Salvation Through Condemnation
May 18th, 2009A few weeks ago, the federal government ingeniously stumbled upon the solution to all our woes when they announced that — in order to erect a 9/11 memorial — they will confiscate hundreds of acres of private property in Pennsylvania by condemning the land. For through condemnation, the government can nationalize vital industries and rescue delinquent borrowers without so much as a vote or due process, and we can finally make our dream of a truly collectivist society a reality.
This country, quite lamentably, was founded on the principles of personal liberty — principles that allowed each citizen the freedom to pursue their own happiness. Our bitter forefathers even had the gall to enshrine these backward principles into the Constitution — what legal scholar Barack Obama once called “negative rights”; that is, rights that prevent the government from acting against individuals, as opposed to “positive rights” that require the government to act in the interest of the whole.
Fortunately for us, though, these rights criminals sowed the seeds of their own destruction by including the so-called “Takings Clause” in the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution, which reads: “[N]or shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.” For if no private property can be taken without just compensation, it also must be true that all private property can be taken with just compensation. And over the years the Supreme Court has constantly upheld this cherished belief — most recently in the Kelo v. New London decision.
It stands to reason that if the government can swoop down and steal land just to put up some cheap monument — and do so without any restrictions or public outrage — it can act in similar ways to solve our real problems.
We’ll start with the banking crisis. Instead of bailouts and other backdoor methods of nationalizing banks, we can simply cut to the chase and condemn them — both their physical property and their assets. All we have to do is pay a fair price for what they’re worth, which, of course, isn’t very much. And while we’re at it, we might as well rescue all those swimming in debt from bank-issued credit cards, by condemning all privately held consumer goods. As the average American owes more than what these used products are worth in the open market, the government could even charge for this service.
Then, we’ll tackle the mortgage problem by condemning every home in America. As with justly compensating the banks, paying fair prices for these properties would not cost us much. And just imagine: no longer would there be loan defaults or foreclosure or even payments — every home would belong to the government, and our country could become one large housing project — with all the wonderful side effects associated with it.
We could even condemn our own citizens, too. After all, we’ve already determined that life has little or no inherent value. So, how much could it possibly cost?
Little, in comparison to our salvation.
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© Copyright 2009 by Colin Cohen. All Rights Reserved.
