Eminent Domain: We're All Indians Now (Expanded, 7/6)

Less destructive than corporatist politics: A funnel cloud looms menacingly over Peotone, Illinois.

Prior to the closing of the frontier in 1890, "Manifest Destiny" was the incantation used by the government when it gave itself permission to steal property it coveted. Today, the preferred conjuration is "eminent domain."

The phrase "eminent domain"reflects an assumption Karl Marx would find congenial: government is the default owner of everything, and that private ownership, however extensive, is merely a contingent arrangement.

Seizure of property through eminent domain is facilitated by one of several Hamiltonian-mercantilist Easter eggs covertly embedded in the Constitution -- specifically, the Fifth Amendment provision specifying that private property can be taken for "public use" when the government offers what it considers "just compensation."

The familiar civics class platitude describes this provision as necessary for the construction of bridges, hospitals, and other amenities that are supposedly "public goods" only government can provide. The inescapable reality is that eminent domain is a particularly vulgar form of plunder used to enrich the political class and their corporate cronies at the expense of the rest of us.

In his recent book Government Pirates (which is a useful read despite its tautological title), former real estate developer Don Corace offers a concise description of eminent domain operated prior to the onset of the current depression: 

"Arrogant and corrupt city and county official -- with near limitless legal budgets ... align themselves with well-heeled developers,  political cronies, and major corporations to prey on the politically less powerful and disenfranchised, particularly minority communities."

Owing to ongoing economic collapse, municipal and county governments no longer command "limitless" budgets for any purpose. They still wield the power of eminent domain, and still have large constituencies of parasites to tend -- and with real estate values bottoming out, the temptation to seize property at a vastly reduced "fair market price" may be irresistible. This is already being done by the government afflicting the State of Illinois, a junta legendary for its corruption. 

Propaganda for a boondoggle.

In recent weeks, the Illinois state government has begun the legal process of seizing a huge amount private property in and around Peotone, a small town in Will County, about forty miles south of Chicago. The land is being taken for the supposed purpose of building a third Chicago-area airport to complement O'Hare and Midway -- a project that has been discussed, studied, and debated since 1968. 


The proposed "South Suburban Airport" -- which would be three times the size of O'Hare International --  is impractical, unwanted, and unnecessary. It doesn't enjoy the support of any major airline or the approval of the FAA. 

Congestion at O'Hare is often cited as a rationale for a third airport. However, last year, O'Hare's traffic rate was the lowest it had been in 15 years -- a trend that will continue, given the ongoing economic contraction and the ongoing expansion of the nearby international airport in Gary, Indiana. 

Expanding the small international airport in depressed Rockford would provide additional runway space at a fraction of what would be spent on a third Chicago-area airport. But this would deprive the state's patronage pimps of an opportunity to lavish plundered wealth on their favored constituents. 


In the circulatory system of graft that sustains the "pay to play" political system in Illinois, the state department of transportation (IDOT) is the aorta. Last September, IDOT announced that it was filing condemnation suits against the owners of three parcels of land in the proposed Peotone airport site. This was done despite the fact that there is no existing plan to build an airport, and the proposal has not been approved by the FAA. 


Referring to the lawsuits, Susan Shea, IDOT's commissarina for aeronautics matters, declared: "It sends a message, a clear message." 


"It certainly does send a message," wrote local activist and sometime state legislative candidate George Ochsenfeld: "Our out-of-control government will use intimidation tactics to frighten citizens into giving up their property prior to being able to take it `legally.'"


Willis and Vivian Bramstaedt received Shea's "message" last April, in the form of a piece of paper disfigured with official graffiti announcing that the state government intended to take the land they have farmed since the 1950s. 

Peotone residents protest the corporatist landgrab.

"Our schools are failing, our health system is falling apart, the state is out of money, and this is what they're doing?" exclaims 72-year-old Vivian. 

"They" -- the corporatist interests served by the Illinois political class -- are moving as quickly as possible to condemn land around Peotone in order to capitalize on the town's depressed property values. 

Commissarina admits as much, commenting to the Chicago Tribune that (as paraphrased by the paper) "the timing couldn't be better for the state" to carry out condemnation efforts, now that "land values [are] in a historic slump."

