I don't think that the rulings about medical marijuana are correct, either. There's another whole set of issues connected with that, also including serious government takings but on the Federal level through the DEA, that needs to be examined.

To me, the particular focus of this case hinges on the concept of "just compensation". The government has been taking property -- usually blighted property, but "blighted" can be remarkably liquid in its definition -- and giving it to private developers for decades and decades. Members of my family had property taken in Washington, DC, over a generation ago as part of a large redevelopment project. The project was bid out to private companies to revitalize that part of the city. No one can tell me that the eventual owners of the project weren't already lined up before the property was taken. It was commercial property, so no one could play the sentiment card. This is why I look at those 7 families with their 15 properties and wonder how much "a man's home is his castle" really applies. How many castles do you need in one neighborhood?

Is there no "just compensation" by definition? Can individual citizens just say no to the community? Did these people in particular appeal to the community first, or did they just go to court in an attempt to make people let them have their way? One thing I know about local elected officials: faced with the prospect of losing their jobs, they will usually knuckle under to popular pressure. If the pressure wasn't there, what does this say about the community's opinion?

And then there's the general focus of this case.

We have gotten damn lazy. We can control these laws if we want to. We don't have to go crying to the Supreme Court, except as a last resort. We forget that the Civil Rights movement, which is often touted as a movement driven by the courts, really was not at all. They used the courts, but only after they organized their people to make a public case to develop the popular pressure needed to support the change they sought. They also went after a series of legislative solutions. If we want to remember that the courts eventually ruled on cases involving individuals' rights, we also need to remember all the many decades of work it took to get enough popular support for the courts to have to act.

We will have to agree to disagree on this one. You see big business having their way with the little guy, and I agree there's some of that going on. I think it's awfully funny that the conservatives think this is such a shame, but that the little guy can take it on the chin when it's a matter of big business taking pensions. This is just one more opportunity to say that liberal justices are bad people.

I see the justices telling people to go home and fix their own broken laws the way they are supposed to be fixed, rather than just to sue. That doesn't help the 7 families in Connecticut, and I am somewhat sorry about that, but you know, a ruling in their favor would only have helped them and the small number of cases that also fit these particular circumstances. Other circumstances would have arisen, to get around the ruling, which would necessitate a whole new round of "I'll SUE!!!" It would not have fixed the problem. Only the people can do that by the exercise of our will through lawmaking. To do that, we will actually have to think, and work, and talk, painful and time-consuming though it is.

It's about damn time We The People got off our butts and started to take back the control of our own institutions. We have delegated to the courts and jobbed out to the contractors long enough. The Court, in a subtle way, is directing us to do just that.