THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, USA
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Volume VII, Issue # 141, July 4, 2005
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor
Government Committed to & Acting in Accord with Conservative Principles
Ensures a Nation's Strength, Progress, & Prosperity
SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT, SMART GROWTH,
& THE U.S. SUPREME COURT'S KELO DECISION:
ORGANIZED THEFT BY ANY NAME
By Tom DeWeese
THE UNITED STATES SUPREME COURT'S ASSAULT ON THE AMERICAN CONSTITUTION & THE PROPERTY RIGHTS OF AMERICANS
UNDER THE CONSTITUTION: AN ASSAULT REFLECTED IN THE SUPREME COURT'S DECISION IN KELO VERSUS CITY OF
NEW LONDON -- HOW THE KELO DECISION TIES IN WITH THE UNITED NATIONS, "INTERNATIONAL LAW," AGENDA 21,
SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT, STATISM, AUTHORITARIANISM, & POLITICAL CORRUPTION -- WHY AMERICA'S FOUNDING
FATHERS WOULD BE OUTRAGED TO LEARN OF THIS PERFIDIOUS & REPREHENSIBLE JUDICIAL DECISION GROSSLY DISTORTING THE
MEANING OF THE TAKINGS CLAUSE IN THE FIFTH AMENDMENT TO THE U.S. CONSTITUTION
FULL STORY:
Put yourself in the homeowner’s shoes. You buy a home for your family. Perhaps it’s even handed down from your father or
grandfather. It’s a place you can afford in a neighborhood you like. The children have made friends. You intend to stay for the
rest of your life.
As you plant your garden, landscape the yard, put up a swing set for the kids and mold your land into a home, unknown to you,
certain city officials are meeting around a table with developers. In front of them are maps, plats, and photographs – of your home.
They talk of dollars – big dollars. Tax revenues for the city, huge profits for the developer. A shopping center with all the trimmings
begins to take shape. You’re not asked for input or permission. You’re not even notified until the whole project is finalized and the
only minor detail is to get rid of you.
Then the pressure begins. A notice comes in the mail telling you that the city intends to take your land. An offer of compensation
is made, usually below the market price you could get if you sold it yourself. The explanation given is that, since the government is
going to take the land, it’s not worth the old market price. Some neighbors begin to sell and move away. With the loss of each one,
the pressure mounts on you to sell. Visits from government agents become routine. Newspaper articles depict you as unreasonably
holding up community progress. They call you greedy. Finally, the bulldozers move in on the properties already sold. The
neighborhood becomes unlivable. It looks like a war zone.
Like being attacked by a conquering army, you are finally surrounded, with no place to run, but the courts. However, you’re certain
of victory. The United States of America was built on the very premise of the protection of private property rights. How can a
government possibly be allowed to take anyone’s home for private gain?
Under any circumstances, this should be considered criminal behavior. It used to be. If city officials were caught padding their own
pockets or those of their friends, it was considered graft. That’s why RICO laws were created.
Finally, five black-robed judges named John Paul Stevens, David Hackett Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Anthony M. Kennedy, and
Stephen Breyer shock the nation by ruling that officials who have behaved like Tony Soprano are in the right and you have to vacate
your property.
These four men and one woman, comprising a majority of the nine justices on the United States Supreme Court, have ruled that the
United States Constitution is truly meaningless. Their ruling in the Kelo case -- Kelo v. City of New London -- declared that
Americans own nothing. After declaring that all property is subject to the whim of a government official, it’s just a short trip to
declaring that government can now confiscate anything we own; anything we create; anything we believe.
Astonishing. The members of the U.S. Supreme Court have nothing to do but defend the U.S. Constitution and keep it the pure
document the Founding Fathers created to recognize and protect the rights with which we were born. The Supreme Court justices
sit in their lofty ivory tower, never worrying about job security, not with their life-time appointments. And yet, they have obviously
missed finding a copy of the Federalist Papers, which were written by many of the Founders to explain to the American people
how theFounders envisioned the American federal union and new U.S. national government would work. They have missed the
collected writings of James Madison, Thomas Jefferson, John Adams and George Washington, just to mention a very few. It’s
obvious because otherwise, there is simply no way they could have reached this decision – unless implementing another agenda was
their purpose.
I don’t have the benefit of the Supreme Court justices’ grand staffs or unending salaries. But just a little research has turned up pretty
much everything Stevens, Souter, Ginsburg, Kennedy, and Breyer would have needed to reach a logical conclusion that protection of
private property rights are the most important rights, vital to the very foundation of a free society.
Our Founding Fathers left no doubt in their writings, their deeds, or their governing documents as to where they stood on the vital
importance of private property. John Locke, the man whom the Founders followed as they created this nation said, “Government has
no other end than the preservation of property.” John Adams said, “The moment the idea is admitted into society that property is not
as sacred as the laws of God; and there is not a force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and tyranny commence.”
