Excellent Article: Abuse of eminent domain threatens us

Abuse of eminent domain threatens us - by Sarah Overstreet

Anybody here who, when you were studying high school civics, thought the concept of eminent domain meant the government could take your private property — a house, a couple dogs and a goat or a profitable shopping center — to plop a mega-super-duper big-box store where you used to be?

If you did, you obviously read more into it that I did. I learned it was the right of government to take property for public use. Public "use," for the good of the public, for government to serve the public through government projects: roads, courthouses, police stations, post offices — not public profit for the benefit of a city getting a bigger pot of tax dollars for city use. After their experiences in Britain, one of the rights our founding fathers and first residents held most dear was the right of private property ownership. more...