Stump Lane
in the dirt since history began

Let me share with you, friends, some thoughts on eminent domain. Many of you are concerned about that recent Supreme Court decision in the Kelo v New London case. There is no need for concern. Productive, law-abiding, loyal citizens have nothing to fear from this court decision. Ask yourself and answer ‘no’ to these questions: Have I allowed my property to fall into disrepair? Have I been hoarding property for a period of time such that its current market value far exceeds my own investment, and the local tax assessment? Have I been obstructing progress on a reinvigorating construction project — despite all of my neighbor’s houses having been sold and leveled — despite having been made a modestly reasonable offer on my property?

By the way, what’s all of this “my property” stuff. We are talking about land here. One can’t own the land. The notion is absurd. One can hold the property rights associated with that piece of land, but those rights are not, and can not, be granted in perpetuity. Over time, things change. What property once served the common good as work-a-day housing for manufacturing grunts, might now be better suited for retail or manufacturing space, administrative office space for local industry, or, let’s face it, more attractive, more valuable, upscale housing. What happens is: the property transcends its former humble use, to a level beyond the faculties of its humble title-holder. Good citizenship demands that one yield to the best interests of the larger community. Anything less would be selfish.

Why would we as a society allow a quaint one bedroom waterfront cabin — once someone’s weekend getaway — become a squalid run-down one bedroom house infested with grimy little welfare junkies? Sure these aren’t the traditional welfare-types you normally think of living off social security and food stamps. Perhaps they’re even working middle class types; but they are taking advantage of the system nonetheless. They continue to inhabit property, selfishly exploiting it for shelter and child rearing; when the property’s true worth is so much more to the public good of the community at large.

These hangers-on hoard this property selfishly when the fine institutions that nurture our communities could put that property to such a use that benefits every citizen. These are the institutions that you take your wages and healthcare and security from. These are the institutions that donate the parks and sports fields and the uniforms for the teams and the bands. They donate materials to repair the roof and reinforce the steeple at the local church. They pay the taxes that build the schools and repair the roads folks use to patronize their establishments. These are the institutions that sell you your hardware, groceries and cleaning supplies. They are the institutions that invent and manufacture the products that make life worth living.

Loyal, selfless citizens place their trust in these benevolent institutions in the stewardship of our communities.

All these institutions ask in return for their careful stewardship is that they be allowed to exercise their natural human rights as enumerated and preserved in the US Constitution. Amendment V of the Bill of Rights states “…nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.” Amendment V plainly gives our beneveloent institutions any and all property rights; so long as compensation is given in exchange for so-called ‘private property.’

This is where the most confusion regarding property rights arises, many good people just can’t get their head around the concept of “public use.” That is why a new piece of legislation is being introduced. We call it the Anti-Hoarding Land Redistribution for Private-Public Use Act. Once enacted, this legislation will do exactly as the title implies. It will streamline the process of land appropriation in cases where the common good will be better served. Really it’s a melding of the doctrine of Eminent Domain and a modern day form of Manifest Destiny. I like to call it the Anti-Hoarding Land Redistribution for Private-Public Use Act; or “Manifest Domain” for short.

I realize there will be an unusual amount of uneasiness and resistance to these legislative efforts, necessitating a marketing campaign directed at the decision makers and the politically powerful. The slogan: “If you lived/worked where we live, you’d be home/at work right now.” We will be bill-boarding ‘upwardly mobile’ neighborhoods with good visibility from the financial centers and highways in every metropolitan area. The billboards will include the smiling faces of actual residents of these communities in all of their diversity. They will relish the chance to help improve their neighborhood. Their willing participation will not go unnoticed by the decision makers and leaders who see the billboards.

Let me stress why this program, and this legislation, is so important. As you know there have been studies that have shown that diversity is the main cause of violent crimes such as murder, rape, theft and noise. Largely homogenized populations experience substantially lower crime rates. These violent offenses are usually interracial or inter-class crimes. By carefully selecting which areas or neighborhoods are eligible for redistribution we can eliminate much of this inherently dangerous diversity from our city populations. The result will be new communities where decision-makers and business and political leaders can reside and work free from crime and away from unsightly, blighted areas.

Those who find themselves redistributed, will have the opportunity to consider why; and will work toward improving their situation. If they hadn’t been so content in the past — coming home to their squat in some idyllic setting they had become accustomed to — maybe they would have been more inclined to improve their social status sooner. Such times of reflection lead to inspiration, and progress. Some folks just need the impetus to re-evaluate their situation and strive for success; whether it be through assuming a leadership role in the community, or working extra hours to afford a better home.

Leadership and hard work make people better people and the world a better place. As you can see, fellow citizens, there are no losers in this scenario.

(Tee-hee-hee.)

Only the beach one is from this past weekend’s mini-vacation — which was swell — the rest are from over the past few weeks.

Your Montag isn’t in right now. Go over to the other blog (I hate that word) to find out what I’m up to for the next four days: Montag on Vacation. Or leave a message below and I’ll back to you.

