Monthly Archives: March 2009

Eminent Domain, Alabama Style

Constitution, Equal Protection, Property Rights

Speaking of the Cato Institute’s new video telling the story behind Suzette Kelo’s legal fight against the City of New London, I’ve been working on a website for a new grassroots organization in Alabama hoping to promote “the property rights of all Alabamians, regardless of race or financial status.”

In Alabama, it is generally the poorest of our citizens who are victimized and intimidated in similar situations to what happened in New London, CT.  Working with state legislators and the Alabama Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, we have reasonable hopes of being able to make a difference in the lives of people touched by corporate and government land grabs.

Right now, we are highlighting on two cases and working on two distinct pieces of legislation.  One issue deals with the highly publicized (many thanks to Neal Boortz and the Institute for Justice on this one) case of a Wal-Mart landgrab in Alabaster, AL:

In 2003, Alabaster, Alabama, a small bustling community south of Birmingham, garnered national attention through their efforts to seize property for the construction of a Wal-Mart shopping center. Ownership of the property was predominately poor and black. When national attention focused on the private property seizure, other avenues of securing the property for Wal-Mart prevailed. The procedure, while legal, would, by those familiar with the circumstances, deem the chain of events and the ensuing aftermath unethical by all standards. In the video Elizabeth Swain, her daughter, and granddaughter tell the story from the beginning to the end.

Click the link above to watch some touching video regarding the Alabaster issue.

Another issue never hit the national news, but it is just as disturbing.

Evergreen Baptist Church overlooks I-65 between Birmingham and Gardendale, Alabama. The Church was required to surrender its property through eminent domain for road construction. The Church agreed to a property swap with the State Department of Transportation. The Church at its old location was serviced with water, gas and electricity – all modern conveniences. Before construction began on the new Church building, Rev. Smith contacted the Birmingham Water Works to ensure that water would be available. With the Water Works assurance, construction was begun. When construction reached ¾ completion, it was disclosed that the Birmingham Water Works would require $80,000.00 to install a new water main. The Church, consisting of a small congregation, could not afford the demands of the Water Works. Two years have passed and the inequity in the land swap has not been resolved. The Church pleads for a just and appropriate public outcry.

Again, click the link for related video footage.

We’ve got two pieces of proposed legislation and an upcoming press conference dealing with these sorts of issues.  There is also an upcoming Civil Rights Commission Panel which will focus on racial minorities afflicted by these sorts of abuses of power.  The Alabama Advisory Committee is currently chaired by Dr. David Bieto, a name familiar to many libertarians and conservatives out there.

The site is still under construction, but feel free to sign up on our e-mail list if you’d like to keep track of what were are up to.  Also, if anyone wishes to donate some time to help with site graphics, please let me know.

In Alabama, some of us feel that protection from eminent domain abuse should apply as equally to people living below the poverty line and people of color as it does in the more affluent neighborhoods in the state.

Stephen Gordon
http://stephengordon.com

My Name Is Suzette Kelo And The Government Stole My House

Castle Doctrine, Individual Rights, Legal, Property Rights

The Cato Institute has a new video out telling the story behind Suzette Kelo’s legal fight against the City of New London, Connecticut and Pfizer, Inc, which resulted in one of the worst Supreme Court decisions in recent memory:

You can also listen to Suzette Kelo tell her story in her own words.

And, yes, as of today, the lot on which her house once stood still stands empty.

Doug Mataconis
http://www.belowthebeltway.com

Strategies For Advancing Liberty — Building Alternative Structures To Government

Activism, Strategies For Advancing Liberty, Theory and Ideas

Those who have read me for a while have seen that I’ve transitioned a lot over the last few years. When I started blogging, my first post was days after the 2004 election, defending a vote for George W. Bush as the best of a couple of bad options. Now, I’m nearly indistinguishable from an anarcho-capitalist. I don’t believe that our current governmental structure has any hope to do anything but grow to an eventual collapse, and that something must be done about it.

One of those early posts was defending the use of incrementalism in our strategy for change. I’ve modified that position slightly, but there is one point that I think still bears repeating:

An entire society based on the role of a strong federal government would collapse without it. The only prudent way to deconstruct that society is incrementally, because only then can we slowly build up the private support structures to replace government.

As much as I hate to say it, I truly believe that if the government disappeared tomorrow, it wouldn’t be all wine and roses. Civil society needs institutions to operate, and if you remove all the existing institutions without having alternatives, the result will be the type of “anarchy” feared by most who hear the term: chaos.

But above, I make an error. The answer is not to slowly deconstruct government first and then let the alternatives grow in government’s absence. The answer is to create those alternatives and thereby make government redundant (and unnecessary).

