Current Events — HabitableZone

Current Events » in reply to no income is lost............

Strange bedfellows
Robert — (archived)

Interesting how this thread is putting people into stereotypically unfamiliar postions and alliances. I find myself sympathizing with the conservative position on this issue, because they're addressing something you're not: Fairness.

Stereotypically, I'd expect to hear conservatives arguing that money should be sufficient compensation. That a person whose property is confiscated is "made whole" simply by an amount of cash calculated by what amounts to an actuarial formula.

But a house is not a home. How do you calculate the value of having lived in one place for decades, maybe raised a family or have kids still in the local schools, made friends with neighbors, and found a place in the community? If the government simply lifted your house off its foundations in one spot and transported it to another, you may end up with the same house, but you no longer have a home. You have to start over.

There are similar intangibles in small business. Say you're a bar owner, and you've spent years building a clientele, getting to know them as people, and (if you're a very social bartender like Mike Callahan or Sam Malone), ending up with a circle of friends congruent with your circle of customers. Can any amount of cash compensate you for having to rebuild your entire life somewhere else?

The question of private property is proximate and tangible, but I think you and the USSC are ignoring what that private property means to the people affected. Eminent domain disrupts lives, not just property boundaries. That power should be construed as narrowly as possible, but the Court seems to be construing it inapproprately broadly.

Log in or register to post.

The whole thread (90 posts)