SUPREME COURT EMINENT DOMAIN DECISION WAS SHOT HEARD AROUND THE WORLD ON PROPERTY RIGHTS

FROM THE VIRGINIA NEWS SOURCE:

VIRGINIA BEACH (July 9, 2005) - - "Kelo," Joe Waldo told a standing room only crowd at the Old Country BuffetSaturday  "was the shot heard around the world on property rights."

Democrats, Republicans, and politically unaffiliated citizens packed the Old Country Buffet Saturday to hear Libertarian philosophy that property belongs to the people, not the government.

This view was reinforced by lawyers Gary Amos, an expert & historian in Constitutional law, Waldo, one of Virginia's leading anti-eminent domain litigators, and Steven Merrill, UNALIENABLE RIGHTS FOUNDATION general counsel, whose brief to overthrow the eminent domain law in a recent Supreme Court case was cited by Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas in his dissent.

The Supreme Court, in what Merrill called the worst decision since the 1859 Dred Scott case which resulted in the Civil War, recently ruled by the narrowest majority, in Kelo vs. New London, that government can take private property to give to other private owners who'll use the land to pay higher taxes.

Amos explained that the very meaning of 'eminent domain' is that "the government owns your property." This concept "is wrong based on (this country's) founding principles."

The trio said that the ruling has created the most outrage seen in recent history, not just from citizens, but from politicians reacting to the people, against the concept that government owns all property and can take it at will to re-distribute as it sees fit.

"These 5 justices (ruling in the majority) made a terrible, terrible decision," said Merrill whose friend of the court brief asked the justices to overthrow the original 1950s ruling that allowed such abuse of government power.

Amos explained that 'eminent domain' actually means that all land is owned by the 'emperor' or government - a concept that ruled in Roman days when the emperor even owned citizens to the extent they were forced to die fighting each other and wild animals for the entertainment of the emperor.

That concept, Amos added, was rejected by America's founding fathers in the drafting of the Constitution. It is a Constitutional protection that is now perverted by judicial activism.

 Waldo said the ruling is a blessing in disguise: Now the whole nation sees the dangers of big government that the Libertarians have seen and known for years.

According to a dissenting opinion by Justice Sandra O'Connor, the court in the ruling said, it is OK for government to take private property for the private use of others because the only people who'll suffer are the people who aren't politically connected, Waldo told the gathering.

Because of that, Waldo said, everyone had better look over their shoulders to see if "your home or business is in an area that makes it more valuable to the government than it is to you."

Shortly after the ruling, the media in interviewing municipal lawyers were told by Portsmouth's lawyer 'not to worry' because it isn't going to happen in Virginia.

But it has already happened: Private property was taken from the owners to build Portsmouth's Renaissance Hotel. "You can't trust government," said one attendee. "Look at what happened when they told that to the Indians."