Posted by
Tim Blessing on Saturday, February 16, 2008 5:54:42 PM
First, I think the Supreme Court made a mistake in their eminent domain decision a year or two ago.
Basically, the court overstepped its jurisdiction when it come's to property rights.
One last thing on the Supreme Court, the last word on the constitution is those state lawmakers who vote on Constitutional Amendments.
Property Rights are under siege by environmental groups, developers, industry, neighbors, and a whole host of other interest groups.
In the region of the state I live in there is a county that has a major highway through the center of it.
The County is half rural and half small towns. They have a major highway to the eastern side of the county.
Basically, I would have suggested to the politicians in this county (I do not live in it) to zone off the upper half of the county to any further development, while preparing the eastern half between the two highways for development.
The point is simple: The Northern side of this county is highly inaccessible to development of any major type. So, in the interest of working with environmentalists this area should remain wild, while the Property Owners in this area are financially compensated at current property values so they get a return on working with the government.
The Southern half of the county can be developed for housing, industry, recreation, or whatever else some person want's.
The key is to make it financially beneficial for property owners to give up the right to develop their property the way they want to.
Conservation take's many forms, but environmentalists have a bad reputation among Republicans.
Its one of those balancing acts we have to maintain between the environment and development.
Finally, if we want to restore the environment then we need to get natural resources from somewhere. The biggest and one of the last undeveloped areas of the world is Eastern Russia.
There is a vast quantity of water, wood, oil, and other natural resources. They are willing to do business, but we would need to restore our domestic environment in the meantime.