When IDOT announced its intention to seize the Bramstaedts' land last April, they offered $9,500 an acre for roughly half of the family's 160-acre corn and soybean farm. This was "50 percent less than waht the state purchased neighboring land for two years ago and a quarter of the price some land sold for when a private company bought parcels there to build an intermodal site in 2006," notes the Tribune. 

Four Peotone-area condemnation cases are already working their way through the court system. Unless the land owners are successful in getting the cases dismissed outright, they will face a lengthy, protracted legal struggle in which their opponent -- the criminal junta dominating Springfield and Chicago -- will use money extorted from them as taxes to underwrite the effort to drive them from their land. 

What distinguishes the Peotone Landgrab from others like it is the fact that the underlying project is a palpable fraud.

 

"The irony is that the Peotone airport has never been deader," contents George Ochsenfeld. "There is no funding for building the airport or for the massive infrastructure -- roads, water, sewer, etc. All major airlines have said that they will not use Peotone." 

The most recently coined rationale is that the facility would be a cargo airport, but this would also be gratuitous, Ochsenfeld observes: "O'Hare is adding 750,000 square feet of cargo space and 18 additional parking spaces for freighter aircraft." (That expansion project, predictably, has become bogged down in graft and cost-overruns, prompting Mayor Daley to request a $15 billion federal bailout.) D.C. Velocity, an aviation trade journal, asked Gary Schultheis, vice president of air freight, North America for Deutsche Post DHL if another Chicago-area cargo airport is necessary. "Not really," he replied. 

Opposing the expropriators: Will Township Commissioner Bruce Hamman (left) and activist George Ochsenfeld protest eminent domain as the state demolishes a home on "condemned" land. (Courtesy of Carol Henrichs.)

 Dan Muscatello, managing director of cargo and logistics for Landrum & Brown -- a Cincinnati-based airport development firm -- told D.C. Velocity that the proposed Peotone cargo airport would find it very difficult to persuade airlines and freight companies to "pull up stakes and move down the road. He also believes that international airlines with all-cargo operations would be reluctant to divide their passenger and cargo flights between two airports. And it shouldn't be forgotten that both passenger and cargo volume will continue to decline as the economic slump deepens and accelerates. 

But it shouldn't be forgotten that the airport is merely a pretext -- and that seizing the land at a pittance is the point of the whole exercise. 

"Since the late 1980s, Illinois officials and their agents have tried every available means to push a huge public works project to fruition, with a keen eye toward ensuring their own political futures and continuing [the] cycle of self-enrichment," relates Peotone resident Carol Henrichs, former editor of the Peotone Vedette and long-time critic of the airport project.  

"Tax dollars have funded a multitude of government lobbyists who make regular trips to Washington, D.C. and Springfield ... to guarantee that despite its inability to gain traction of its own, this is the project that will not die," Henrichs continues. "Airport supporters have left tracks on campaign contribution lists and at political fundraisers for years."

The Peotone project "is the most `studied' airport project in America," explains Henrichs. "The word `study' intimates an investigation into factual learning. It is more accurate to say that reports have been written and rewritten -- massaged until they at least meet minimal federal requirements." 

To keep the process untainted by input from the taxpayers and property owners who would suffer the most, the deliberations leading to creation of the airport development district were confined to a handful of political insiders selected from Will County's tax-consuming class.

Between 1985 and 2002, three successive Republican state administrations in Illinois spent more than $100 million on "studies"; it has been an inexhaustible well of "study money." This liturgical exercise in public graft began as a Republican project, but also attracted the interest of Jesse Jackson, Jr. and Tony Rezko, Barack Obama's imprisoned pay-for-play patron.

In March 2003, Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley, one of the most adept practitioners of Chicago-style civic Keynesianism, dispatched bulldozers in the middle of the night to tear up a runway at Meigs Field, a 55-year-old commuter airport in the center of Chicago.

