Exactly Viking. It is scary that we are so close in votes - these activist judges want to legislate from the bench - The constitution was also very clear about that - they were to interpret the constitution - not change it. It's not their job and they know it.
Property rights are at the foundation of America's success. They are so important to the principles of freedom and liberty that the founding fathers had much to say about them. They also had much to say about the Second Amendment - reading their words leaves no doubt where they stood....
Local and state governments have butchered those ideals with the notion that government and "collective" interests are more important than individual rights. It's pure socialist thinking.
Here are some quotes on property rights - after reading these - did the supreme court act in our interest? Were they patriots - or did they betray the ideals of the founding fathers?
"Nothing is ours, which another may deprive us of." --Thomas Jefferson to Maria Cosway, 1786. ME 5:440
Quote:
Madison understood that the protection of property is the foundation of all freedoms. He said, "... a man is said to have a right to his property, he may be equally said to have a property in his rights. Where an excess of power prevails, property of no sort is duly respected. No man is safe in his opinions, his person, his faculties, or his possissions".
He also said, "Government is instituted to protect property of every sort. . . This being the end of government, that alone is a just government, which impartially secures to every man, whatever is his own." [18]
According to John Locke,
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"The great chief end therefore, of Mens uniting into Commonweaths, and putting themselves under Government, is the Preservation of their Property." He also said, "Whenever the legislators endeavor to take away and destroy the property of the people, or to reduce them to slavery under arbitrary power, they put themselves into a state of war with the people, who are thereupon absolved from any further obedience,..." -- John Locke, 2nd Treatise of Government, 1690
Quote:
Stephen Hopkins, from Rhode Island, in 1764 said, "they who have no property can have no freedom."[6]
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"A power over a man's subsistence amounts to a power over his will", according to Alexander Hamilton (quoted from The Federalist #79, online at
http://www.lexrex.com/enlightened/
Federalist/fed79.htm).
John Adams said that
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"[t]he moment that idea is admitted into society that property is not as sacred as the Laws of God, and that there is not a force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and tyranny commence. Property must be sacred or li berty cannot exist."[7]
Quote:
"The Natural Rights of the colonists are these: first, a right to life; second, to liberty; third to property; together with the right to support and defend them in the best manner they can.", according to Samuel Adams.