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[Clansgian AT wmconnect.com]

> And there you have it. Local control by local citizens. Bravo. How much 
> control do those local citizens have over DC politicos and bureaucrats?
> 
> 
> 

But there are certain rights that as a constitutional republic we should not 
have to defend mano-a-mano in every instance.  If the local gendarmes decide 
to invade your house to conduct an unconstitutional search, should you have 
to 
keep a shooting iron on your hip at all times to defend against it?  Should 
you have to go to the local magistrates or initiate a local ballot measure 
just 
to keep the police out of your house?   No.  Those who violate that 
constitutional guarantee to privacy should have the crushing weight of the 
entire 
federal government on them and not just be subject to no being voted for.  

It's the same with property rights.  Being secure in our property isn't 
something we are supposed to have to defend in hand to hand combat every time 
someone decides they have superior forces marshalled against ours.  If 
someone 
violates that guaranteed constitutional right, the consequences ought to be 
grim 
for them.  

As far as local government having sovereignty over real property (that's why 
it's called 'real' which is a loan word from Spanish meaning "royal" as in 
"El 
Camino Real" = "The Royal Road"), while it is true that we are secure in our 
porperty so long as we pay taxes on it and obey all the easements, 
restrictions, etc.  A court case in Tennessee established that what a person 
actually 
owns is the "unrestricted uses" of a property and not necessarily the 
property 
itself in any tangible way,  while all that is true .... it is the same with 
all 
our other constitutional rights.  You have the right to to privacy in your 
home only until there is probable cause that you have committed a crime, then 
that privacy can be breeched.  In fact it doesn't have to be YOU who 
committed 
the crime so long as you home might harbor evidence of a crime.  You only 
have 
freedom of religion so long as you are not using that religion to deprive 
others of the same freedom.  Etc.   All our freedoms are within limits, no 
other 
way it could be.

Kelo vs New London crossed a line.  It is right the local governments should 
have eminent domain over property, anything else is not a workable system.  
THAT should be decided locally and is.  But when greed and bribery and graft 
can 
be used to relieve one person of property to give it to another person, as in 
the Kelo case, a line has been crossed and no local government should have 
the prerogative to cross that line any more than they should have the 
authority 
to decide what is 'probable cause' in invade your home.

James