Daley insisted that destroying the runway -- for which his administration later was hit with an FAA fine and required to pay back $1,000,000 in misappropriated airport funds -- was a counter-terrorism measure, since Meigs was a general aviation facility "a second's flight time" from the supposedly imperiled Sears Tower. "We did it for public safety," maintained Daley after bulldozers had gouged out the runway.

This was a risibly transparent pretext. Daley's midnight airport raid was carried out in the interest of a separate landgrab: He and his cronies had targeted the property to build a park, another highly lucrative civil engineering project.

"Yes, I do want a park at Meigs Field," Daley admitted after the runway had been reduced to rubble. This was a dual-purpose demolition: In addition to clearing the way for a park, it was broadly comparable to New Deal-era initiatives intended to create artificial scarcity by plowing under crops -- or, in this case, runways. All the better to create a "need" to build the much-discussed third airport -- seizing as much land as "necessary" to do so.

Even though the money for pork-laden public works projects may soon evaporate, the Peotone Landgrab will leave the political class in possession of thousands of acres of prime farmland -- which, as Jim Rogers points out, may soon be the most valuable commodity on the planet.

There's nothing going on here that would be unfamiliar to a Lakota Indian facing expropriation in the late 1880s. And there's every reason to believe that the Peotone Landgrab -- if it's successful -- would be a template for similar acts of official larceny wherever fertile tracts can be seized by the political class at depressed "fair market value."

(Note: The original version of this essay did not include the material about Daley's demolition of Meigs Field. My sincere thanks to commenter "Mark" for bringing that facet of the story to my attention.)

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"I Hate Rude Behavior In a Man"

By the time they reached Ogallala, both the cowboys and the stock from the Hat Creek Cattle Company were utterly depleted. Their journey, which began on the banks of the Rio Grande, had already claimed the life of one of their number. And their destination – Montana – was hundreds of daunting, desolate miles away.

So once the Company reached Ogallala, the herd was allowed to graze outside the city limits while the men went in to purchase supplies and, ah, contract services from certain carnal entrepreneurs of the distaff variety.

The heroic Red Cloud: Lakota patriot, bold warrior, wily field commander, scourge of Leviathan's blue-bellied enforcers.

Dish Boggett, an honest and capable if unremarkable cowboy, was grooming his horse when a small company of soldiers, under the command of a Captain Weaver, suddenly materialized. Each of the dusty soldiers wore an impressive portion of the Nebraska prarie; their eyes displayed the weary, angry frustration of proud men who were badly over-matched by a wily opponent – the heroic Lakota war chief Red Cloud.

Captain Weaver's men and their mounts were just as depleted as those of the Hatcreek Company. There the resemblance ended: The soldiers were engaged in Washington's war to expropriate – and exterminate, if necessary – the Sioux. To that end Weaver decided it would be necessary to confiscate at least some of the property the Texans had brought with them, beginning with Dish's beautiful buckskin gelding.

Dish politely but firmly informed Captain Weaver that the horse was not for sale.

“I ain't askin',” Weaver said, dispensing with the pretense of civility and allowing an arrogant sneer to crease his ugly features. “I'm telling you. I'm” -- Weaver's unexceptional mind groped ineptly for the appropriate official euphemism -- “requisitioning that horse. For the government.” He settled back in his saddle with a satisfied smirk, expecting this conjuration, through which theft is transmuted into “policy,” to do its work. It didn't.

“I'm tellin' you,” Dish repeated, “he's not for sale.”

“You defy the United States Government?” Weaver said in a tone of offended piety that underscored the implicit threat. “That's treason,” he hissed. “You cow-boys could be hung – for treason.” Having unsheathed the threat of lethal violence that resides within all government action, Weaver allowed himself a sadistic chuckle.

When Dish reiterated once more that his horse wasn't for sale, Weaver's Scout, Dixon, decided to escalate the conflict by spitting a glob of tobacco juice on Dish's back. A brief scuffle ensued between Dish and the mounted scout, with Dish getting the worst of it.

Before the malodorous government contractor could steal the horse, however, the youngest member of the Hat Creek Outfit – 17-year-old Newt Dobbs – grabbed the reins and reminded Dixon that the animal wasn't for sale. With the insensate fury of a bully used to getting his way, the scout began to lay into the terrified but resolute youngster with his quirt.

