06/23/05

In one very significant sense, Stevens is entirely correct, although he of course reaches the wrong and damnable conclusion. Once you grant the premise -- that the state should have the power to seize private property for 'the public good,' then there is no 'principled way' of distinguishing this case from others, where the court has recognized 'public purposes.' But that is precisely the premise that must be questioned, and rejected. And in fact, there is no such thing as the 'public good' at all: it is a noxious, destructive and dangerous notion, which can only mean that the 'rights' of some people are more 'important' than the rights of others -- and that the lives of the latter may be destroyed by the state for the alleged benefit of the former. If the facts of this case prove nothing else, they surely prove the truth of that proposition...

http://coldfury.com/reason/?p=728

from The Light of Reason, by Arthur Silber


Informant: Thomas L. Knapp