Orwellian? Kafkaesque? Whatever.

Is it gettin’ weird in here, or is it just me? A little too weird. Eerily and disturbingly like all those faraway (I’d thought) novels:

[Emphasis added.] It set off a furor at the time among historians, archivists and librarians. They said it all but repealed the Presidential Records Act, a 1978 law that decreed a president’s records were public property, not the private property of the former president. Under this law, a former president’s papers were to be opened to the public 12 years after he left office. Exceptions could be made for national security reasons.

Bush’s executive order added a new check. It said the “incumbent president may assert any constitutionally based privilege” after the 12 years had lapsed to block the release of files. Included among these many privileges were “records that reflect . . . legal advice or legal work.”

This week, several Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee questioned whether White House lawyers were using this authority to delay the release of memos written by Roberts in the mid-1980s, when he was a White House lawyer.

Los Angeles Times: Bush Order Lets Him Control Roberts’ Memos

I worry.

A proposal has been drafted as to what Iraq’s oil policy should be. Among other things, the plan calls for heavy foreign investment:

“There are a lot of problems involved, especially concerning the establishment of a special national company and also how to deal with foreign companies, because investment in the oil sector is important for Iraq,” Hafedh said. “There should be a lot of foreign investment to expand production to increase Iraq’s revenues.”

Associated Press: Iraqi Experts Call for National Oil Policy

The plan also calls for “political stability and an end to corruption.” Well, if we establish those first it might not look so bad when our oil companies go in there with their foreign investments expecting big profits from the Iraqis’ resources.

Of course, the profit-taking could just be perceived as usury. To Muslims: a sin.

It may also possibly (slight chance) run the risk of perpetuating the war for oil “misconception.”

Cross posted at Donklephant

Today is the 60th anniversary of the bombing of Nagasaki. While the death toll is not exactly known, 74,000 deaths were commemorated by Nagasaki city officials on this anniversary. There are arguments to be made both in favor of and against this use of nuclear force presented in this Wikipedia article about the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. From the quotes in the Wikipedia article contradicting the decision, we can see that military leaders of the time Eisenhower and MacArthur believed that the bombings were “completely unnecessary.”

What was the purpose? To send a message to the rest of the world? We know that the Russians got the message very clearly, as it can be said that the use of the A-bomb on Japan marked the beginning of the nuclear arms race and cold war. Today we still feel the reverberations of those explosions as we struggle to deal with the former Soviet Union’s unsecured nukes, concerns of nuclear terrorism, the proliferation of weapons in states such as Pakistan and North Korea, and the unknown ambitions of states such as Iran. What can the US do to lead the world away from the precipice of nuclear disaster?

Perhaps we should disarm of all of our nuclear weapons. I can think of no morally justifiable use for nuclear weapons. If we can never be justified in using them, they make little sense as a deterrent –unless our enemies think that we are willing to use them nonetheless. But what does it say for our credibility in foreign relations if we depend on the perception that we are willing to abandon our morality? Besides that, terrorists will not be deterred by our nuclear arsenal.

To my mind, the status quo exacerbates the proliferation problem. Other states seek their own nuclear weapons out of the desire of possessing their own deterrent. North Korea claims that they pursue their nuclear program in answer to the threat of US exercising military force on the peninsula. Pakistan surely fears the same threat from India, Israel the threat from it’s neighbors, China…

Nuclear proliferation is the real domino effect of the cold war.

On the other side of the nuclear coin, there is nuclear energy. Energy that doesn’t pollute the air or produce green house gasses. Energy that doesn’t require the extraction of fossil fuels from the planet. Energy that as technology develops could eventually be totally sustainable and without waste. Energy that could be used for electricity to “charge” batteries or hydrogen fuel cells. Energy that could fuel a new industrial revolution that lets us slip the bonds of oil addiction. (There is a downside to nuclear energy, that we would have to address for at least the short term, but with innovation I believe we can overcome that.)

Which brings us back to Iran which is pursuing it’s own nuclear program. So far they are engaging in “conversion and enrichment activity — which it has the right to conduct under the NPT [Non-Proliferation Treaty.]” They claim it is an energy program, we claim they seek nuclear weapons. Either way, who are we to say that they can or cannot pursue it? Enriched uranium can be used either for power generation or weapons production. It’s a flip of the nuclear coin: there will always be concerns around independent enrichment programs. Is there a way to safeguard against nuclear weapons proliferation without stifling progress in the area of nuclear energy?

What about “…a global nuclear fuel company, possibly under the auspices of the International Atomic Energy Agency [that] would collect, reprocess, and distribute fuel to every nation in the world, thus keeping potential bomb fixings out of circulation[?]“¹ If we would disarm, and be willing to participate in such an organization, we would gain credibility in our commitment to saving the world from nuclear disaster, and establish the legal grounds on the world stage to go after future questionable programs such as Iran’s.

1. Wired: Nuclear Now!