This was originally going to be a response to Radical Moderate’s comment on my Trumps’ Cognitive Dissonance post. But as I finished my reply, it looked a little too long, so I thought I’d just post it. By the way, after thinking about it a little, the title Cognitive Dissonance doesn’t quite fit in Trump’s case; that term implies that one holds simultaneous conflicting beliefs, and I’m not convinced of what Trump believes, if anything, other than in himself of course, so Cognitive Dissonance may be slightly off. But I digress.
Radical Moderate’s comment was (you can see it all here):
I think you may have forgot to post the link to the actual interview so Trump can ‘square it’ what he said in his own words.
He embedded the video clip from Fox here, then went on.
Trump’s explanation sounds like a reasonable explanation of eminent domain to me after all it is in the US Constitution by the authors themselves. If its not intended to be utilized in the limited way Trump explained then what should it be used for?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/..
No didn’t forget. Oddly, I assumed someone capable of finding the Grok would be capable of finding the rambling incoherent fragmented word swamp that are Trump’s statements; as I see you have.
I’ll go with the assumption that the video he embedded has the crucial part. And to be fair, I should have included a reference to Kelo in the post. But have you ever tried to transcribe Trump? You need to be a punctuational gymnast to do it.
Anyway, Eminent Domain is Constitutional when the property seized is for public use. That’s the problem with Eminent Domain as it currently exists after the Kelo decision.
Perhaps you missed the bit about Trump’s praise of the Kelo decision as you were doing your best to navigate his meanderings, which is understandable. So for some background; Kelo held that a private citizen, a single mother no less, can be forced out of her home under E.D. so that her property could be given to another private owner. Not for a public highway, a railway, or other public use, it was for another private owner. That’s the disgrace; that’s the appalling affront. (And praising it is something, but definitely not conservative.)
As it turned out, the benefactor of the decision did nothing with the property. The home has since been bulldozed and in its place remains an empty lot in an ever blighted Connecticut community to this day. That’s the Big Gov Cherry topper; the family was kicked out of their home for nothing. They didn’t want to leave, regardless of the compensation and I can’t recall if it was indeed fair market or not, but that’s the not the point. It’s that one private citizen had her property forcibly taken and given to another private citizen that’s the objection.
The case was 5:4, from the principle dissent:
Any property may now be taken for the benefit of another private party, but the fallout from this decision will not be random. The beneficiaries are likely to be those citizens with disproportionate influence and power in the political process, including large corporations and development firms.
That’s the problem. Once again, the politically connected class has the advantage over everyone else by the decree of the black robes and the force of the state.
Incidentally, Trumps’ statements jarred me more than his usual episodes because his “I’m for small government/hooray for eminent domain” happened to fall on the same day when I read other self-contradictory nonsense when someone posted, “I’m a socialist libertarian”. Okay… figure that one out. You can’t. Words mean something. Even when strung together in scatter shot fragments. What’s going on? Can’t anybody talk anymore??
One other thing about Mr. Trumps statements; his implication that conservatives do not understand Kelo betrays that he either A. doesn’t understand Kelo decision nor the Constitution himself or B. doesn’t understand conservatives principled objection to it. Either way he’s no more reliable than the current crop of R’s polluting the majority of its establishment. Because there’s really no way to interpret his slapdash verbal Pollack painting in a consistent way long enough so one can be convinced of what he truly believes. Again, other than in himself.