More strange bedfellows
I continue to be charmed, this time at being accused of sloppy sentimentality by an iconic liberal.
In all of your writing there, you used examples of classic eminent domain: Building roads. To wit:
I have watched farms and long-time homesteads be taken to build our Interstate Highway System. As soon as it was constructed it was obsolete and would have been better described as in inter-urban expressway. Almost immediately, re-construction into 4 lanes each was was started, to facilitate the traffic flow to Disney. Now, would you condem this as being a taking to benefit a private business? There is certainly a benefit to Disney. But you know what? It allows me to get past Disney and get to Orlando.
Indeed, traditionally local and state governments have been held responsible for public infrastructure improvements required as a consequence of private development. Your example would be far more apropos if the land to build Disneyworld had been given to DisneyCorp through the process of eminent domain. That would have been a direct benefit to a private business, as opposed to an indirect benefit which is, as you say, intended to directly benefit the citizens.
What's at issue here is an inversion of that principle: Use of eminent domain to directly benefit a private business on the grounds of indirect benefit to the community. Arguments for indirect benefits are always speculative and diffuse, and thus fertile ground for manipulation and abuse. "Lies, damned lies, and statistics" are piss-poor grounds for the taking of private property or the making of public policy in general.