One would be hard pressed to find a single word in the writings of the Founding Fathers to support the premise that it’s okay to take
private property for economic development. To the contrary, they believed that the root of economic prosperity is the protection of
private property.
So how did Stevens, Souter, Ginsburg, Kennedy, and Breyer miss such a rock solid foundation of American law? Perhaps they didn’t.
Perhaps they chose to ignore it in favor of another agenda. Specifically, Agenda 21.
For several years, certain members of the U.S. Supreme Court have been discussing the need to review international law and foreign
court decisions to determine U.S. Supreme Court rulings. Justice Breyer has been the most outspoken for this policy, saying, “We
face an increasing number of domestic legal questions that directly implicate foreign or international law.”
What international laws are these? In general, the most pervasive are a series of UN international treaties, including several that
address issues of climate, resource use, biological diversity, and community development. Specifically, Agenda 21, signed by the
United States at the UN’s Earth Summit in 1992, calls for implementing what former Vice President Al Gore called a “wrenching
transformation” of our nation, through a policy called Sustainable Development. Sustainable Development is the official policy of
the United States and almost every single city and small burg in the nation.
Sustainable Development is top-down control, a ruling principle that affects nearly every aspect of our lives, including; the kind of
homes we may live in; water policy that dictates the amount of water each American may use in a day; drastic reductions of energy
use; the imposition of public transportation; even the number of inhabitants that may be allowed inside city borders. Most
Americans have heard of a small part of this policy operating under the name Smart Growth. Agenda 21 outlines specific goals and a
tight timetable for implementation. In June, 2005, the United Nations held a major gathering in San Francisco, where the mayors of
cities from across the nation and around the world gathered to pledge to impose Sustainable Development polices.
In order to meet such goals, federal, state and local governments are scrambling to impose strict policies on development and land
use. The use of the power of eminent domain has become a favorite tool. Sustainable Development calls for partnerships between
the public sector (your local government) and private businesses.
Now, as the public/private partnerships move to enforce Sustainable Development in local communities, an unholy alliance is also
forming, allowing corrupt politicians to line their pockets and gain power as they partner with select businesses and developers to
build personal wealth and power. They plot to take land that isn’t theirs for personal gain, while claiming it’s for the “public good.”
That’s all the excuse they’ve needed to hide their true intent.
However, things have been changing, as such brutal, organized theft has spread across the nation in the name of community
development and environmental protections. American have started to fight back to protect their property. In Oregon, people went
to the ballot box and shocked lawmakers by passing Measure 37, which says the government must either pay full price for any land
taken, or waive the regulation and leave the property owner alone. In Wisconsin, the state legislature passed a bill to stop Smart
Growth policies that are destroying property owners. In Michigan, the State Supreme Court overturned the precedent-setting ruling
it made more than 20 years ago that allowed the use of eminent domain in taking property for private use. In fact, it was that original
ruling that had been used by communities across the nation to justify their own eminent domain takings.
Clearly, the nation has started to rise up to stop this assault on private property. Without the power to grab property at will, the
ability for communities to implement Sustainable Development has come into question.
Those who support Sustainable Development and Agenda 21 needed something big to put things back on track. The U.S. Supreme
Court, which has already stated that it must look to international laws and treaties to decide American law, provided the answer.
Stevens, Souter, Ginsburg, Kennedy, and Breyer chose Sustainable Development and Agenda 21 over the Constitution of the
United States.
However, the effort may well be backfiring on the Sustainablists, as the nation is reacting in force to protect property rights. Now,
state legislatures and the U.S. Congress are rushing to produce legislation to restore property rights protections. Even Americans
who have rarely uttered a political thought are suddenly becoming feverish with zeal for the Fifth Amendment. Americans may be
learning all over again what the Founding Fathers knew – that the right to own and control private property is the most important
right
That is all well and good, of course, but Americans must do much more than just get upset. They need to get behind those
legislative efforts at every level of government to assure passage. They must dig in at the local level to foil efforts by their mayors
and city councils to impose eminent domain against their neighbors. We must run this organized theft (now masquerading as the
“common good”) out of town on a rail. And don’t forget to leave room on that rail for Stevens, Souter, Ginsburg, Kennedy, and
Breyer.
LINKS TO RELATED TOPICS:
U.S. Constitutional Law & Political Philosophy
Legal Issues, Lawyers, & America's Judiciary
The Constitution of the United States of America
Tom DeWeese is the Publisher and Editor of The DeWeese Report and President of the American Policy Center, a
grassroots activist think tank headquartered in Warrenton, Virginia. The Center maintains an Internet website at
www.americanpolicy.org.
Copyright 2005 Tom DeWeese
Published with Permission of Tom DeWeese
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