Nevada Supreme Court OKs corrupt property grab

Submitted by Bill St. Clair on Sun, 02 Dec 2001 10:42:30 GMT

FROM MOUNTAIN MEDIA
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE DATED NOV. 19, 2001
THE LIBERTARIAN, By Vin Suprynowicz
Nevada Supreme Court OKs corrupt property grab

Court-enforceable private property rights are the component of our liberties most necessary and responsible for the long-term accumulation of capital. It should thus come as no surprise it is these very property rights to which more and more scholars are attributing the freedom and affluence of America and western Europe when contrasted with Russia and the Third World.

Why didn't these benighted regions immediately begin to move forward once "democracy" was installed? Because pure "democracy" -- which was not the form of government intended by the founders of our American republic in the first place -- turns out to simply not be enough; democratic majorities can always authorize the seizure and redistribution of the property of "the wealthy," as has happened again and again in Africa and Eastern Europe, endlessly frustrating the only known way for societies to escape the grinding poverty of subsistence-level consumption.

For all the talk of "post-communist" Russia, for instance, the Russian Duma first authorized the general ownership of private property only last week.

So it is with heavy heart that any admirer of our time-tested American system must regard last Thursday's 6-1 ruling of the Nevada state Supreme Court that the city of Las Vegas acted "legally" when it seized the private property of Paul and Laurel Moldon to turn it over to a private third party, the Stratosphere Hotel and Casino, for a planned parking lot expansion.

Yes, the United States constitution allows eminent domain seizure -- providing proper compensation is paid -- of private property "for public use." That has long been understood to mean needful highways, fire stations, sewage systems, and the like.

But this new wave of eminent domain seizures, using the compulsive power of the state to facilitate property transfers to wealthy corporations that simply don't want to negotiate on the free market to buy neighboring properties from their rightful owners at the asking price ... are cynical, repulsive, and a clear and present danger to our economic system, our freedoms, and our way of life.

For good measure, Thursday's ruling also provided an opportunity for Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman -- who ran for office as an outsider, vowing that he opposed the use of government power to effect such third-party transfers and that they would have no place under his regime -- to complete his transition to agent and shill of this new brand of tyranny, declaring Thursday "This case now defines the parameters of the council's discretion on redevelopment.

"We can now move with much more certainty than we have in the past," the mayor said as he twirled his mustache, donned his black hat, vaulted into the saddle of his trusty steed Diablo, and told his gang of property rustlers to "Mount up, boys, there's work to be done tonight."

Victim Paul Moldon, who has since relocated to Seattle, asked what else Nevadans expected, once the municipal entities start to "sell" their eminent domain powers to "the casinos which are the mainstays of the Nevada economy."

A district court judge and jury will now decide how much the Moldons will be paid for their seized property -- though the beneficiary of this unconstitutional land grab, the Stratosphere Tower, will still have the option of paying that price or rejecting the deal altogether.

In lone dissent, Justice Bill Maupin wrote of his concern that the majority decision "paints the authority" of the redevelopment agency "with too broad a brush," allowing it to revise redevelopment plans and say (in effect) "too bad" to land owners who failed to raise objections years ago, when a redevelopment district for their neighborhood was first proposed, but long before the property owner had the slightest idea the land on which he or she had been paying taxes for years could and would be seized and "reassigned."

That's for sure. As Review-Journal political columnist Steve Sebelius puts it, "They were supposed to go down and file a protest nine years before their land was seized? Taking along their consultant, Madame Zorba the psychic?"

The only possible source of justice in this case would now be the U.S. Supreme Court. But -- in poor health and drained of resources after a six-year legal battle -- Mr. Moldon appears unlikely to pursue that avenue.

Score another one for the bad guys.

Vin Suprynowicz is assistant editorial page editor of the Las Vegas Review-Journal. Subscribe to his monthly newsletter by sending $72 to Privacy Alert, 561 Keystone Ave., Suite 684, Reno, NV 89503 -- or dialing 775-348-8591. His book, "Send in the Waco Killers: Essays on the Freedom Movement, 1993-1998," is available at 1-800-244-2224, or via web site www.thespiritof76.com/wacokillers.html.

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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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?

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"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."

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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.

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Nevada Supreme Court OKs corrupt property grab