Jul 1, 2005
Reconciling Kinsella's Federalism and Disgust with Kelo
I have an article explaining why even a hardcore decentralist, anti-14th Amendment libertarian, who agrees with most of Kinsella's arguments against federal intervention, should be appalled by the Kelo ruling, and on federalist grounds, to boot.
An excerpt:
"Eminent domain is a crime. Even if the central state should not have the power to override this crime, neither should it give the criminals its official sanction. Let us ponder an analogy. Anarchists don’t believe that, in an ideal world, the state should ban common crimes, because, ideally, the state should not exist. Now, given that we have local governments, would anyone, even an anarchist, advocate that a local government sanction murder, theft, or battery? Would we want local government courts to rule in favor of arson? Of course not. And neither should we want the federal court system to specifically rule in favor of aggressive local policy. For the feds to side with our local rulers in stealing our liberty is akin to local governments siding with common criminals to burglarize our homes...."
An excerpt:
"Eminent domain is a crime. Even if the central state should not have the power to override this crime, neither should it give the criminals its official sanction. Let us ponder an analogy. Anarchists don’t believe that, in an ideal world, the state should ban common crimes, because, ideally, the state should not exist. Now, given that we have local governments, would anyone, even an anarchist, advocate that a local government sanction murder, theft, or battery? Would we want local government courts to rule in favor of arson? Of course not. And neither should we want the federal court system to specifically rule in favor of aggressive local policy. For the feds to side with our local rulers in stealing our liberty is akin to local governments siding with common criminals to burglarize our homes...."