Kelo Was Un-American

I was glad to see the The Wall Street Journal editorial page weigh in on the side of private property rights today ("The Kelo Revolt"):

“The Supreme Court has written some despised rulings over the years, but last year's Kelo case is fast rising up the list of the worst. That 5-4 ruling gave local governments more or less unlimited authority to take private property, and the good news is that the political system is repudiating Kelo just about everywhere.

The latest venue is Ohio, where the state Supreme Court ruled Wednesday that a Cincinnati suburb cannot use eminent domain to seize private property for a $125 million commercial re-development. The states are acting at the invitation of Justice John Paul Stevens who, in his majority opinion for Kelo, wrote, "Nothing in our opinion precludes any State from placing further restrictions on its exercise of the takings power..."

Kelo was a dreadful decision.

It had anti-private property rights, anti-capitalist and anti-growth stains all over it, and the political system is repudiating it (as it should) just about everywhere.

Oklahoma’s Supreme Court repudiated it, now comes Ohio’s highest court, in addition to almost twenty states which have passed laws protecting property rights.

To put it simply: Kelo was un-American.