Ron Paul on Property Rights & Eminent Domain

http://www.ronpaul2008.com/issues/property-rights-and-eminent-domain/

Republican presidential candidate Ron Paul says "We must stop special interests from violating property rights and literally driving families from their homes, farms and ranches.

Today, we face a new threat of widespread eminent domain actions as a result of powerful interests who want to build a NAFTA superhighway through the United States from Mexico to Canada.
We also face another danger in regulatory takings: Through excess regulation, governments deprive property owners of significant value and use of their properties — all without paying “just compensation.”
Property rights are the foundation of all rights in a free society. Without the right to own a printing press, for example, freedom of the press becomes meaningless. The next president must get federal agencies out of these schemes to deny property owners their constitutional rights to life, liberty, and property.We must stop special interests from violating property rights and literally driving families from their homes, farms and ranches.
Today, we face a new threat of widespread eminent domain actions as a result of powerful interests who want to build a NAFTA superhighway through the United States from Mexico to Canada.
We also face another danger in regulatory takings: Through excess regulation, governments deprive property owners of significant value and use of their properties — all without paying “just compensation.”
Property rights are the foundation of all rights in a free society. Without the right to own a printing press, for example, freedom of the press becomes meaningless. The next president must get federal agencies out of these schemes to deny property owners their constitutional rights to life, liberty, and property."

I hope Ron Paul gets the GOP nomination. If not, I hope he will seek the Libertarian Party nomination.

When the Town of North Hempstead was using eminent domain to stomp on Rev. Fred Jenkins and St. Luke's Pentecostal Church in the hamlet of New Cassel next to Westbury, New York, the Nassau and New York Libertarians spoke out in their defense under my leadership. Ron Paul heard our voice and acted. He introduced legislation to bar the use of federal funds to seize houses of worship. His legislation was reintroduced as an amendment which passed the US House of Representatives on a voice vote. However, the housing bill it was attached to failed in the Senate.

A few years later, the groundbreaking was begun for the urban renewal scheme which took the church's land and demolished its building and that of other victims. There to take credit were US Senator and now presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, Congresswoman Carolyn McCarthy, Nassau County Executive Thomas Suozzi, and Town of North Hempstead Supervisor Jon Kaiman, together with other Democrat cronies.

The New Cassel urban renewal scheme handed over the property of the church and others to developers who have seen fit to give Kaiman and the North Hempstead Democrats substantial contributions as reported by Newsday. Of course, there is no connection. The land will supposedly become a bank and a chain drugstore.

One of the properties was built in such a substandard way that the still uncompleted building is already sinking.

When it comes to eminent domain, we know where Ron Paul and Hillary Clinton stand. What about the others?


Richard Cooper, former Chair Libertarian Party of New York

Senator Schumer's New York Disconnect

Develop, Don't Destroy Brooklyn http://www.dddb.net/php/latestnews_Linked.php?id=854 reports that Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) takes an inconsistent position on eminent domain. He supports the Atlantic Yards Nets Arena scheme in Brooklyn, while opposing the New York Regional Interconnect (NYRI) upstate. The New York Regional Interconnect would impose power lines on property-owners across a swath of central and western New York to provide a power link from upstate to downstate New York. The Libertarian Party of New York http://www.ny.lp.org/ opposes both schemes.

As a Libertarian and property rights activist, I certainly do not support the NYRI eminent domain, but it would be easier to justify as being for the public good than the corporate sports welfare and office/apartment real estate development involved in the Atlantic Yards Nets Arena.

Why would Schumer oppose NYRI and support Atlantic Yards? It should be obvious that private property rights, the market economy and individual liberty are not supported by Schumer and his odious philosophy. Let us summarize Schumerism. "Government will support voting blocs essential to electing Schumer and his allies."

Who opposes Atlantic Yards? Libertarians, Greens and a few thousand Brooklynites. Other than Libertarians and Greens no one outside Brooklyn even realizes that they get to pay for developer Bruce Ratner and his Forest City Ratner Firm. Who supports Atlantic Yards? Mayor Bloomberg, Borough President Marty Markowitz, the labor unions, the city's major dailies, various elected officials and the poverty racketeers of ACORN.

Who opposes New York Regional Interconnect? Property-owners, elected officials, environmentalists, Republicans, Democrats, Conservatives, Independents, Libertarians, Greens etc.

By supporting Atlantic Yards, Schumer antagonizes a few thousand Democrats and independents who are unlikely to go Republican. Not that there was a choice. GOP candidates for governor John Faso and William Weld curried favor with Bloomberg by endorsing Atlantic Yards. By opposing NYRI, Schumer deprives the Republicans of an issue to galvanize upstaters.
This is a simple matter of arithmetic. Brooklynites are taken for granted because important Schumer Democrat coalition members are on board with Atlantic Yards and a few defections are insignificant.

Voters need to send a message and vote Libertarian.

Richard Cooper

Atlantic Yards House of Cards To Collapse?

From the New York Times July 1, 2007Official Sees Possible Risk in Big Project in Brooklyn By NICHOLAS CONFESSORE and ANDY NEWMAN http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/01/nyregion/01yardsxx.html

"Ever since it was proposed, the Atlantic Yards project in Brooklyn has simultaneously been the borough’s biggest, most controversial and least understood real estate development.
Critics have long suggested that the project is a taxpayer-subsidized bonanza for the developer, the project’s promised jobs and subsidized housing a kind of Trojan horse for the thousands of high-end apartments that come with them. But the developer, Forest City Ratner, and state officials overseeing the project have resisted divulging much information about the project’s financial structure, confining those criticisms to the realm of speculation.

That debate may be revived because of a lawsuit that has wrung free hundreds of pages of internal documents from the Empire State Development Corporation, the state agency overseeing the project. An analysis of the documents suggests that the Atlantic Yards behemoth — 8 million square feet of apartments, offices, stores and an arena planned for 22 acres near Downtown Brooklyn — may in fact be a delicate beast."

Another interesting report from Nicholas Confessore of the Times.

What does anyone really expect to result from eminent domain, corporate welfare, sports welfare and government involvement in economic planning and economic development? Why should this suprise anyone? Where were they when Milton Friedman, Ludwig von Mises, Murray Rothbard and many other libertarian economists examined these questions?

Millions of dollars of taxpayer's money and acres of private property will be taken from their rightful owners and given to Forest City Ratner's Atlantic Yards alias the Nets Arena, thanks to the veiled fist of government in New York City and State. Is it really suprising that rosy predictions underly this attempt to gain wealth through government rather than the market? If you substitute government planning for the market, then you distort economic decisionmaking. It is not enough to stop legalized theft such as Atlantic Yards. Let us abandon the failed notions of government planning and subsidy of economic development.

Abolish the Empire State Development Corporation and its local municipal counterparts.

Defend property rights. Support the Institute for Justice (http://www.ij.org/) and Develop, Don't Destroy Brooklyn (http://www.dddb.net/). Follow the story at http://www.nolandgrab.org/.

Remember that this legalized theft is done at the expense of taxpayers, property owners, and tenants in the name of the people.

Remember, that the New York Times is a partner of Forest City Ratner in the scheme I called Time$cam.

Dump Bloomberg, Markowitz and Spitzer. Vote Libertarian.

Richard Cooper, former Chair of the Libertarian Party of NY (2000-02, 2006-07) www.ny.lp.org

July 4th 2007 Celebration

Declare your independence. Vote Libertarian. Join the Libertarian Party. Contribute to Libertarian parties and candidates. Sign Libertarian candidate petitions.

http://www.lp.org/ and http://www.ny.lp.org/

Richard Cooper, former Chair Libertarian Party of NY