There's been lots of commentary -- here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here for example -- about the Supreme Court's Kelo eminent domain decision, and we don't want to be redundant in offering our opinion on the case. Let's just say that as non-lawyers, it seems to be an affront to any respect for private property rights, supposedly protected by the fifth amendment.

On the other hand, it can be noted that the Supreme Court didn't require localities to take people's homes, it simply allowed a practice that has been ongoing to continue unabated. This is small comfort to those who are losing their homes, but it does leave open recourse to state and local democratic processes. Those who have lost their homes can blame their fellow citizens at least as much as they can blame the Supreme Court. Lots of folks just love voting for a pack of liberal do-gooders until it means getting evicted from their own home "for the common good."

Now just a thought to tie this decision to the general trends in Supreme Court jurisprudence - It's ironic that the same court that bent over backwards (no pun intended) to find a right to buggery in the Constitution, couldn't find a presumptive right to one's own property in the Constitution.

So we have a right to do what we want in our own bedrooms, but we don't have a right to own our bedrooms. The Lawrence and Kelo decisions seem to be at opposite ends of the "federalism" spectrum, which is odd given that property rights are an explicit part of the fifth amendment, and "sexual behavior" rights aren't mentioned anywhere in the Constitution. It seems usually the courts are just making it up as they go along.