I drove over to Charlie’s Truck Stop this past week to find Jake all fired up about the recent United States Supreme Court Decision in the case of New London, Connecticut, in which local government officials had developed plans to level private homes and businesses for the purpose of allowing developers to construct a river front hotel, health club and offices. When I pulled up in front of the gas pumps, Jake came out as is normal but the big grin that usually decorates his face was missing. When I told him to fill ‘er up, he acted almost as though he had not heard me. Jake gave an absent nod of acknowledgment and began to fill my tank. I walked around the car and studied Jake for a moment. He had something of a scowl smeared over his face and his eyes had a distant glaze. After a moment I asked if something was bothering him.
“It’s the Supreme Court,” Jake growled. “Some days you just can’t avoid the conclusion this country is going straight to the dogs!”
I was a little taken aback. Jake doesn’t hold much with strong personal opinions. He mostly keeps his finger in the wind and generally agrees with whatever is the prevailing political current of the moment. I happen to know Jake has his own beliefs, but he mostly leaves them across the road at his house when he comes to open the store in the mornings. His strongest opposition to most any assertion with which he does not agree is a brief “You’re likely right about that” followed by an immediate change in the subject of conversation. On this day something was different. Jake had a bee in his bonnet, so I handed his standard line right back at him. “You’re likely right about that,” I said.
Jake glanced at me funny. Then he grinned in a lopsided sort of way. He recognized what I was doing. “Have you heard about the Supreme Court ruling in the case where local bureaucrats someplace in Connecticut determined to level some folks’ private homes and small businesses to allow a private corporation with special connections to construct a big hotel and other businesses in the area? These are decent folks that have lived in that area for generations and some of the small businesses affected have been owned by the same families for over a hundred years. These are not run down slums I am talking about. This is a respectable working class neighborhood.”
I admitted I had not been keeping up with the news all that much in recent days. I bought a new music system for my studio a couple weeks back and I have been mostly listening to music CD’s rather than news on the radio while I work. Jake suggested I should get a subscription to the paper and learn what is happening in the world. It happens I do get the paper, but some days I have so much work to catch up with I don’t do much more than scan the headlines. But Jake was off and running. I followed him into the store as he continued with his rant.
“The supposed justification for this confiscation of private property is the hotel and other new businesses will generate greater tax revenues and create more jobs. It’s all for the public good. It’s for the public good of everybody except the small home and business owners in the area who are, apparently, of no consideration in this shameful scheme. George Washington, Ben Franklin and Thomas Jefferson are rolling over in their graves right now to see what this country has come to. The public good, indeed! Every horror in history perpetuated by governments has been justified by insisting it was for the public good. Six million Jews were exterminated in Germany for the public good of the German people. The hundreds of thousands of counter revolutionaries Joseph Stalin murdered in Soviet Russia were exiled to labor camps and executed for the public good of the Russian people. The genocide in Bosnia was conducted for the public good of a select group. The horrors in Rowanda are justified by those perpetuating the mass executions as for the public good. Every single time a government commits a crime, it is claimed to be for the public good. I swear the Founding Fathers never had such goings on as this in mind when they dreamed of a nation founded on the truth that all men are created equal and with the right to live, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. They never imagined this nation would come to a condition at which a man’s home would be stolen in order to make way for a luxury hotel!”
I said I doubted the homes and businesses Jake was talking of were to actually be stolen. I imagined the property owners were to be paid for their homes.
“Oh, certainly,” Jake was counting our change after my payment for the gas. “The victims are to be given just compensation for their property, whatever that comes to. What is just compensation for a home you love, a house where your children have grown up, a home you are of no mind to sell? Say I go to Memphis and leave my car in a parking lot. When I return, the car has been stolen and I find an envelope in the vacant parking space. I open the envelope and there is a rusty token inside along with a note explaining the token is just compensation for the stolen car. It is the thief who determines what is just compensation for my property. He takes my car and I have no say in the matter. In this way, the government is no different from the car thief. They take your property at a whim and they leave you whatever they are of a mind to. I’m glad Thomas Jefferson is not here to see this sorry sight.”
Jack Witherspoon came in the front door needing some feed for his calves and I pocketed my change and left.
END
