Keeping the Eyes on the Prize: The "Eminent Domaining" of Justice Breyer's Home

WorldNetDaily: Effort to take Breyer's home moving ahead, Friday, August 12, 2005, by Joe Kovacs, © 2005 WorldNetDaily.com

The effort to seize the vacation home of Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer is moving ahead toward the goal of a public vote in March...according to John Babiarz, chairman of the New Hampshire's Libertarian Party..."We have every intention of doing the proper petitioning and have the people of Plainfield make the decision," Babiarz said. "We're in the petition-gathering stage right now." Babiarz, a 2002 candidate for governor in the Granite State, stressed the seriousness of the issue in the wake of the high court's recent ruling on eminent domain, giving governments the power to transfer private property from one private party to another. The decision ignited a firestorm of outrage across the political spectrum.

"Property rights are very important," said Babiarz, who would like Breyer's land to become a public park. "It's got to go from talk to action. ... I think the justices don't realize the impact [of their decision]." [Ed. Note: I disagree. I think these socialist justices know full well the impact of their decisions. See the last paragraph of this article below.]

Justice Breyer, who owns 167 acres in the Connecticut River Valley in Plainfield, N.H., is the second Supreme Court justice to be targeted for property seizure. Justice David Souter's home is also in the crosshairs of a California entrepreneur who's looking to build the "Lost Liberty Hotel" on Souter's land in the town of Weare, N.H.

As WND exclusively reported this week, Breyer made news beyond eminent domain by saying not all rulings from America's highest court are correct, admitting judges don't have "some great special insight," and he defended the practice of studying courts in foreign countries to help decide cases in the United States.

(All emphases mine)

O.K., at the risk of seeming humorless, I must stress that de-dominciling Justices Souter and Breyer, using their own ruling, constitutes just deserts, but such actions alone will accomplish no more than salvos from pop-guns. No one can let up efforts until the ruling the Supreme Court made on 23 June 2005 (Kelo vs. New London, Ct) has been reversed, and the Constitutional Fifth Amendment restored.

And, if this nominee, John Roberts, is sqeemish about overturning precedent, which presumably would include the "Kelo" decision, then we need someone else.

All of the states may choose to put in legislation which blocks the action possible under the Kelo decision, and those will be valuable steps, with Alabama being the first state to step up to the plate. Even these, however, are not enough.

We must keep onto this matter until our Constitution has been restored, until the Fifth Amendment abrogation has been overturned completely. If we let up prior to that, this poisonous Kelo decision will slowly percolate through devious paths until it returns to full power some years down the road. That is how precedent works. It kills you tomorrow, not today.

Stay the course. Keep the eyes on the prize.