Political orientation

[Deleted]

hifigator said:

Cam, I don't disagree that the "prudent" decision, and certainly from the socialist's viewpoint as yourself would be to do what's best for the most. All that I am saying is that such logic isn't sound for justifying the viewpoint. At some point everyone would be in the "minority" on an issue ... but our precedent would dictate that the majority "win."

Essentially that emotional type of justification is nothing more than class envy. Ironically, if taken to its logical conclusion, it would systematically eliminate those small groups, or shall we say ... the handful of unfortunate people in that category ... sounds an awful lot like some famous carcus once said .... "from each, according to his means and to each according to his needs."

So you "don't disagree" that we should serve the majority, but you think that logic is unsound?

Democracy is about serving the majority. The fact is, every policy decision benefits some and hurts others. Sound policies benefit the majority. That's not called socialism, it's called good governance.

The "emotional" justification would be yours - to cater to 0.001% of the population because they might lose their farms. Sounds to me like someone's heart is bleeding. If you're so concerned about those couple thousand families, you logically should be even more concerned about the millions who don't have health insurance or access to quality education for their children.

[hifigator]

My point was simply that even though it might make the most sense from the standpoint of helping the most people/harming the fewest people, that isn't a justification for doing so. The justification needs to come from a specific need. The blanket idea that we take the money because we can is flawed from the start.

Tell me this: do you remember the Supreme Court ruling last year concerning Emminent Domain? I think the original case was from Conneticut and it concerned the city's imposing of Emminent Domain, where the government steals your land from you without your consent. It is historically used only as a last resort and when there is a specific need. The argument was always for a road or a school or some other "necessity" of the community. In last year's case, the city wanted to take the property and give it to some developers who were going to bring in many new businesses, which in turn will generate additional tax revenues. That, it was argued, justified the use of emminent domain. I think that is an absolute croc. The odd part is that it made strange bedfellows of people. The land developers are typically big money crowd. Most are Republicans and much of what they are trying to do is met with opposition from every left leaning group. Yet in this case, because the "justification" was more tax dollars, the backers were almost exclusively liberals. Moderate, Sandra Day O'Conner wrote a scathing dissent, bless her heart. My question to you is how you feel about that ruling? The underlying premise is much the same as the justification with regards to the farms as "estates."

[Nitrorebel]

I'm guessing you're all for affirmative action of any kind then as well, right? Because after all, that fits your cute little model as well, no? If not, you've got some serious re-thinking ahead of you.

Also, I love how you continually butt the question of how you feel about merit, demerit and public goods, and how these should be handled. I guess you have no clue.

[Deleted]

hifigator said:

My point was simply that even though it might make the most sense from the standpoint of helping the most people/harming the fewest people, that isn't a justification for doing so. The justification needs to come from a specific need. The blanket idea that we take the money because we can is flawed from the start.

Tell me this: do you remember the Supreme Court ruling last year concerning Emminent Domain? I think the original case was from Conneticut and it concerned the city's imposing of Emminent Domain, where the government steals your land from you without your consent. It is historically used only as a last resort and when there is a specific need. The argument was always for a road or a school or some other "necessity" of the community. In last year's case, the city wanted to take the property and give it to some developers who were going to bring in many new businesses, which in turn will generate additional tax revenues. That, it was argued, justified the use of emminent domain. I think that is an absolute croc. The odd part is that it made strange bedfellows of people. The land developers are typically big money crowd. Most are Republicans and much of what they are trying to do is met with opposition from every left leaning group. Yet in this case, because the "justification" was more tax dollars, the backers were almost exclusively liberals. Moderate, Sandra Day O'Conner wrote a scathing dissent, bless her heart. My question to you is how you feel about that ruling? The underlying premise is much the same as the justification with regards to the farms as "estates."

Paying Fair Market Value for Someone's Property = Stealing. Nice.

Eminent Domain is a great example to bring up here, actually. Here's my take: No matter who you are, no matter where you live, you are part of a community (let's leave the Unabomber and the Michigan Militia and the likes out of this). That community requires some sort of organization (i.e. government) and that government is tasked with doing those things which are best for that community. In exchange, this requires some sort of sacrifice by all members of the community. If the democratically elected government of that community is doing something to benefit the community at large, that sacrifice can lead to something like eminent domain. Does it suck for the limited number of people that it will affect? Yes, but they're being paid fair market value for their property, and their sacrifice is for the benefit of the majority in that community. Read John Locke sometime if you don't believe me.

Governments that serve the needs of the few as opposed to the many tend to be pretty dodgy. I think the last guy to do that was Saddam Hussein...

