The Government Can Take Your Property From You Without Your Consent (Even If They Are Paying You For It) Then You Don’t Really Have A Right To Own Private Property At All. And You’re Truly Not Free.
Allselfsustained.com
May 31, 2016
There is no version of eminent domain that coincides with liberty. On the contrary, the two ideas are antithetical to each other. As a champion of liberty, John Locke stated in his Second Treatise of Civil Government, “For I have truly no Property in that, which another can by right take from me, when he pleases against my Consent.”
In other words, if the government can take your property from you without your consent — even if they are paying you for it — then you don’t really have a right to own private property at all. And you’re truly not free.
The deeper debate about whether the idea of private property still exists at all in a country where property taxes, construction regulations, and other limitations are demanded is one best saved for its own discussion. For now, we’ll stick with the commonly held assumption that private property does exist.
Under that assumption, we can move a few years forward from Locke’s writings and quote the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution, a part of what we know as the Bill of Rights, which states that “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable … seizures, shall not be violated”.
However, the very next amendment goes on to say that “private property” shall not be taken for “public use” without “just compensation.” Therefore, the idea of eminent domain is Constitutional, even if it still seems antithetical to liberty.
The Rest…HERE
