Do liberal judges favor wealthy developers over regular people?

In response to Chiroptera saying randman replies: Yet another example of randman continuing attempt to misprepresent his opponents, change the subject, play moving definitions, and avoid dealing with the issue.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

I'm not attacking people, I'm talking about the content of your messages and your behaviour. Certainly want to point out when you once again misrepresent what people have said. Seems to be quite common in your posts. Just as your latest response accuses me of attacking people instead of content and behaviour. I'd say the OP simply shows that once again, you are totally clueless. What is being done is no different than what has been done for hundreds of years. It's not a liberal vs conservative issue, it's called business as usual. The government has been busy transfering wealth from the citizens of the US into business pockets almost since day one. And one of the biggest excuses used has been "Public Interest". Often it works out well. Some good examples were the land grant incentives used to build the railroads and the Land Grant Colleges.Time will tell whether or not this decision will be implemented successfully. The decison is simply a continuation of trends that have been around since the establishment of the tobacco roads.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

Try going back and actually addressing some of the things I said and not quotemining.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

Sorry but so far you have not shown that to be the case and in fact, I've pointed out several examples going all the way back to the founding of the Nation where lands have been taken over and then given to private companies because the overall goal was deemed in the "Public Interest".

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

My point is that taking land and giving it to private enterprise for the public good is not a new phenomenon in the US. It was done in the old Tobacco Roads where highways where land was taken to build highways for the sole purpose of moving goods to market, to the early toll roads where land was taken and turned over to private developers who were allowed to charge a toll, to granting land bordering rail lines as an incentive for private companies to build the railroads, in the Land Grant College system and other instances.In these cases, the argument is that the taking is justified by the public good of creating jobs.While I might argue that the decision in this case was flawed and the justification weak, it is not something new. It is a continuation of procedures that have been used since the beginning of our Nation. It is a logical interpretation of Public Good.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

I would answer that in your example there is no real similarity. You as an individual do not have powers of condemnation.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

Okay, I can accept that you were talking about we as a gov't entity.Can we explore this further?How does one determine "Public Good"?

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

I guess that's where I'm having trouble. I do not see a difference between use, interest or good. Nor do I see how the proposed Mall would not come under any definition of any of the three. And your example seems to have nothing to do with the question or issue and so doesn't help me much. Right. But they are not being built in many of the inner cities without Government involvement. Some good examples are placing sports arenas or malls in blighted areas by offering tax incentives and even monopolistic concessions to developers to try to create jobs or change the characteristic of an area. Look at what was done during the creation of the Inner Harbour Project in Baltimore. Other examples are requiring developers to include a mixture of low rent housing (definitely a taking) before allowing permitting.I simply don't see where this is fundamentally different than what has been business as usual almost since the beginning of our Nation.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

Yes, I am saying that I do not see this as something new.AbE:Can I point out the ongoing history of Balitimore's Inner Harbour and other similar projects in that town.You can get part of the history HereThis message has been edited by jar, 11-20-2005 01:03 PM

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

well, the Baltimore Inner harbour is certainly within the last fifty years or so, but it most certainly did involve condemnation of property and conversion of public property to private ownership, so I don't see much difference. But I see it as very relevant. I see that as just a cop out. All of the examples I've given, with the exception of the Land Grant Colleges, have revolved around private companies creating private profit.I just don't see your point at all. Sorry.This message has been edited by jar, 11-20-2005 04:14 PM

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

The local government decided that having the Mall in that location provided jobs and access to services that would not be achieved by having a mall in some other location. Now you may well question their decision, even their motives, but I do not see how you can say that falls outside the understanding of 'use'.You could as easily make the case using your logic that using the powers of eminent domain to build a road to a specific location is unjustified because the road could have been built to some other location. The city wanted to provide jobs in a given location, to a given population; and to increase the tax base which would then be used for services to the general public.Further, my use of the word 'condemnation' was in reference to that right of eminent domain and not in the sense of condemning and abandoned or unsafe property.Also, I understand that randman's position was that such behavior is the result of 'Liberal Courts' since the topic of the damn thread is "Do liberal judges favor wealthy developers over regular people?". I have shown examples of similar uses both recently (in the last 50 years) and historically. These decisions are made initially by a wide variety of local governments and in turn, tested in a number of courts, including the SCOTUS.I still do not see where either of you see this as anything other than a continuing trend.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

The title of the thread is "Do liberal judges favor wealthy developers over regular people?"I believe that I have adequately shown that the subject of the title is false. If we can put that aside I'll try once again to discuss your other questions. The trend began, in my opinion, very early in US history. Some examples that I've mentioned of expanding the meaning of the term 'use' in the Fifth Amendment would be the early tobacco roads, which were built and maintained solely to get the barrels of tobacco to the ports for shipment. These roads, unlike most roads, were kept level and rut free and regularly graded to make it easy to roll the kegs.The sole purpose was to aid the private farmers growing the tobacco and the merchants selling and shipping the cured product. The names of those roads lasted well into my youth, one memorable one near where I grew up was "Rolling Road", named not for the hills in the area, but the fact that the grade was maintained to minimize the slope of up hill stretches to make it easy to roll the barrels.One of the more recent examples I gave was the Inner Harbour project in Baltimore, not Boston, and yes, the rights of Eminent Domain were used in aquiring much of the property. Whether it was private homes or other property is not important IMHO.The trend in acceleration of expanding the definitions of use as originally envisioned began with the concept of Urban Renewal during the post WWII era, around 1950 or so. The reason it's going on is probably a mixture of motives, one the increasing disintegration of major urban areas and inner cities in the US, the disruption of the tax base as the suburbs grow and greed.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

I would tend to agree that they were socialist in nature and that many recent example lean towards Fascism in fact.What I have said all along really breaks down into two areas, one that it is not solely the result of liberal justices, and second, that the expansion of the meaning has been a continuing trend.I think the major differences in opinion between you and me fall here... I contend that the creation of the Mall was considered by the government to be an industry and that they considered the location of that industry, and the jobs, services and tax base that it would provide were location dependant.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

What does that have to do with anything?If you reread what I have posted I doubt that you will find anywhere I refered to the goal of these being related to the welfare of an industry. The purpose of even the Tabacco roads was to server people in a given area, often to the detrement of other parts of the tobacco industry. It provided an advantage to the Maryland planters over those in North Carolina, as an example. It was done to serve local needs, not the needs of the industry.In the case of Baltimore's Inner Harbour, it was not designed to aid the restuarant industry, the tourism industry, the souvenier industry, but to provide jobs and tax base for the citizens of Baltimore.In this case the decision was that a mall in the selected location met the needs of the citizens of that area. The case was made at the local level that locating the mall there was in the interest of the citizens of that area.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

Whatever. I think this has run it's course.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion