Gimmie, Gimmie, Gimmie
By now I figure you've all heard about the Supreme Court saying it's OK to take someone's land as long as you can promise to bring in more tax revenue than the current users (here's CNN's report about it).
What worries me most is, what's to keep a developer from taking a bunch of houses to make an apartment building and strip mall? The developer would force everyone out of their homes, and then conveniently make a place for them to live, only this time he gets all the money and the coffers of the local government get that much richer.
I'm hoping that things like this won't come to pass because the basic goodness in people will keep them from even trying, or that our local governments aren't so corrupt as to allow it, but the very thought that it's not out of the realm of possibility is scary. What's to keep us from becoming a bunch of serfs tied to the land owned by a few wealthy "lords" who were able to "convince" the local authorities to let them "buy" the land (at very reasonable prices, I'm sure) and force everyone off of it?
Isn't that how the communists used to work? And we're not even doing it for a factory or better farm, but for office buildings and strip malls.
What worries me most is, what's to keep a developer from taking a bunch of houses to make an apartment building and strip mall? The developer would force everyone out of their homes, and then conveniently make a place for them to live, only this time he gets all the money and the coffers of the local government get that much richer.
I'm hoping that things like this won't come to pass because the basic goodness in people will keep them from even trying, or that our local governments aren't so corrupt as to allow it, but the very thought that it's not out of the realm of possibility is scary. What's to keep us from becoming a bunch of serfs tied to the land owned by a few wealthy "lords" who were able to "convince" the local authorities to let them "buy" the land (at very reasonable prices, I'm sure) and force everyone off of it?
Isn't that how the communists used to work? And we're not even doing it for a factory or better farm, but for office buildings and strip malls.
posted by Mark at 12:54 PM
3 Comments:
You don't mean the communists. They would nationalize the land and let some government committee decide what to do with it rather than hand it over to another private entity. If you want to ascribe to this decision a broad political movement, I suspect fascism is closer to the mark.
Perhaps fascism is the better term, but when you can buy the government, like the political interests seem to be able to do, then you are the government. That's what I meant by the communist reference.
I just read the Wikipedia article on fascism to make sure I had used the word correctly. Turns out it's way-overused word, but I wager a properly modernized definition would indeed be corporations buying the government.
Post a Comment
<< Home