Thursday, June 23, 2005
JUST WHAT THE DOCTOR ORDERED:
Angered by the Extreme Court's new ruling that cities can serve as the paid middleman for land grabs for shopping centers (or for even more useful new baseball stadiums), some libertarians have told me this proves we don't have a conservative high court after all. They misunderstand. Conservatism is not about using government power to protect the alleged property rights of individual land owners; it is about using that power to funnel profits to private companies.
The Constitution was not written by Thomas Paine, or Patrick Henry, or even a temporizer like Thomas Jefferson. It was drafted by pro-business trimmers like that monopoly banker Alexander Hamilton, and enabling trimmers like James Madison -- who should be thought of as the economic Joe Biden of the Convention. Yes, the state at all levels can funnel profits to entrepreneurs.
We never needed a Constitution to fight off the British. All that rhetoric about "free markets" is only a campaign slogan. Or to put it bluntly, what we are really trying to conserve isn't your home, it's our profits. You got a problem with that, then you're un-American and pro-terrorist. When it comes to the basic law of the land, the court has now quite properly told the little people just what Dr. Frank-n-furter told Janet about Rocky Horror: "We didn't make it for you."
Angered by the Extreme Court's new ruling that cities can serve as the paid middleman for land grabs for shopping centers (or for even more useful new baseball stadiums), some libertarians have told me this proves we don't have a conservative high court after all. They misunderstand. Conservatism is not about using government power to protect the alleged property rights of individual land owners; it is about using that power to funnel profits to private companies.
The Constitution was not written by Thomas Paine, or Patrick Henry, or even a temporizer like Thomas Jefferson. It was drafted by pro-business trimmers like that monopoly banker Alexander Hamilton, and enabling trimmers like James Madison -- who should be thought of as the economic Joe Biden of the Convention. Yes, the state at all levels can funnel profits to entrepreneurs.
We never needed a Constitution to fight off the British. All that rhetoric about "free markets" is only a campaign slogan. Or to put it bluntly, what we are really trying to conserve isn't your home, it's our profits. You got a problem with that, then you're un-American and pro-terrorist. When it comes to the basic law of the land, the court has now quite properly told the little people just what Dr. Frank-n-furter told Janet about Rocky Horror: "We didn't make it for you."
