wall removed and Communism proved to be a failed experiment, we cannot let our guard down. We must not allow pervasive socialist mind-speak (Progressive politics with a twist) to alter America’s sense of being American.