[Deleted]

hifigator said:

My point was simply that even though it might make the most sense from the standpoint of helping the most people/harming the fewest people, that isn't a justification for doing so. The justification needs to come from a specific need. The blanket idea that we take the money because we can is flawed from the start.

Tell me this: do you remember the Supreme Court ruling last year concerning Emminent Domain? I think the original case was from Conneticut and it concerned the city's imposing of Emminent Domain, where the government steals your land from you without your consent. It is historically used only as a last resort and when there is a specific need. The argument was always for a road or a school or some other "necessity" of the community. In last year's case, the city wanted to take the property and give it to some developers who were going to bring in many new businesses, which in turn will generate additional tax revenues. That, it was argued, justified the use of emminent domain. I think that is an absolute croc. The odd part is that it made strange bedfellows of people. The land developers are typically big money crowd. Most are Republicans and much of what they are trying to do is met with opposition from every left leaning group. Yet in this case, because the "justification" was more tax dollars, the backers were almost exclusively liberals. Moderate, Sandra Day O'Conner wrote a scathing dissent, bless her heart. My question to you is how you feel about that ruling? The underlying premise is much the same as the justification with regards to the farms as "estates."

Not sure how they do things down in your neck of the woods, hifi, but I'd venture to say that over the past 10-15 years or so Emminent Domain has been used far more often for development purposes than more utilitarian ventures.

I've seen the before/after firsthand in cities of all sizes here in the N.E... sometimes its the only way to reclaim parts of cities for the people (whether for developing retail, residential, whatever) from out-of-town slumlords and tax cheats.

[tgo]

Cam, a defense of taking personal property for developers via eminent domain? i knew you were a crazy socialist but i didnt know how far off the deep end you were willing to go, good thing we didnt talk politics at reunion. if i move back to the east coast i am going to take your hoya tix and anything else i think i might enjoy more than you and send you a check for market value for them.

and Buffalo, that is a very slippery slope you are advocating that the only way to "reclaim" things for the people is to take private property. and the justification is that some people whose property you would take live in a different town or already are afoul of other laws?

why is it that whenever you have people who are percieved to be doing something illegal ie "tax cheats" the answer is to pass a new law, shouldnt it be to enforce the old one. if you have "slumlords" messing up your nice NE enclave, dont you already have code enforcement to help you?

scary world where Cam and BuffaloHoya can get together and decide that since i dont cut my lawn they way they do at their houses, and often not at all, and since they have always thought it would be a good spot for a 7-11 they vote to put one there, My silly house is not producing as much taxes and jobs as a 7-11 which means it must be better for the general good, and 2 out of 3 people obviously prefer a 7-11 to my home so I am forced to move, you see no problem in that?

[Deleted]

I'm pretty glad DC employed eminent domain so they can build a baseball stadium. The couple dozen people who were affected directly by it were massively affected, no doubt. They got fair-market value for their properties, and long-run, it's better for the other 600,000 people who live in the city, no? Plus, if you know anything about that part of DC, a lot of what was taken by the city were auto chop shops, hubcap stores, gay nightclubs an porn stores. But I'm sure you'd prefer that they stay in business, tgo....

Eminent Domain is an extreme example. My original point in this thread (like, 2 weeks ago) is that government is tasked to do what's best for the majority. When government spends their time catering to the needs of 1000 people on one issue or 2500 people on another, it fails. Taxes fall under the same umbrella for me. I pay taxes in DC that, in part, fund public schools. I have no children and thus see no direct benefit from paying those taxes. But I pay them anyway, because it's for the greater good.

[Deleted]

tgo said:

and Buffalo, that is a very slippery slope you are advocating that the only way to "reclaim" things for the people is to take private property. and the justification is that some people whose property you would take live in a different town or already are afoul of other laws?

tgo - at no point did I advocate ANYTHING. Don't put words in my mouth.

All I said was that eminent domain has proven to be the only way some cities can take dilapidated, safety-hazard buildings and remove them from the public sphere. I agree - the first options should be through legal channels already in place, and that's what many cities do, especially with absentee landlords who don't pay taxes and let their properties fall to pieces (i.e. foreclosure sales). Unfortunately, these options don't always work and when they fail to produce the desired result (rip a health and safety hazard out of the community), I have no problem with the government paying FMV to speed-up the redevelopment process.

I'm not advocating Eminent Domain as a method of urban (re)development by any means at all, but I do advocate it as a last ditch effort to improve the living conditions in a community. And I understand your "slippery slope" argument and agree completely. But let's not be that disingenuous, man... I'm not talking about some strip mall with a few vacant store-fronts, or someone's house with an uncut lawn.

