Takings

I can blog easily when I'm mad; I can blog easily when amused. I find it difficult to blog when I'm just depressed. And I'm extremely depressed by the Supreme Court decision in Kelo v. New London.

But not too surprised. The deep-thinking liberal Supremes are habituated to spinning grand rhetorical threads to create new "rights" not mentioned in the Constitution. And, of course, they can equally spin on the other side, denying rights that are plainly mentioned in the Constitution, as in this case and McConnell v. FEC.

Simply speaking, the Court had its chance to rule in favor of the Constitution—and declined.

I'm not a lawyer, of course, let alone a Constitutional scholar. But I fantasize that if I should ever accidentally meet any one of Justice Stevens, Breyer, Kennedy, Souter, or Ginsburg, I would this down in big block letters on a piece of paper:

… nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.

and ask: "Now, what exactly about this do you not understand? Do you think that word 'public' is in there for no reason whatsoever?"

Sigh. Good links: You can buy Takings by Richard Epstein from Amazon here. George Will is suitably acerbic. The Bear has a topic page on Kelo here with an astounding number of links. A little bit of clicking thereon might make you more depressed than I. (But I'm very depressed.)