Lone property rights case before the court this year

Submitted by Bill St. Clair on Mon, 28 May 2001 10:03:24 GMT

FROM MOUNTAIN MEDIA
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE DATED MARCH 18, 2001
THE LIBERTARIAN, By Vin Suprynowicz
Lone property rights case before the court this year

Property rights have spent long, dark decades in this country since the rise of Woodrow Wilson and his "Progressives," 90 years ago.

In the end, the "Progressive" -- or collectivist, or redistributionist, or socialist ... whatever chameleon colors they've adopted most recently -- doesn't believe a private person can own anything, down to and including our own bodies, our children, or the fruits of our labor.

All these things belong to some mythical "social collectivity," you see, on whose behalf the current ruling class can seize, transfer, or re-allocate anything and anyone, from the third of your paycheck you never see, right down to children pulled out of loving homes and placed in far-more-dangerous "foster care" because parents resist pertussis vaccinations or try to take them off their government-mandated Ritalin.

Of course, America grew great precisely because free citizens were allowed to work hard and store away their earnings for a rainy day, investing the surplus in various private enterprises.

The opposite theory is that wiser government "managers" should seize whatever's needed so press gangs of conscript workers can complete the new steel mill on time to meet the "five-year plan." And if that sounds good to you, I understand there are currently plenty of job openings in many a "workers' paradise," such as scenic downtown Smolensk.

So champions of restored American property rights -- I among them -- sounded premature hosannas when the U.S. Supreme Court seemed to finally reverse this erosion, handing down its landmark 1990 decision in the case Lucas vs. South Carolina Coastal Council.

Lucas owned a building lot on one of the barrier islands off the coast of South Carolina. Flood control regulations barred him from actually building anything on it, but the authorities denied they'd "taken" his property under the Fifth Amendment, since he was still allowed to hold title ... and pay property taxes. Thus, no one owed him anything for merely taking away the productive use of his property.

Until the court spoke, that is. The Lucas decision held there could indeed be a regulatory "taking," that government had to pay a land owner "just compensation" as required under the Fifth Amendment, even if they only "took" the land by passing regulations sufficient to render it unusable.

"Unfortunately, the Lucas case didn't turn out to be the watershed that some editorialists and legal commentators predicted," explains Harold Johnson, an attorney with the Pacific Legal Foundation in Sacramento. "Regulators and courts have gotten around the rule of Lucas by, among other strategies, creatively discovering residual value even in heavily regulated properties."

Three weeks ago, attorneys for PLF traveled to the Supreme Court to argue the case of 80-year-old Anthony Palazzolo, who for 40 years has been denied the right to develop 18 acres of salt marsh that he owns in Westerly, R.I.

"Because he would be permitted to build a single family home on a small parcel next to the salt marsh, the R.I. Supreme Court refused to recognize a compensable taking," attorney Johnson explains. "Never mind that the house would be worth at most $200,000, less than a tenth the value of the salt marsh area if he could build homes or a beach club on it."

Mr. Palazzolo is seeking $3.1 million -- or the right to build his beach club, where there would be calm waters, an 8 p.m. curfew and "no drunks."

As he looked over the marsh and pond this January, Palazzolo pointed to nearby cottages and told a reporter for the Providence Journal-Bulletin: "People did what they wanted around here and nothing happened. I ask for permission, and I get nowheres."

One technicality the land-grabbers are using in Mr. Palazzolo's case is that he used to hold the land in the name of a corporate entity. And although the new development restrictions were put in place after that corporation bought the property, when he transferred ownership into his own name that constituted a new "acquisition"; the new "buyer" should have been aware the restrictions were in place.

"That theory relegates property rights to second-class status," answers attorney Johnson. "You wouldn't be barred from challenging a city government's First Amendment violation merely because the offending law was on the books when you moved to town and you were 'on notice' of the violation."

Many among the eco-extremists squawk that if the high court holds for Palazzolo -- a decision is expected this spring -- it could become prohibitively expensive for bureaucrats to wave their magic wands and declare vast swatches of the American landscape off limits for productive use, the better to "protect the habitat of the threatened yellow mealworm," or whatever.

Well, good. There's a price to be paid for such arrogance, and the government has no right to impose that price on unwilling victims. Pay up -- from your constitutionally limited revenues -- or downsize your rapacious schemes.

(Briefs at http://supreme.lp.findlaw.com/supreme_court/docket/2000/febdocket.html#99-20 47.)

Vin Suprynowicz is assistant editorial page editor of the Las Vegas Review-Journal. Subscribe to his monthly newsletter by sending $72 to Privacy Alert, 1475 Terminal Way, Suite E for Easy, Reno, NV 89502. His book, "Send in the Waco Killers" is available at 1-800-244-2224.

