Property Rights, What Are Those?

Thanks to the leftists on the Supreme Court they no longer exist. With the Kelo Decision earlier this year, our government no longer has to respect your property. Taking property from taxpayer "A" to give to taxpayer "B" has been long sanctioned by the "compassionate" among us "for the greater good." Now a Florida town is simply following suit. After all, the government knows what's best.

RIVIERA BEACH, Fla., Oct. 4 (UPI) -- Officials of a poor, predominantly black Florida town plan to relocate about 6,000 residents to make room for a billion-dollar yachting and housing complex.

The coastal community of Rivera Beach in Palm Beach County may use eminent domain, if necessary, to claim 400 acres of land for the project, The Washington Times reported Monday."

This is a community that's in dire need of jobs, which has a median income of less than $19,000 a year," Mayor Michael Brown said. "If we don't use this power, cities will die."

When the government can take one person's property to redistribute to another, who would expect anything BUT this to happen. Also from the story:

"Viking [the developer] said that it would pay at least the assessed values of homes and business it buys."

Some of the Kelo victims actually wound up OWING money after having their property taken. The city actually had the nuts to charge them all back rent on their own property for the time they continued to occupy it and also would only pay what the properties were worth back in 2000. I blogged about that little tidbit here.

Go read Robb Allen's barely contained anger on this at Sharp as a Marble.