RoR: Forum

"A new highway could get you home in 40 instead of 90 minutes. Twelve hundred homeowners, sixty-four pet store strip malls and five hotdog stands have taken the money and ran away. One dipshit with eighteen rottweilers in his back yard says “no.”"

Sounds like some foolish highway builder who didn't use conditional contracts is likely to go out of business then.

Post 21

Saturday, July 2, 2005 - 9:15pm

Dipshit’s YARD exists so that I may have a highway, but not dipshit.

Post 22

Saturday, July 2, 2005 - 9:23pm

Jon Letendre wrote:

"Dipshit’s YARD exists so that I may have a highway, but not dipshit."

So, if I spend a few years cultivating a garden in my back yard, I did it so that you could have a highway? If you think that, I suggest either reading Roadwork by Richard Bachman (aka Stephen King), or watching an Australian film about a blue-collar family fighting eminent domain called The Castle.

Take my home to build a highway, and what you are doing is taking years of hard work and memories and burying them under a few tons of asphalt. Why should I let you do that? Just to benefit strangers? Screw that, and if you represented a city in which I owned property, I'd tell you exactly where to go.

I'm not going to work hard, save my money, put years of sweat and effort into making a house a home and then quietly take the money and run just so a highway can be built. Why in Chaos should I? Hell, what's the point in owning anything if it can be taken away from you for "the greater good"? There is no point.

Post 23

Saturday, July 2, 2005 - 9:29pm

"I assure you that when my property is being eyed for some major development, and I am finding myself saying no to generous offers, the reason will not be that I honestly think it is worth more. The reason will be that I believe that YOU and all the other taxpayers will be willing to pay me MORE—If only I hold out and cry a lot."

Perhaps that is what I, who am not sentimentally attached to my relatively recently purchased home, would also do. We would likely be willing to sell for 2-3x max appraised value, and holding out would only be in hopes for still more cash rather than sentimentality influencing our own value of the property.

My parents have had their home for over 30 years, and have many friendships with neighbors and have watched and helped their community grow. My neighbors a couple houses down from me here have recently celebrated their 40th wedding anniversary in a house in which they raised 3 children and which they built with their own hands 35 years ago.

You or I may not have deep attachment to our homes, and might primarily value them at some small multiple of appraised monetary value. However, I'm not so cavalier as to dismiss as just some money-grubbing holdout anyone who values their home more highly than a builder wishes to pay.

Post 24

Saturday, July 2, 2005 - 9:42pm

I’ve owned my home for 13 years and I’ve been working on it, inside and out, with some energy for all that time.

I’ll take the hops with me with one scoop of a backhoe—the rest is yours for so little as 1.5X value.

But the memories. Make it 2.5X

Jon

Post 25

Saturday, July 2, 2005 - 9:49pm

Jon Letendre wrote:

> I’ll take the hops with me with one scoop of a backhoe—the
> rest is yours for so little as 1.5X value.

> But the memories. Make it 2.5X.

That's your decision, since it's your home. I won't presume to tell you how much to demand in exchange for your home and the memories attached. However, I'm not sure it's possible to put a price tag on memories, since memories are intangible; they exist only in your head and in the heads of those with whom you share them.

Post 26

Saturday, July 2, 2005 - 10:05pm

I’m sure some tribe somewhere has a story of some heroic act against buffaloes on my property. But they still had to move on, right? The guy who developed my lot in 1890 put up a fence and contributed to the ruin of those memories. What value to place on my yard sans stack of bricks and a fence, and large mammals? Shall I cry all night for them? Or conclude that my developer had the right and the buffalo fun would just have to move over there or change into ranching?

I don’t think it all that unreasonable to say the Indians should have gotten along with us—turned to ranching. So why is it so hard to see that dipshit should rent until he finds a mansion to buy with his $720,000?

Jon

Post 27

Saturday, July 2, 2005 - 10:20pm

Jon Letendre wrote:

> I don’t think it all that unreasonable to say the Indians
> should have gotten along with us—turned to ranching.

Given that the US made treaty after treaty with the Indians, and didn't honor any of them, I strongly doubt that dragging the Indians into this argument will do anything but confuse the matter.

> So why is it so hard to see that dipshit should rent until
> he finds a mansion to buy with his $720,000?

I fail to see why 'dipshit' should be forced out of his home just so a bunch of suburbanites can shave some time off their commutes. Since I think it is wrong to force people who have done me no harm, I find it difficult to agree with your opinion that 'dipshit' should just take the money, shut up, and move. I fail to see how the desire of many for a faster commute outweighs the right of even a single person to keep his property.

Mind you, it's late where I am, and neither of us are likely to change the other's mind. So I think it's time I shut down and went to sleep.

Post 28

Saturday, July 2, 2005 - 11:44pm

When the Pacific Design Center was to be built in Los Angeles, everyone who lived or worked on the property sold to the builders -- except one rather elderly man. His building was what can only be called a shack, a small one at that, where he had a shop in which he restored silver. He was a skilled craftsman, and proud of his work and his reputation. He refused every offer the builders made; no amount of money would make him move.

When the Center was completed, one saw, on one corner of it, that this huge edifice had been built around a strange-looking little shack, where a man sat happily working; it seemed almost to cradle it.

Jon, that was his answer to you.

I took my own silver to him. I would have taken it even if it had been in perfect condition.

