So now local authorities can unilaterally confiscate private property from one citizen to give to another citizen.  That's according to the US Supreme court in a narrow 5 to 4 ruling.  Not surprising, the 5 votes in favor of the ruling come from the left.  After all, the best run country is the one in which the central government assigns each of us to our allotted duties. A central government that decides where we live, how we work, how we live, and where we can go.

Okay, maybe that's reading more into the decision that the case merits. But consider the logical conclusion of this case -- local governments can now evict someone from their property and hand it over to another based on the local government's own criteria of what is good for society.  Anyone who has had to deal with local governments for any length of time can cringe collectively.  If you think national politics are mean-spirited, petty, and arbitrary, you should see what local politics looks like.  If you think federally elected politicians -- senators, representatives, the President are fools, idiots, corrupt, or just useless, then you should see the pieces of work that sit on many local councils.  And now these people will have the right to evict property holders if they so choose.

One can imagine the scenarios that could potentially play out.  One local government decides they want to rezone vast swaths of their community to be something completely new and different. So they invite some investors and start kicking out the people who inconveniently happen to live and work on this land. 

Here in Canton Michigan, they're trying to build a new urban "Cherry Hill Village" complete with a theater, shops, etc.  Unfortunately, it's too far from where people live so things aren't going so well.  If only they had built this new urban area closer to where people live.  Like say 5 miles east where there's a lot of new development, big houses, and near the highway.  Oh, but wait, there's a few square miles of older homes in that perfect spot.  No problem, just kick those people out. Out out you go. We have various chain restaurants and stores that need to go in.

And that's not even the worse scenarios.  One can imagine some personal disputes between private citizens and elected local officials in some rural area where the elected official gets his revenge by rezoning the land his opponent lives on for commercial use -- a perfect place for Walmart or Starbucks. Obviously I don't think these scenarios are likely to be widespread, but it wouldn't surprise me to see some incidents of this. 

The state should not have the right to take away the land of one citizen to give to another. This is supposed to be one of the founding principles of our country.  Consider that in the Declaration of Independence the colonists were ripped that British Soldiers were being housed in the homes of colonists.  They were ripped enough about it that it was put into the constitution.  And yet now, the state can do much worse, they can just take away the house entirely and turn it into a barracks (and they could before but now the bar has been lowered so much that if you can take away land from the Johnsons to give to Starbucks then certainly you can take away property from them to give to the US military..).

This is definitely not a shining day in our nation's history.