The Living Meaning of the Kelo Decision--in China

Yesterday afternoon, I happened to catch Brit Hume's Fox News Channel news show. One small story gave me the willies, and I hope it will do the same for you.

The story was a bit of outstanding television journalism, from Sky News, with which Fox News has an affiliation.

First, read the story, then go to the Sky News site and look at the video. You cannot afford to miss this one.

China Land Grab Exclusive
Updated: 12:55, Thursday April 13, 2006

China's economy is booming, but at what cost to its people?

In an exclusive report Sky's Dominic Waghorn meets the families who have been evicted from their homes to make way for new development.

Our Asia correspondent spoke to a couple who have been living in a tent all winter after the government seized their home and demolished it.

Sky's Dominic Waghorn reports

"The government is eating our flesh and drinking our blood," they said, huddled in their tent as temperatures dropped well below freezing.

All the couple want is enough money in compensation to be able to buy a new home.

Secretly filmed footage shows the Chinese authorities ruthlessly evicting an elderly couple.

An old man was dragged out by police, followed by a woman who was still in her sick bed.

Discontent in China's slums

"The poor have no human rights, no way of surviving," one evicted woman told the Sky correspondent.

Meanwhile government officials and property developers are making untold millions from the seized land.

In a rare glimpse into life in a Chinese slum, Dominic Waghorn faces a crowd of people waiting to show him evidence of human rights abuses in their country.

A demand for human rights

Their banners and photos protest against corruption, police brutality and sons killed in detention.

One man with burn scars, sustained in a previous protest, holds aloft a placard reading "human rights are more important than living".

With the power the Chinese government has over the country's media, the downtrodden have little opportunity to share their discontent.

But our correspondent reveals the unequal struggle that is taking place between the poor and the powerful.

The government's own figures put the number of protests last year at 70,000, said Waghorn.

In our blog header and "masthead," we quote famous 17th century English intellectual, Lord Bolingbroke: "History is philosophy teaching by example." Well, here is about the clearest example we have seen in a long time.

The government of Red China is seizing the property of persons in order to give it to developers to develop into big money makers, which greatly enrich both the government and developers. Now, let's drop back to the Supreme Court of the United States of America, to a decision issued 25 June 2005 and called the Kelo Decision. The Supreme Court authorized governments to seize property of individuals to turn over to developers to build enriching edifices.

Red China has no property rights, and has no respect for any of the Rights of Man, from the Right to Life, on through the Rights to Liberty, Pursuit of Happiness, and the Property. It initiates force to steal from those who are not physically powerful enough to resist the guns, clubs, and killings.

The Supreme Court of the United States of America fully abrogated the Right to Property with its Kelo Decision, and many local governments have moved in for the kill, with the "force of law," which makes the bloody physicalism of Red China unnecessary.

When a government abrogates any one of the four fundamental Rights of Man, it effectively abrogates them all. Property is how people support their right to life, exercise the right to liberty to pursue what they choose--which is ensured by the right to property, and exercise their right to pursue happiness by their own means and determination, using property as their primary anchor to reality. OUR Supreme Court opened the door for governments, from local to federal, to act just like Red China. And they will.

Give them time.

History is philosophy, teaching by example.