Thu 18 Aug 2005
Pardon my french but you all know, if you read this blog (see here, here and here), how much I detested the Supreme Courts Kelo decision in June. Well to add insult to injury, the town of New London, CT is going to charge back “rent” for Kelo, and other residents who challenged the town’s right to take there property from 200o to 2005. The “fair market value” (a joke anyway as the fair value cannot be determined when the transaction is coercive) will also be payed based on the assessed value of the property in 2000, not allowing Kelo to capture the gains in value that have been accrued while the case has been adjudicated. Susan Kelo was quoted after learning she owed the town $57K in back-rent, “”I wouldn’t have a home or any money to get one. I could probably get a large-size refrigerator box and live under the bridge.” So the government steals her home and now aims to leave her destitute.
I cannot recall ever seeing such small-minded, vindictive and brutish behavior on the part of public officials.
You can read more about it at the Coyoteblog.
Steve
August 19th, 2005 at 2:44 pm
I think you should have headlined it . . .
“My ire is raised.”
August 19th, 2005 at 4:10 pm
I like “pissed.” Succinct. Effective. Speaking of absurb government regulations, have you ever read “Atlas Shrugged”? A great look at goverment running amuck, though a bit preachy at the end.
August 19th, 2005 at 5:24 pm
Cheryl,
I have not read any of Rand’s work but have a working knowledge of objectivism, the philosophy she espoused. She was brilliant and, as I have become more and more libertarian in my views in the last few years, appreciate the contributions her thinking has made on the role of government. Objectivism as a philosophy is deeply flawed. It is inherently agnostic and espouses the view that the only moral code that people should follow is their own self-interest and man’s reason the only absolute. For example, she believed that no truly rationally self-interested man would ever commit murder. She believed that man’s rational pursuit of his or her own happiness would lead to an orderly and just society. Interesting, John Piper, my favorite theologian, quipped in one sermon of his that I listened to that he went through a “Rand” phase because the egoism central to her philosophy resonated with his philosophy of Christian hedonism.
I really do need to read that book,
Steve