Vin Suprynowicz, vin@lvrj.com

"When great changes occur in history, when great principles are involved, as a rule the majority are wrong. The minority are right." -- Eugene V. Debs (1855-1926)

"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed -- and thus clamorous to be led to safety -- by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary." -- H.L. Mencken

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Previous Posts:
For once, bureaucratic nightmare has a happy ending
Busting the protection racket
Teachers unions won't say where tax loot would go
A victory in Elko
The hypocrisy of the morally anointed
Driving them off the land
The Last Food Fight
Drug war very effective
What did those 'B averages' really mean?
The questions that are never asked, Part II

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Government doesn't work. Never did. Never will. Can't. But there are lots of good people. Love them.

-- Bill St. Clair

The Atlanta Declaration

Every man, woman, and responsible child has an unalienable individual, civil, Constitutional, and human right to obtain, own, and carry, openly or concealed, any weapon -- rifle, shotgun, handgun, machinegun, anything -- any time, any place, without asking anyone's permission.

-- L. Neil Smith

Reread that pesky first clause of the Second Amendment. It doesn't say what any of us thought it said. What it says is that infringing the right of the people to keep and bear arms is treason. What else do you call an act that endangers "the security of a free state"? And if it's treason, then it's punishable by death. I suggest due process, speedy trials, and public hangings.

-- L. Neil Smith

A Penalty Clause for the Bill of Rights

Any official, appointed or elected, at any level of government, who attempts, through legislative act or other means, to nullify, evade, or avoid the provisions of the first ten amendments to this Constitution, or of the Thirteenth Amendment, shall be summarily removed from office, and, upon conviction, deprived of all pay and benefits including pension, and sentenced to imprisonment for life.

-- L. Neil Smith

Based on 253 journal articles, 99 books, 43 government publications, and some of its own empirical work, the panel couldn't identify a single gun control regulation that reduced violent crime, suicide or accidents.

-- John Lott, commenting on the National Academy of Sciences report on gun control laws.

Who is a libertarian?

Zero Aggression Principle ("Zap")

"A libertarian is a person who believes that no one has the right, under any circumstances, to initiate force against another human being, or to advocate or delegate its initiation. Those who act consistently with this principle are libertarians, whether they realize it or not. Those who fail to act consistently with it are not libertarians, regardless of what they may claim."

-- L. Neil Smith

(Formerly called the "Non-Aggression Principle", or "NAP")

Why Did It Have to be... Guns?

Make no mistake: all politicians -- even those ostensibly on the side of guns and gun ownership -- hate the issue and anyone, like me, who insists on bringing it up. They hate it because it's an X-ray machine. It's a Vulcan mind-meld. It's the ultimate test to which any politician -- or political philosophy -- can be put.

If a politician isn't perfectly comfortable with the idea of his average constituent, any man, woman, or responsible child, walking into a hardware store and paying cash -- for any rifle, shotgun, handgun, machinegun, anything -- without producing ID or signing one scrap of paper, he isn't your friend no matter what he tells you.

If he isn't genuinely enthusiastic about his average constituent stuffing that weapon into a purse or pocket or tucking it under a coat and walking home without asking anybody's permission, he's a four-flusher, no matter what he claims.

What his attitude -- toward your ownership and use of weapons -- conveys is his real attitude about you. And if he doesn't trust you, then why in the name of John Moses Browning should you trust him?

-- L. Neil Smith

Concise

"Tell me," I was once asked, "What do you think about gun control? Give me the short answer." To which I replied, "If you try to take our firearms we will kill you."

-- Mike Vanderboegh

Also from The Atlanta Declaration:

... like going to the bathroom, breathing, eating, sleeping, or making love, it turns out that self-defense is a bodily function one cannot safely or effectively delegate to a second party.

-- L. Neil Smith

This does not mean that "Marijuana should be available by prescription." It means that morphine sulfate should be available in five pound bags at the supermarket for a couple of bucks, like sugar... but probably in a different aisle, to avoid confusion.

-- Vin Suprynowicz

If you refuse to pay unjust taxes, your property will be confiscated. If you attempt to defend your property, you will be arrested. If you resist arrest, you will be clubbed. If you defend yourself against clubbing, you will be shot dead. These procedures are known as the Rule of Law.

-- Edward Abbey

The state can only survive as long as a majority is programmed to believe that theft isn't wrong if it's called taxation or asset forfeiture or eminent domain, that assault and kidnapping isn't wrong if it's called arrest, that mass murder isn't wrong if it's called war.

-- Bill St. Clair

End the War on Freedom

Lone property rights case before the court this year