Mark, writing for The Distributed Republic, has come up with a way to begin that process: The AnCap Entrepreneur Network:

Mission

Anarcho-capitalism describes a society free of the initiation of force or fraud. Each individual has a right to his or her life, liberty, and property, and no other individual or group can legitimately violate that right.

The State is a centralized organization that inherently violates rights. It funds its activities through extortion. It restricts voluntary trade through licensure, subsidy, and prohibition. It uses its monopoly of force to erode every limitation on its power, and thereby grows until it collapses under its own weight. It demands subservience to its authority.

Many of our relationships with each other are structured through institutions. We use these to simplify our trade, to transmit our culture, to communicate, and to resolve our differences. To the extent that our institutions rely on the State, they are vulnerable. Our institutions can be corrupted as the State engulfs them, or can be destroyed when the State fails.

The Anarcho-Capitalist Entrepreneur Network exists to help individuals cooperate to design and implement organizations that respect the rights of individuals; to create organizations that are completely independent of the State. In time, we hope that such organizations become familiar enough that individuals no longer consider force or fraud a legitimate way to interact with each other.

There are some who believe that working within the system, they can change it. While I think those people should continue their efforts, I don’t have much hope that they can be anything but a brake on the growth and expansion of the State.

Instead, the way to beat the State is to make them irrelevant. The more time we spend working completely outside of the State, the less reason we have to keep it alive at all. The quicker we duplicate the purposes of their coercive institutions with free and voluntary institutions, the sooner we can put an end to their institutions entirely. When they finally wither and rot, our key to ensuring peaceful anarchy rather than chaos is having something that is free to supplant the institutions which have collapsed.

An undertaking like the one proposed is not going to be easy or trivial. But right now the options I see going forward on our current trajectory are a continued trek down the road to serfdom or a painful chaotic collapse. Those aren’t the only options available, and the stakes are high enough to make it worth the effort to avoid that fate.

Brad Warbiany
https://thelibertypapers.org/

Posse Comitatus Alert: Military Deployed in Alabama to Aid with Murder Spree Law Enforcement Activities

Constitution, Federalism, Government Incompetence, Military

As I was just interviewed by the Associated Press pertaining to federal troops being sent to Samson, Alabama immediately following a rampage last week which left 11 people dead, I’d thought I’d collect my thoughts on the issue here.

Preliminary reporting includes these stories: the initial AP piece, USA Today, LewRockwell.com, and CNS News.

The AP is currently reporting the following:

The Army has launched an inquiry into whether federal laws were broken when soldiers were sent to an Alabama town after 11 people died in a shooting spree.

The Army confirmed Wednesday that 22 military police and an officer from Fort Rucker were sent to the nearby town of Samson after slayings last week. The town’s tiny police force and county officers were stretched to the limit after a gunman killed 10 people and himself.

Authorization from the governor or president is typically required for the deployment of federal troops on U.S. soil. It’s not clear who ordered the troops sent to Samson.

An Army spokesman says the military is trying to determine what happened. Among the questions is why the troops were sent and what they did while there.

CNS adds photographic evidence of military members on the scene as well as the following:

The troops were apparently not deployed by the request of Alabama Gov. Bob Riley — or by the request of President Obama, as required by law.

When contacted by CNSNews.com, the governor’s office could not confirm that the governor had requested help from the Army, and Gov. Riley’s spokesman, Todd Stacy, expressed surprise when he was told that troops had been sent to the town.

No request from President Obama, meanwhile, was issued by the White House–or the Defense Department.

Wrongful use of federal troops inside U.S. borders is a violation of several federal laws, including one known as the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, Title 18, Section 1385 of the U.S. Code.

“Whoever, except in cases and under circumstances expressly authorized by the Constitution or Act of Congress, willfully uses any part of the Army or the Air Force as a posse comitatus or otherwise to execute the laws shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than two years, or both,” the law states.

David Rittgers, legal policy analyst at the Cato Institute, said there are other laws barring use of federal troops outside of federal property, as well.

“Title 18, Section 375 of the U.S. Code is a direct restriction on military personnel, and it basically precludes any member of the army in participating in a ‘search, seizure, arrest or other similar activity, unless participation is otherwise authorized by law,’ “ Rittgers told CNSNews.com.

“The security of a crime scene is something I think that would roll up in the category of a ‘search, seizure or other activity,’” Rittgers added.

In addition, there is the Insurrection Act of 1808, as amended in 2007, (Title 10, Section 331 of the U.S. Code) under which the president can authorize troops “to restore order and enforce the laws of the United States” in an insurrection.