Barbara

Post 29

Sunday, July 3, 2005 - 7:03am

Adam, your remark is correct, in wartime this is necessary and the only solution, but then we don't have eminent domain, haven't we? Eminent domain is a hit at civil property rights and not a tool of military war-strategy. Also, the military wouldn't ask and certainly not wait until a judge give them permission to use your property as a means of defense and certainly you wouldn't be far away from this territory if a war was at hand. So, albeit your argumentation is sound, it just doesn't add up for wars.

There is nothing wrong with trying to sell people of their property, but I have a problem with being forced from my property. If someone gave me 400000 to move from my property, I'd do it and take everything worthy with me (because I don't own much property atm ;) ). But if I were a father of two children and had a huge house with a garden and perhaps a pool and my own pine trees, I wouldn't do it, not even for twenty million.

Eminent Domain is truly a destructive law and follows utilitarian ideas by setting a surplus for a majority over the happiness of a minority...

Post 30

Sunday, July 3, 2005 - 10:16am

Barbara,

I truly love you.

I will not engage in this discussion because I do not believe that it is a moral imperative of mine to explain to thieves why they must not steal.

Post 31

Sunday, July 3, 2005 - 12:23pm

Mayor: "Jon, will you take $750,000 for your house so we can build a new strip mall there?"

Jon: "Sure. I value my property, but money is money. Where do I sign?"

Mayor: "How about $75?"

Jon: "Hey, what do you take me for?"

Mayor: "We've already established that; we're just haggling over the price."

Post 32

Sunday, July 3, 2005 - 12:57pm

With notable exceptions, and yes, they know who they are:

GOD DAMN IT, but there are a bunch of morons who think they know something posting on this thread.

Post 33

Sunday, July 3, 2005 - 5:26pm

Jon asked

Here’s a question for you:

A new highway could get you home in 40 instead of 90 minutes. Twelve hundred homeowners, sixty-four pet store strip malls and five hotdog stands have taken the money and ran away. One dipshit with eighteen rottweilers in his back yard says “no.”

What now?

Too bad for me.

Ethan

Post 34

Monday, July 4, 2005 - 7:40pm

Thank you, Mike Erickson!

Barbara

Post 35

Wednesday, July 6, 2005 - 3:53pm

Jon,

We've had this debate before, just as I joined. The simple solution to any highway developer is to get options from all the properties along various routes. Perhaps a few hold out. OK then exercise the relevant options (optimally choosing a route for your highway) and you won't have any problems about someone holding out.

If the route isn't "optimal" enough - tough - he should have thought of his highway 20 years earlier. (perhaps he should consider collecting options now for future highways)

I'll defend your right to exercise the options - I won't defend your right to steal.

As an aside, the people 90 minutes away from work presumably chose to live there. Ever consider the value you may be removing from closer homes by building your stolen highway - that's effectively stolen value*. Now you're going to have to subsidize the inner city homes for the fact that your highway has reduced their value etc. etc. in classic liberal regulation patchwork on patchwork ...

* perhaps you argue the value to the outer city guys is more? By whose yardstick? Classic liberal stuff!

Post 36

Wednesday, July 6, 2005 - 8:56pm

The consensus seems to be that the taking of property is not justified, except for extraordinary circumstances of threat to national security. This seems to be the same kind of issue as conscription or forced quarantine during an epidemic, in that they all require emergency situations to be (possibly) justified.

I think Adam's wartime exceptions must be seriously considered, but as Max points out, military action is not exactly covered by the meaning of eminent domain as in "public use." It seems to me that the "public use" clause of the Fifth Amendment could be eliminated without danger to national security and with positive benefit to the rights of individual citizens. The wartime exceptions could be covered elsewhere, perhaps as an "emergency war power" of the president. There is currently a serious ambiguity about what a war is, and how it should be declared, but that is a subject for another thread.

On the issue of conscription, there is, in my mind, no ambiguity. Involuntary servitude is explicitly forbidden by the Constitution (the Supreme Court not withstanding) and if there are not enough citizens who volunteer to defend their nation in the face of a clear threat, then clearly the nation does not consider itself worth defending.

About quarantines and other public health emergencies, this seems to me to be a grey area, ripe for abuse. I am pretty ignorant of the law here, but I think there are special powers granted to certain officials under the Patriot Act that would apply to epidemic situations and some state health officials also have extraordinary legal powers in public health emergencies, real and imagined. It is easy to imagine nightmare scenarios involving mass quarantines of people just on the basis of rumors of smallpox infection or other biological WMD. Maybe someone more familiar with the law in this area can provide some information.

Post 37

Thursday, July 7, 2005 - 8:47am

Wayne Dam wrote:

The simple solution to any highway developer is to get options from all the properties along various routes. Perhaps a few hold out. OK then exercise the relevant options (optimally choosing a route for your highway) and you won't have any problems about someone holding out.

This is the most intelligent post on this thread to date. Sanction!

As a side note, Disney did something along these lines when it formed numerous nondescript companies and land trusts to purchase central Florida properties piecemeal when planning Walt Disney World. This clever acquisition strategy assured its name recognition did not drive purchase prices higher than normal market prices.

Post 38

Thursday, July 7, 2005 - 2:23pm

I think it's justifiable only if the government bulldozes a center for social activism to put in some nuclear weapons silos.

Post 39

Friday, July 8, 2005 - 11:47am