Most Americans know that for fifty years Liberal Judicial Activists have been the real extremists on our courts, especially the Supreme Court. However, some people haven’t yet learned this lesson and believe the Clintonian-style lie that judges such as Antonin Scalia represent “extremists” who would deny people their constitutional rights. How ironic, then, that in Kelo et al v. City of New London, Liberal Activists themselves have accomplished more real “judicial education” than Conservatives, Libertarians and Moderates might achieve in years as they delivered a punch in the gut to the private property right Americans hold dearest, ownership of one’s home.
First, the basics of the case. In an attempt to enhance its economic environment and tax revenues, the city of New London, Connecticut, exercised its power of eminent domain to seize homes and then turned the land over to a private company for commercial development. A number of homeowners sued the city, claiming that the taking violates the Fifth Amendment, which speaks only of the right of government to take private property for “public use,” a public road, for example. The case eventually made its way to the U.S. Supreme Court, which issued its ruling on June 23, 2005.
In that ruling, the Supreme Court’s most Liberal members were joined by Justice Anthony Kennedy to prevail in a 5-4 decision favoring the City of New London. True to the “activist” philosophy of Judicial Liberals, the majority supported its decision by arguing that the Fifth Amendment’s words “public use” can also be “interpreted” to mean “public purpose.”
In her dissenting opinion, which was joined by Chief Justice Rehnquist and Justices Scalia and Thomas, Justice O’Connor correctly points out that applying the standard of “public purpose” to justify the state’s taking of private property exposes every piece of private property to taking, for any arm of government can easily show that in exercising the power of eminent domain, it may, in O’Conner’s words, “generate some secondary benefit for the public such as increased tax revenue, more jobs, maybe even aesthetic pleasure.” What owners of private property, asks O’Connor, could prove that they are maximizing the use of their property with respect to how it might serve a “public purpose.”
Having thus exposed the flaw of Justice Kennedy’s argument that the ruling protects the public from unlawful takings by insisting upon the need for due process, O’Connor turns her attention to the majority’s invocation of Federalism as part of its reasoning. (Can we even imagine the hypocrisy of Liberal Activists who invoke the principle of Federalism?) With respect to this argument, Justice O’Connor simply points out that fundamental constitutional rights cannot be suspended or mitigated by states and municipalities, thereby not only exposing the error of the majority view but also helping Americans to understand the Liberal Activist agenda.
With respect to Justice O’Connor’s observation about constitutional rights, most Americans understand and accept the fact that the Constitution enumerates certain rights and reserves decisions regarding topics about which it is silent to the states. For example, most Americans agree with Liberals that the right to free speech guaranteed by the First Amendment must be strictly protected. But why is it, the great majority of Americans should ask themselves, that Liberals do not react to the rest of the Constitution in the same way they react to the First Amendment, preferring, instead, to ignore the Constitution’s language (as in the Liberal reaction to the Second Amendment) or to divine in the Constitution new language and new rights (as in the Liberal obsessions with the “rights” of criminals and the “rights” of the state to serve as the People’s Nanny).
The answer to the question lies in the brother and sisterhood Liberalism shares with other Leftist philosophies: a belief in the goodness of a welfare state controlled by an “intellectual” elite who reject the Jeffersonian idea that democracy can survive only if political power is held close to the people. This fundamental belief explains why Liberals invented the idea of Liberal Judicial Activism, a judicial theory which allows Liberal judges to substitute what they think the law ought to say for Washington’s democratic idea that legitimate law can be established only “by an explicit and authentic act of the whole people.” It also explains why in Kelo et al v. City of New London Liberal Activist Justices jumped at the opportunity to weaken private property rights, once again increasing the power of government over individuals and further establishing themselves as the nation’s Ultimate (though nefarious) Nannies.
Copyright by A.J. DiCintio
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