Some quick thoughts on the topic:

  • This does seem (based on evidence presented so far) to be a clear-cut violation of federal law.  There may be some local law enforcement arrangements for pooling local law enforcement resources in time of disaster, but they would not override federal law on the matter.
  • There doesn’t seem to be any major harm done, so long as we don’t allow the bar to be lowered for similar future tragedies.  However, as citizens, it is important that we remain vigilant when things like this do occur.
  • This needs to be investigated to determine where the fault lies.  As I told the AP, if some local commander made a mistake, his wrist probably needs to be slapped, as appropriate.  We do need to find where the system broke down in order to prevent something like this from happening again.
  • This doesn’t seem to be part of any nefarious Obama plot to impose martial law across the land.  Some folks seem to be claiming this is President Obama’s first step in some apocalyptic total-takeover scheme.  For the conspiracy-minded out there, if this is such a plot, the Alabama mass murder seems to be a bad case to begin operations.  It was a quick response to a local event with no advance notice.  Anyway, it seems that Obama has a whole lot on his plate right now.  He’s probably too occupied at the moment to be concentrating on how to use a handful of MPs to overturn the Constitution in the deep south.
  • There are times when U.S. military forces do reasonably need to be involved in local issues.  When I was in the Army, I was involved in an operation to remove unexploded military ordinance found on private property in the D.C. area.  In this case, FEMA, local law enforcement and military personal cooperated and communicated about how to handle the issues involved and we (the military) were very mindful about the line between the military and civilians.
  • That someone didn’t quickly answer the question about who ordered the MPs offbase is concerning.  A quick and honest answer probably would have stopped online speculation which may continue for some time.  It also (probably needlessly) undermines public confidence in the military.  Why not simply say “who dunnit” so folks can move back to more important issues in their lives?

In short, we should probably try to figure out what happened and fix the problem so a) the bar doesn’t get lowered and b)  we can prevent this from happening in the future.  We need to remain vigilant, but not overreactive.  Based on information available so far, it appears that no serious harm was done but we do need to get to the bottom of it — and with no stonewalling, either.

UPDATE: Here’s an updated AP report from the Houston Chronicle:

The chairman of the Libertarian Party of Alabama, Stephen Gordon, said while many are worried about the use of Army troops in civilian police roles, he doubts there was anything nefarious about the soldiers in Samson.

“There is no apparent harm here, but the principle still needs to be upheld,” Gordon said. “The barrier has been lowered for the next time, and we really need to take a look at what happened.”

Stephen Gordon
http://stephengordon.com

Who is John Galt?

Credit Crisis, Culture, Economics, Freedom, Government Incompetence, Government Regulation, Government Waste, Human Rights, Individual Rights, Liberty, Republicans, Theory and Ideas

This question is asked repeatedly in Ayn Rand’s Atlas Shrugged until Galt himself introduces himself to a world in crisis. In light of this new phenomenon of “Going Galt” being encouraged by Michelle Malkin, Rush Limbaugh, Glenn Beck, and many others (particularly on the Right), this question deserves a serious answer. How else would it be possible for individuals to “Go Galt” without answering the question: Who is John Galt?

I would begin answering the question by explain who Galt is not. John Galt is not someone who merely caps the limits on his productivity to avoid being pushed into a higher tax bracket. What Galt does in Atlas Shrugged is much more radical: going on strike by refusing to produce anything for the benefit of society. Galt seeks out other high achievers and convinces them to do the same and help him build a society of their own.

Are these folks who claim to be “Going Galt” prepared to do this? Would Michelle Malkin et. al even be considered by Galt to be invited into his society?

Hardly.

To be invited to Galt’s Gulch one has to demonstrate that s/he has rejected the false virtues of altruism, collectivism, and mysticism (religion) and embrace his virtues of selfishness, reason, objective reality, and capitalism. While Malkin and Co. pay lip service to capitalism (especially when their people are not in control of the levers of power), their remaining values run counter to that of Galt’s. Is it not these very people who wish to erect religious monuments on government property, demand that Intelligent Design (Creationism) be taught alongside evolution in government schools, encourage individual sacrifice for the “greater good,” and wish to ratchet up the War on (Some) Drugs despite the evidence that the policy is completely counterproductive?

Now that I have pointed out what John Galt is not, perhaps I should allow the man to speak for himself in this modern dramatization* from the novel:

How many of those who say they are “Going Galt” prepared to embrace this philosophy by taking the following pledge:

“I swear, by my life and my love of it, that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine.”

While I am pleased that the Galt trend is bringing some much needed attention to Atlas Shrugged, it’s my hope that more individuals will actually read the book and learn exactly what Going Galt is all about. That way when someone says “I am John Galt,” those who have been educated can respond by saying: “I know John Galt and you sir are no John Galt!”

UPDATE: XCowboy2 has released a newer version called “This is John Galt Speaking 2.0.” Enjoy!

» Read more

Stephen Littau
http://fpffressminds.blogspot.com/
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