I'm sure you take me for some kind of elitist Northeast prick (by N.E. I didn't mean New England), but take a trip to my "nice N.E. enclave" of South Buffalo/Lackawanna, NY... if it weren't for Eminent Domain in some of these places, we'd still be living in the shadows of asbestos filled, abandoned and crumbling steel mills, grain elevators, warehouses, and other industrial dinosaurs.

[AustinHoya03]

tgo said:

scary world where Cam and BuffaloHoya can get together and decide that since i dont cut my lawn they way they do at their houses, and often not at all, and since they have always thought it would be a good spot for a 7-11 they vote to put one there, My silly house is not producing as much taxes and jobs as a 7-11 which means it must be better for the general good, and 2 out of 3 people obviously prefer a 7-11 to my home so I am forced to move, you see no problem in that?

Hey, if you don't like it, then vote or call your state legislators. Here in Texas we put restrictions on eminent domain following Kelo. I believe California did, too, so your "scary world" scenario doesn't exactly exist.

Buff is right that many cities on the East Coast see eminent domain as a tool to help along struggling neighborhoods. It works, too -- have you walked around Chinatown recently? I don't know for sure but I would bet the city used eminent domain to get rid of whatever was on that block before MCI.

[SoCalHoya]

It is usually tough for state gov'ts to use their eminent domain powers.

But, if the power is used, the state does not have to give you mkt compensation. You are given "just" compensation, which is usually less.

[Coast2CoastHoya]

Hear hear, Cam, SoCal, and Austin.

Speaking of "just compensation" the ranching/mining/mineral/foresty industries have subsisted (i chose my word carefully) based on the fact that the BLM does NOT charge fair market value for the use of those resources - far less as a matter of fact. Debate that for a moment and consider its impact. Eminent domain is a sacred privilege and (in some cases) duty of governments for the betterment of their constituents. This is implicitly accepted by the 5th and 14th amendments, and explicitly recognized by numerous Supreme Court decisions. Unless, hifi, you can make an argument that holds water against the weight of precedent and common sense, I suggest you move to another topic. Because it's late (and I don't feel like getting into it now), suffice it to say that your logical reasoning is suspect.

Somewhat tangentially, why certain individuals have to continually classify posters' arguements in terms of absolutisms is beyond me. To go out on a limb, I'd suggest (a) reclaiming that lost love of bourbon, (b) remembering what your "naughty bits" are for, or (c) taking a walk and regaining the feel of blood flowing in your body again. One out of three might do you well. Apologies to the Admin in advance if this post is in too poor a taste to be allowed - please censor if so. I simply mean to temper the "black letters on white screen" rantings of those who see each post as an end, rather than a means - and serve to alienate those who see things well beyond others' means to comprehend (or comment upon).

C2C

[Coast2CoastHoya]

"Hey, if you don't like it, then vote or call your state legislators."

One of the best possible staments to make about political issues that exists.

[hifigator]

Emminent domain was originally designed to be a last option mechanism to do what "needed" to be done. There are certain things that our communities "need." Schools and road are the classic examples.

The way it was explained in class down here was suppose someone could buy a strip of land across the whole state of Florida, from Tampa to Daytona Beach. They could then hijack anyone who wanted to get from the south part of the state to the north. Essentially they could isolate south florida. There is a need for roads from the south to the north and if the land owner doesn't want to sell ANY of it then the State has a responsibility to fill the "need" which is a road system to effectively get from point a to point b.

That logic is sound and I don't have a problem with such uses of ED. But the ED power has been incresing over time. It is now frequently used to manage "blight." That in and of itself gets away from the historical justification for ED, but additionally it opens the door for all kinds of inequties. There is certainly worse blight in some areas than others. Yet the use of ED is not uniform. The new ruling gives even more power by allowing municipalities to use ED just for the purpose of raising more tax dollars. That is absolutely bogus in my mind.

Now as to compensation, the "just" doesn't seem to ever really cut it. I know of only one victim of ED who came out ok and it is really because he worked the system.

