Suppose that the federal and state governments were to claim the right to take private property by force, and to do so not upon the plain “public use” grounds that are laid out in the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution, but in order to help those who are in search of private profit. Suppose, too, that the Supreme Court were to endorse this claim, on the preposterous supposition that “public use” in effect means “private use” if tax revenues are involved. And, finally, suppose that an extraordinarily rich man were to praise this alarming arrangement as “wonderful,” to advance the most naked of utilitarian arguments in its favor, and to brag about his having used it as a cartoon scoundrel might.
How do you imagine conservatives would feel about this state of affairs? I ask because, for the moment, at least, this is the reality with which the American Right is faced. For decades now, America’s federal and state governments have made precisely the claim I adumbrated; since 2005’s Kelo v. City of New London ruling, the Supreme Court has accorded those governments its blessing to take private property, and on exactly the grounds I mentioned; and, for the last few months, the extraordinarily rich man to whom I referred has not only been spared the tar and feathers of the mob, but has enjoyed a commanding lead in the Republican presidential campaign.
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