Thanks to George for his critique of Jonathan Adler?s NRO piece on the Kelo v. New London case. Ron Utt, another JLF friend and an analyst at the Heritage Foundation, has just put out an interesting take on the Supreme Court?s wrongheaded decision to erase a key phrase of the Fifth Amendment. He thinks that the Kelo decision will lead to a backlash that will strengthen private-property rights over time:
There may be a silver lining in all of this: Kelo is not merely a bad decision, but one so utterly repellent that it has flamed a firestorm of anger and rebellion across the nation. Concerned citizens now know that, thanks to Justice Stevens and his colleagues, when the wealthy and powerful covet their property, they are without any protection, stripped of their basic Constitutional rights. Distilled to its essence, Justice Stevens?s ruling has not just entitled the rich to prey upon the poor, but it also supports a process that encourages them to do so and thereby grants planners the resources and violence of the state to facilitate their acquisitive interests. Perhaps not since Dred Scott have the weak been so abused by the nation?s highest court.
Yet another old friend of ours, Virginia Postrel, makes a similar point in a recent post on her ?Dynamist? blog.
