Fleecing Florida's landowners

Thursday June 05, 2008

By Ellis Washington

No part of Florida is more exclusively hers, nor more properly utilized by her people than her beaches.

~ City of Daytona Beach v. Tona-Rona (1974)

Outraged at how liberalism and socialism has utterly decimated America's minority populations as well as its cities, towns and villages, I have methodically endeavored to present proven, substantive policy ideas rooted in the original intent of the Constitution's framers, in conservatism, in free-market capitalism and especially in rugged American individualism that has made the USA the greatest country in the history of the world.

The critical question I will address here is this: How has America's tragic love affair with socialism and liberalism for the past 75 years, since FDR's "New Deal" impacted America's cities, towns, villages and its citizens in modern times?

My next stop takes us to the state of Florida, particularly the homes adjacent to Florida's storied coastline. One of my readers, "Ed M.," commenting on my article on Birmingham, Ala., and accepting my invitation for others to send me examples of how socialism, liberalism and Leviathan government has affected the quality of life in their areas, submitted the following narrative:

You want cases – look at the heavy hand of the "it's everyone's beach" movement in Florida. People who paid millions for private beaches and hundreds of thousand in property taxes are having the "masses" backed by their cronies in office take their property. But the "owners" are still responsible should any trespassers get injured – can't keep them off and are responsible for them – just because you bought something they now want. Disgusting.

As a background to the Florida case, I cite the case of Kelo v. New London (2005) where the U.S. Supreme Court in a bitterly divided 5-4 opinion infamously held that the U.S. Constitution allows the taking of private property for private economic development. The Kelo case is a blatant violation of citizen property rights, also an obvious misinterpretation of the Takings Clause of the Fifth Amendment, which mandates, "nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation."

How could this liberal majority on the Supreme Court allow the city officials of New London, Conn., eminent domain rights over private-property landowners? Answer: So the Court could give the spoils to the private pharmaceutical giant Pfizer Corporation, enabling it to expand. Justice O'Connor, writing the dissenting opinion, rightly called it "Robin Hood in reverse."

Compare this travesty of justice to the complaint by "Ed M." and his sister's increasing concern of blatant encroachment by trespassers of homeowners' private beachfront property in Florida. Right now many of Florida's landowners along the beach are literally being held hostage on their own property by aggressive trespassers who now have the de facto right to use the land of another for their own pleasure, while the homeowners are stuck with the taxes and the responsibility to repair any damage to their property done by these lawbreakers.

To add insult to injury, craven pols and activist judges in Florida hold innocent landowners legally liable if any trespasser is hurt on their land.

This is Hobbes's revenge.

Just last week, I wrote about Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679), the great atheist philosopher and giant of the Enlightenment whose radical ideas on political philosophy and the nature of government in relation to Man and the State were put forth in his magnum opus, "Leviathan" (1651).

Looking at the two issues discussed in this column: 1) radical eminent domain policies sanctioned by the Supreme Court in the 2005 Kelo case, and 2) "Ed M." and his dear sister's concern of hedonist-seeking trespassers invading homeowners' property all along the Florida coastline, strikes at the heart of one of the great pillars of the American republic – individual property rights. So cherished and sacred was this one idea that America's founders fought and defeated the greatest superpower power of the 18th (and 19th) century, Great Britain.

Washington, Jefferson, Franklin, Hamilton, Adams, Mason, Witherspoon, Madison and all of the other Founding Fathers knew that without a Constitution that zealously protected the property rights of its citizens, a king, a pope, a landlord, a tyrant, a battalion of soldiers, or in modern times, your trespassing neighbor or an oligarchy of five justices on the Supreme Court, could take away your property rights – natural rights founded on natural law precepts that were literally written by the blood of our forefathers.

In an earlier column, I wrote of the essential societal conditions for socialism and Leviathan government to triumph over "We the People":

Liberalism only prospers where there is angst, societal upheaval, cultural chaos, crime, apostasy, disorder, jealously, corruption – a zero-sum gain – the idea that all resources are finite, therefore if one group of people appears to be doing well, liberalism teaches another group that their success is at your expense, and you've got to get even.

This in a nutshell is Hobbes (and later Rousseau's) state of nature theory. What you see in the Connecticut and Florida cases above is modern-day liberals, socialists, activist judges, the U.N., political hacks (on both sides of the aisle) and radical special interest groups systematically applying the principles of Hobbes' "Leviathan" to law, politics, economics, medicine, the environment, public policy, education, culture, society – Good simply means getting whatever you want, and evil is anything that might stand in your way of getting it. My desires equal my rights.

Show me a monopoly (radical eminent domain, trespassers' rights) and I'll show you a tyranny (Florida's beachfront property belongs to everybody).

Ellis Washington, former editor at The Michigan Law Review and law clerk at The Rutherford Institute, is a graduate of John Marshall Law School and a lecturer and freelance writer on constitutional law, legal history, political philosophy and critical race theory. He has written over a dozen law review articles and several books, including "The Inseparability of Law and Morality: The Constitution, Natural Law and the Rule of Law" (2002), "Beyond the Veil: Essays in the Dialectical Style of Socrates" and He has just completed the manuscript to his latest book, "The Nuremberg Trials: Last Tragedy of the Holocaust" (2007).

Washington's latest book, "The Nuremberg Trials: Last Tragedy of the Holocaust," can be pre-ordered by calling 800-462-6420, promotion code "UPREPUB."

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