Law and Democracy

Law and Democracy

1) Kelo v New London

Kelo v New London, a Supreme Court case decided in 2005 that states government can use eminent domain to take over private property for private use if there is "public use" that comes out of it. Eminent domain is when the government takes over private property for public use, however the government must offer the fair market value of the property. Also, a stipulation of this is that it must be for "public use". Now, after reading about this case the thing that struck me was how the Court defined "public use". They defined it, as something for the good of the public and that benefits the townspeople's general needs. They were planning on building office buildings for Pfizer on the land parcel they wanted to take over. This isn't exactly what "public use" means to me, because I see it as something we go to use (like an airport) and I think the decision that it is "public use" because it brings more taxes for the community, doesn't correlate well with the original intent of the Founders. I believe eminent domain was mainly used during wartime for hospitals and such and now is more commonly used (and stretched a little) to include airports, roads, etc. and that's what the Founders meant it to be. I don't think they ever imagined it to be applied to taking over private property to give to another private agent (like a company). Where do we draw the line? If the government uses eminent domain to take over this land for this company because the company generates more tax revenue, then who's to say they won't do that to you. No homeowner is safe under this law and this is the pinnacle of government interference into your life (Rappa, 2005).

2) Democracy is illusion

One of the most powerful images, which the U.S. won the hearts and minds of people throughout the world, was the myth of democracy and freedom. The United States has become a model for all, "a beacon of democracy", having the right to tell other countries for their mistakes and weaknesses. In reality it is just a deception, an illusion. Since the emergence of "democracy" in Ancient Greece and Ancient Rome, this system was a slave. A certain percentage of the rich and "middle class" at that time ruled the poor and the huge mass of slaves, the use of which has been based economy, policies of states. Talking about the "democratic" Athens, the Roman republic forgets to mention the thousands, hundreds of thousands of slaves to the brutal exploitation of which stood the prosperity of nations. The modern West is a conceptually oriented on Rome and the "democratic" policies of Greece, and as a result of the world was built planetary slave-owning system. In the Soviet Union and later Russia deceiving images of people of Italian, French, American and other Western movies, where they showed well-fed, prosperous life "middle class" - disproportionately inflated to ...