To establish the value they first look for "comparable" property. Sometimes that is easy but normally it is not.
The starting point for "just value" is what the land brings in over a 10 year period. That isn't set in stone, but it is the starting point. They pulled ED on 2 buildings in our town because the city "needed" to build a round about in their grand scale to narrow one of our roads. On of the gentleman had been renting out the stores to two little crappy businesses for next to nothing. The other land was being rented for a gas station, but the owner had seen the handwriting on the wall for quite some time. He had been charging ridiculously high rent for the land, with the justification that it included all the surronding land. It did ... but it wasn't being used by the renters. The trick that made this work was that the business was run by the other side of the family. So that high rent wasn't really going anywhere. On paper it was justified because renting that much land would reasonbly cost that kind of money. In reality the business would never have been renting the land if it weren't for the purpose of establishing a paper trail of value for the "business." When all was said and done, he got a very fair sum of money, but his neighbor wasn't so lucky. The argument was that "if this little strip of land was worth what he was trying to say, then why had he been renting it out for next to nothing to these two little crappy businesses?" (one was a used furniture store and the other was a motorcycle repair store) Nothing wrong with either business, but in retrospect it would have been better for it to sit there empty for a couple of years with a for sale sign on it.

Long story, but my original point was that exercising the power of ED for the sole purpose of raising tax revenues sure sounds like a really really bad idea to me. I am kind of surprised we aren't in more agreement on this issue.

[Cambridge]

ed said:

Just as I thought, the only way to balance the budget is to raise taxes. I'm still looking for items you would cut. Tell me what "variety of steps to control health care costs" you propose. And, I don't mean trashing those drug companies. How would you cut health care costs? Would you ration it? If not, what?
I, for one, would get the government out of extraneous things. I would start by identifying what things are necessary for federal involvement: defense, operating the courts, federal law enforcement, State Department, Treasury Department, Post Office, Interstate Commerce Commission, federal parks, etc. Then I would look at all the things that are not really necessary for federal involvement like education, arts, welfare and other social services, housing, "pork" funding of local items,etc. - all of which I would leave to the state to decide if they will fund.
After World War II a Democrat president appointed the Hoover Commission to take a look at the federal bureacracy and recommend changes. We should do that now to decide what we must do as a federal government, what we would "like to do" but is not necessary, and what should be left to the states.
In addition I would introduce some sort of federal sales tax to replace all the other federal taxes so we can prevent the millions who do not pay all their taxes from continuing to do so, such a sales tax tailored to ensure the really needy are given preferential treatment by a tax refund or other mechanism.
Despite what you say about Bush "cutting taxes", the amount going into the treasury is much higher since the "tax cuts" went into effect. What's gone up is spending and I blame Bush and the Republicans and Democrats in Congress for that. Despite all the clamor about this right wing president, Bush is not a conservative!
As for the estate tax. Whose money is it anyway? It belongs to a person, not the federal government. If a person pays taxes on what he/she earns during their lifetime what is the moral lesson in taking a large part of that through another tax when he/she dies? Why do you believe this money belongs to the federal government?

I would cut all medical and food aid to old people. Slash social security for all those who have a pension or any source of income. Shift all these funds to the youth: education, healthcare, nutrition, quality of life. If we are going to be heartless and coldly calculating and realize that we currently can't afford to support both the elderly and the youth, I say support and invest in the future.

As for your comments about the estate tax, I think Warren Buffett said it best when he said repealing it was like chosing the 2020 Olympic team by selecting the first born of the last Olympics.

Challenge! Challenge!
Trial by stone!

[EasyEd]

I'm still amazed there was not a choice in this poll of Fiscal Conservative/Social Conservative. By leaving out this option, the poll is really skewed.

[hifigator]

ed said:

I'm still amazed there was not a choice in this poll of Fiscal Conservative/Social Conservative. By leaving out this option, the poll is really skewed.

Oh, come on Ed. That is obviously the second choice of "traditionally conservative/modern Republican." I used both the party affiliation as well as the ideological views for clarification purposes. At least down "here" (the South) we have quite a few "democrats" who more mirror the "republican" view. And yes, I know that it goes the other way as well, although I doubt to the same degree. I don't think there are as many "republican" members who are consistently liberal as the opposite. But the point is that "parties" change through time, as does ideology. A "liberal" in the 1800's would still likely be a staunch conservative by today's standards. Accordingly a member of the more liberal party in the 1800's would probably roll in his grave today at the views of today's liberals.

In any case, the liberal-liberal option is covered by choice #1 and the conservative-conservative option is covered by choice #2.

I am somewhat please that the modern Libertarian option has the highest backing. That is where I am and that suggests that there is still hope for us.

[EasyEd]

The word "modern Republican" infers, to me, a person who is not "stuck" with conservative views but who is "modern", as in "with it" or Guiliani- or Schwartzenegger-like.

[tgo]

modern republicans have no guiding ideological principles, they only care about being in power and staying there. they increase ear marks, support illegal immigration, enlarge the dept of ed and ever part of the govt. that is not a reagan gop or a 1994 gop. it is sad from my perspective.

ed is right, you had no option for a conservative to tag on your poll.