Will The Last Real Liberal Please Shut The Door

There was a time when being Liberal meant to stand for personal freedom, and reduction of government power. Of course, that was long ago. I'm certain that there are some real Liberals out there, but they're few and far between.

In Kelo v. City of New London, we have a stituation that one would expect Liberals to step up to the plate and defend the little guy. The City of New London, under the pretext of economic redevelopment, wants to take the property of the Petitioners and hand it over to private developers. The private developers will in turn, develop the area, erecting new homes, offfice buildings, etc.

In the past, in order to exercise eminent domain, the government had to prove the land would be put to public use. The Fifth Amendment states "private property [shall not] be taken for public use, without just compensation." Additionally, when interpreting the Constitution, there's a long standing presumption that no word was needlessly used or unnecessarily added, and thus each word of that document carries significant weight.

So...let's cut to the chase.

The "traditional" liberal justices, Ginsberg, Kennedy, Souter, Breyer, joined by the "on the fence" justice Stevens delivered the majority opinion, expanding eminent domain power to include giving private land to private entities, so long as the purpose is "economic development"!! If the government wants your land to be upgraded, it can pay you "just compentsation" and hand over your land to private developers.

And these justices are the Liberals?! What happened to the traditional role of Liberalism - personal freedom and protection of the government? Where is the ACLU (Oh I forgot...Ginsberg is the former head of the ACLU)?

In this case, we have the conservatives on the court, Scalia, Rhenquist, Thomas and fence sitter justice O'Connor decrying this decision, argueing very convincingly for the little guy.

So...my big take away is this: Modern Liberalism is not about protecting the little guy, but rather about expanding government power. (note, I'm not saying Modern Conservatives don't do the same thing, I'm simply discussing this particular case)

I guess I'm just a little disappointed, but not surprised, as I've been giving Liberals the benefit of the doubt up to now, that they really were looking out for personal freedoms.