Readers Forum
To the Editors:
Lee Ownby’s detached depiction of the misuse of the government’s eminent domain power (“Beyond Eminent Domain,” March 1990 Freeman) to serve private interests tends to obscure the important moral values at issue. The forced taking of private property avowedly to promote the business of another private individual is a pervasive scandal in American law. That it has gone on for over a century, and that it happens all the time—not merely in the case described by Mr. Ownby, or in the Poletown taking in Detroit to subsidize General Motors—is all the more reason to oppose it forthrightly and vigorously. There are two sets of villains in this drama, working hand in hand. They are the business people willing to sell their birthright and their society’s freedom for a mess of profits, and judges who have, for all practical purposes, read the “public use” limitation on takings out of the Constitution, so that it retains no pragmatic meaning whatever. These people need to be confronted with the profound immorality of their deeds.
Thus, Mr. Ownby’s equivocal if not actually sympathetic depiction of the Knoxville businessman benefitting from such misuse of eminent domain is unfortunate. Justice Brandeis cautioned that the greatest threat to liberty comes from well-meaning but misguided people who erode our freedoms by degrees. Such concerns surely apply to the misuse of eminent domain to fatten the purses of business people who are unable or unwilling to compete effectively in the private market to obtain the property they want, and who instead turn to the government to get it for them by force.
The ultimate scandal inherent in this process is that the courts proclaim themselves all but powerless to enforce the “public use” Constitutional limitation, then go on in the name of “just compensation” to deny compensation to the condemnees for a variety of economic and personal losses actually suffered, but judicially declared to be “non-compensable.”
Gideon Kanner
Professor of Law
Loyola Law School
Los Angeles, California
Lee Ownby replies:
I concur with Professor Kanner in his assertion that important moral values are at issue when private business interests enlist state power to forcibly obtain another’s private property. As he indicated, this legal plunder is widespread and continues unabated on many fronts. While I don’t believe that I was as sympathetic to this misuse of power as he suggests, I do admit to not being as forceful as my convictions would demand.
Much of the public has been anesthetized to government’s steady encroachment onto private property rights. My approach was to subtly challenge those who may have nascent seeds of doubt about the private sector’s role in the state’s wrongdoing. Defenders of private property rights have no difficulty understanding what is being lost. It is the multitudes that have not been given the tools of analysis by which they can conclude that such actions are improper. I acknowledged some of the positive contributions of Whittle, even if tainted in Professor Kanner’s view, in hopes that the property rights position might receive a more earnest hearing.
I welcome Professor Kanner’s forceful and persuasive arguments in the defense of private prop-erty. I regret that I did not have the benefit of his viewpoint during my law school career. If I had, perhaps, my own awakening to the important link between private property and freedom could have been hastened.
Lee Ownby
Knoxville, Tennessee
To the Editors:
In his “Academic Freedom at a Public University” (March 1990 Freeman), John Lott tells of what he thinks “are not unusual events at public universities.” The happenings he describes are certainly not unique. In an uncanny fashion, they parallel occurrences in Ohio during a 1983 income tax repeal initiative. I and a colleague supported such an initiative. We were assailed in the public press by the state’s Governor. A trustee of another state-supported university wrote to say that if he had anything to say about it, we would be fired. There were phone calls from the Governor’s office to the president of our university urging him to “shut us up.” At times, we were accused of “mining” the university. An academic campaign to discredit us was organized. Rumors were circulated questioning our personal motives and integrity. And, elsewhere in the state, academics who might have supported us were threatened with zero salary raises for years to come. John Lott’s story is quite familiar. To quote Yogi Berra’s malapropism, for me, it was “deja vu all over again.”
Lowell Gallaway
Distinguished Professor of Economics
Ohio University, Athens, Ohio.
We will share with readers the most interesting and provocative letters we receive regarding Freeman articles and the issues they raise. Address your letters to: Readers’ Forum, The Freeman, The Foundation for Economic Education, Irvington-on-Hudson, New York 10533.
Comment by Freeseletly on 22 June 2011:
My Boxer dog puppy was jumping all the time until I decided to put an END when I found
Boxer Dog Problems
Boxer Dog Problems
Boxer Dog Problems
Boxer Dog Problems
Boxer Dog Problems
Comment by Whopetamala on 22 June 2011:
click louis vuitton speedy 40 louis vuitton accessoires for promotion code louis vuitton whisper , for special offer
Comment by NeefuttyNab on 6 February 2012:
Maltese Puppy Training In case you are entirely misplaced on in which to begin teaching your dog, you require not worry available for you have previously taken the initial and most important step, which is searching for info or you would not be reading this. At this site is the info that you have been in search of!
It can be quite difficult to train two dogs together. Dogs have the tendency to distract one another. When you discover this happening it really is likely top to separate them.
In case you might be away in the house for an extended time period, leaving the dog alone when you are gone, take him on the long, vigorous walk prior to you leave. In case you play together with your dogs and exhaust them, it aids the dogs handle the anxiety they could feel from getting separated from you whenever you leave.
A cinching collar will provide more regulate over your dog as well as a negative reinforcement for bad behavior. Use a collar as well as a harness to train your dog. Tug the collar once you really feel it is essential. That can tech the dog to listen whilst he is harnessed also.
If you are leaving your house for any reason, be sure to let your dog out or get him for a walk just before you leave. In the event you play with your dogs and exhaust them, it assists the dogs handle the anxiety they might feel from simply being separated from you once you leave.
If a dog experiences separation anxiety, it should get knowledge becoming about others. The dog’s relationships to other folks serve to dilute its unhealthy level of dependence and fixation on you that brings about it so great grief.
A dog has an inquiring mind and will take a look at something for quite a when until its attention is broken. With frequent practice, your dog will begin to concentrate on you and the signals you might be offering him rather than other distractions.
Maltese Dog Training On the really beginning, get everyone within the family active in your dog’s coaching. Your dog may see one household customer as the one in charge, but other household members need to be consistent with their objectives from the dog’s behavior also.
After studying some helpful hints about how to get via to your dog and train it to behave to your expectations you just have to follow that which you have learned. After transforming your dogs behavior to fit with the guidelines advised it is possible to correctly train your dog.