It’s no secret that one of the banes of modern society for the left is private property. Why, the very concept of “private” property screams of inequality. Some people got it. Some don’t. Ergo, in order to level out society private property rights have got to go.

What’s that you say? The Constitution says what?

Amendment V

No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

The decision handed down by the Supreme Court yesterday in the Kelo case where a group of Connecticut homeowners lost their fight to keep the city of New London from bulldozing their houses in order to put up a a host of projects that would benefit already wealthy developers (and incidentally bring in much more in tax revenue for the city than the working class homeowners currently pay) is one more indication that the “Age of Enlightenment” that played such an important role in defining individual rights for American citizens may have finally become irrelevant to the continuing experiment that our republic represents.

The touchstone to our past has always been a reverence for the primacy of the individual over the state. In order to insure this – and to insure that the Constituion itself would be ratified – many of the Founding Fathers insisted that a “Bill of Rights” be appended to the original Constitution. We’re mostly familiar with the first ten amendment’s guarantees of our freedoms of speech, religion, assembly, the press, as well as our rights to bear arms, to be tried by a jury of our peers, and to remain silent so as not to incriminate ourselves. But equally important to all of these rights was that simple declaration of private property rights, an echo of the masterful annunciation of our right to “life, liberty, and property” found in the DECLARATION OF COLONIAL RIGHTS from the First Continental Congress in 1774 and generally considered one of the cornerstones of personal liberty in the United States.

No more. George Will sums up the catastrophe nicely:

Those on the receiving end of the life-shattering power that the court has validated will almost always be individuals of modest means. So this liberal decision—it augments government power to aggrandize itself by bulldozing individuals’ interests—favors muscular economic battalions at the expense of society’s little platoons, such as homeowners and the neighborhoods they comprise.

Imagine working for 10 or even 20 years to be able to afford a house only to have the government come along and take it for “the greater good” of the community? Of course, some argue that the erosion of private property rights has been going on for some time now:

There is a sense in which it is perfectly logical to say that the democratically elected branches of government are in the best position to decide what is a legitimate “public use,” and the courts shouldn’t second-guess those decisions. And in many contexts, we conservatives do argue that the courts should defer to legislatures and local governments. The problem here is that accepting that principle would read the relevant language out of the Fifth Amendment. If anything that a state legislature or city government calls a “public use” is, ipso facto, a public use, then the constitutional protection is gone.

My only other observation on the case is this: I defer to no one in my admiration for Glenn Reynolds, but I don’t understand why he seems to think that the issue is a wash as between liberals and conservatives. Just look at how the decision broke down: Justices Stevens, Kennedy, Souter, Ginsburg and Breyer—the Court’s liberals—voted to uphold the taking, while O’Connor, Rehnquist, Scalia and Thomas dissented. I don’t see how the ideological lineup could be clearer; if you care about property rights, vote for conservatives.

Indeed, the “Newspaper of Record” - for the left anyway – celebrates the decision:

The Supreme Court’s ruling yesterday that the economically troubled city of New London, Conn., can use its power of eminent domain to spur development was a welcome vindication of cities’ ability to act in the public interest. It also is a setback to the “property rights” movement, which is trying to block government from imposing reasonable zoning and environmental regulations. Still, the dissenters provided a useful reminder that eminent domain must not be used for purely private gain.

Notice the use of quotes for the term property rights, as if the term had no meaning outside of a few mossbacks who actually take the Constitution at its word.

The Captain points out the sophistry of the Times argument:

The Times laughably argues that even though government acting as an unwanted arbiter between two private property owners is a serious concern, the fears that a government will choose the one with deeper pockets is “exaggerated”. Oh, yeah, sure. In fact, that’s exactly what happened with New London. No one argued that the houses being condemned were “blighted”; the neighborhood was working class but maintained well. Some of the people arguing their case had, in fact, recently put a lot of money into renovations, money that they now will never see. Most had lived in the neighborhood for decades, and one house had remained in the same family for over 100 years, with the current resident having lived there for 60 of them. New London decided that the waterfront view had more value as commercial property than for the people who actually owned it, and sold out for a few extra tax dollars.

In short, a man’s home is no longer his castle, it’s whatever the hell the government decides it is. If it’s in the way of some Village Trustee’s pet development project that benefits some of his wealthy friends and contributors, too bad. Again, Mr. Will:

Liberalism triumphed yesterday. Government became radically unlimited in seizing the very kinds of private property that should guarantee individuals a sphere of autonomy against government.

If you were to examine the property rights of our neighbors to the south in Central and South America, you’d see a disturbing parrallel in the way that property can be expropriated. Of course, in those benighted societies, you suffer this fate if your politics doesn’t jibe with the local family or of the government. In our own republic, you only get your property stolen from you if your politicians want to insure their re-election by satisfying some of their big contributors.

Private property as a bulwark against the power of government, as a means of independence, as a sacrosanct and inimitable part of our heritage, and as an American birthright took a huge hit yesterday. It remains to be seen whether the coming battle over the next Supreme Court Justice(s) will incorporate arguments for private property rights into the debate in order to bring into stark relief the differences between liberal and conservative jurists.

UPDATE

Michelle Malkin has an excellent media and Shadow Media roundup and says this:

The (right side of the) blogosphere’s response to yesterday’s SCOTUS ruling on Kelo v. New London has been stunning. And heartening. Eminent domain isn’t usually the first thing that comes to mind when one thinks “blogswarm.” But the fierce reaction to the decision shows that core economic liberty issues can still unite disparate factions of the right (South Park cons, neocons, Schiavo-cons, whatever-cons) who have been fretting about a conservative crack-up.

I’d also add that it appears from my reading that the traditional (sane) left is also decrying this decision. In addition to Michelle’s speculation about the decision uniting the current warring factions on the right, might this be the beginning of a beautiful friendship with some of our more traditional liberal friends?

Bill Ardolino also has a superb round-up and adds “A man’s home is… somebody else’s piggy-bank.”

By the end of the day, there will be 50 variations on a theme of that old saw.

Jeff Goldstein is full of disdain and satiricalness besides also having a gay old time linking here, there, and everywhere. I’m surprised he didn’t drag the armadillo out for this:

Lovely how the majority justices tried to cover this decidedly anti-Lockean decision with a rhetorical appeal to federalism (“local officials, not federal judges, know best…”). But just because the decision allows a local government (rather than the federal government, as it did with its cynical appeal to a malleable Commerce Clause) to assert what appears to me to be an extra-Constitutional claim on a private citizens’ property rights doesn’t make it any more kosher—and today’s decision, in its expansion of what can be shoehorned into the category of “public use,” gives carte blanche for municipalities to remake the geography in any way they see fit, so long as they can make the argument that they are doing so for the common weal (which in many cases is really just an excuse for gentrification—and legalizes the taking of private property from one owner and transferring it, by municipal will, to another government approved private property owner; it’s a plutocrat’s wet dream).

Flog that doggie!