Liberalism - it's no longer about freedom. It's now about big government. Anyone thinking of changing sides yet?

I think it's a lousy decision and Government should keep its hands off our property the same way it should keep its laws off our bodies.

Government should keep its hands off our property the same way it should keep its laws off our bodies,

Today, in Kelo v. City of New London, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that New London's "carefully considered" decision to use eminent domain to promote economic development "unquestionably serves a public purpose" and thus satisfies the public-use requirement set forth in the Just Compensation Clause of the Fifth Amendment. The ruling means that states and cities retain a critically important economic development tool. Economic development means more jobs for local residents, more tax dollars for city services like police protection and child welfare, and the promise of new hope and opportunity in distressed areas. Although considerable attention has been paid to the landowners in the case, the plight of the unemployed in New London also must be taken into account. Decreasing unemployment also reduces the social ills that go with it, including spousal abuse, alcoholism, crime, and suicide. Timothy J. Dowling, Chief Counsel of Community Rights Counsel, hailed the ruling: "Today's ruling gives hope to economically depressed communities across the country struggling to put a paycheck into the hands of the unemployed and to enhance vital public services for those most in need." Community Rights Counsel co-authored an amicus brief in Kelo supporting New London on behalf of a large coalition of state and local officials.

Conservatives, on the other hand, are the automatons, agreeing with the Republicans for no other reason than that they are republican/conservative. To the detriment of the nation, I might add.

the Court didn't constrain itself with the actual words of the Constitution-they evolved the worthless piece of paper

nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

As a leftist libertarian

The majority stuck tight to previous precedent. It was O'Connor, writing for the minority, that found a way to be "activist."

And Clarence Thomas, of course, was the most activist at all. In a separate dissenting opinion, he proposed turning the clocks back at least 50 years.

The owner of siezed land, when the seizure is for private business development, MUST share in the profits emanating from that seizure

Is undoing activism "activism"?

There are an almost unlimited list of projects that could and should be undertaken to eliminate such social scourges as poverty, unemployment, homelessness, decaying housing and schools, and lack of health care, but none can be carried out without attacking precisely what both sides in last week’s Supreme Court ruling uphold as unassailable—private ownership of the major levers of economic life and the subordination of human needs to the pursuit of corporate profit and the accumulation of personal wealth by the privileged few. A socialist policy would proceed from the need to reverse the perverse priorities that presently dominate society, establishing democratic control by the working people over the great monopolies in industry, finance, telecommunications, transport and computer technology, and harnessing the vast power of these enterprises to meet the needs of the population as a whole, with the goal of raising living standards for all, ending the tyranny of concentrated wealth, and achieving social equality. The division on the court in the case of Kelo v. City of New London underscores the political fact that the disputes between the liberals and the right wing reflect differences within the same ruling elite, all of whose factions defend capitalism and uphold the fundamentally anti-democratic principles that underlie the profit system.