Down the street, the leader of the cattle drive (and Newt's unacknowledged father) Woodrow Call was walking out of a store with his arms full of packages. Though well into middle age, Call had the wiry build of a man who worked as hard as he could as long as he had to each day, and knew no other way to live.

Taciturn and stoic, Call had the eyes of a man who had fought more battles than he could count. A legendary Texas Ranger in his younger years, Call was creaky in the joints but still quick on the draw and good with his fists. He also had the slow-burning fuse and high-yield temper of the proverbial patient man. When those eyes caught the sight of Newt being whipped, the fuse was expended in an instant.

Call quickly saddled his horse and tore across the town at full gallop. Reaching the still-mounted Dixon, Call violently unhorsed him with a blow, dismounted, and kicked him full in the face before he could recover. Dixon wound up near a stable, and soon found several tools deployed against him. Call seized a branding iron and used it to hit Dixon – first in the abdomen, and then across the face, then across the skull. He then picked up the dazed and bleeding scout and hurled him face-first into an anvil.

By this time, Dixon's face looked like a strawberry pie after it had been trodden on by a horse. After being fed a face-full of pig iron, Dixon's mouth was full of shattered teeth. He had endured at least two concussions, and was limp as a dishrag. But for all this, Call's anger was not turned away, and his hand was stretched out still.

Call grabbed a pair of tongs and -- his eyes narrowed in diabolical invention -- was about to apply them to do heaven-knows-what to Dixon when his best friend, Gus McRae (like Woodrow, a living legend as a former Texas Ranger), lassoed him and dragged him off of the Army scout.

It took several seconds for Call's rage to subside and for him to recognize Gus, his friend for several decades. As his self-control returned, Call assured himself that Newt was all right. By the time he remounted his horse, Call's self-control had reasserted himself. He spied a small group of settlers who had witnessed the entire incident – which only took a minute or so – frozen in astonishment. And, gentleman that he was, Call felt he owed those good people an explanation.

“I hate rude behavior in a man,” he explained in his quiet, unassuming drawl. “I won't tolerate it.” He politely tipped his hat, and rode away.

This vignette from the splendid novel (and equally fine television mini-series) Lonesome Dove is the most beautiful scene in American literature. I have no idea what author Larry McMurtry's politics might be. I don't care to find out, either.

In creating this moment – which was a pivotal, character-defining moment for Newt, and nearly as crucial for Woodrow Call -- McMurtry offered a vivid illustration of the omnivorous corruption of government in general, and militarism in particular. He also underscored the primacy of private property and portrayed the courageous defense of one's rights in the face of government aggression, as well as the righteous use of violence in defending one's family and fellows. Gus's intervention vivified the Just War principle of proportionality (yes, Dixon deserved to have the hell beaten out of him, but straight-up killing him would have been disproportionate). And Dixon's threat to murder Dish and his friends for the supposed crime of protecting their property lays bare the true nature of all government everywhere at all times.

The story told in that scene from Lonesome Dove -- at least regarding the behavior of Weaver and Dixon -- is true in everything but its details.

Somewhere today some government functionary is doing to someone in this country exactly the same thing that Weaver attempted to do to Dish: Stealing his property through the threat, or use, of lethal violence. Yes, Weaver offered to pay Dish for the horse, but forcing an unwilling seller into taking money for something he wants to keep is just another species of theft; it's usually called “eminent domain.”

Today's Dish Boggetts could be property owners in Texas along the Mexican border who are being forced to sell their property to accommodate the government contractors building the most useless artifact in American history, the “border fence.”

If the border hamlet of Lonesome Dove had really existed, its current residents would probably be among those under siege by land-snatchers working for the Department of Homeland Security.

But this is hardly the only example. The arrogant sadism and official lawlessness displayed by Weaver and Dixon are rapidly becoming the norm.

In the mid-1800s as depicted in Lonesome Dove, an Army scout would use his quirt to punish a civilian who wasn't adequately broken to the saddle of the state; today, the paramilitary goons we call police quickly resort to the Taser in such situations, giving non-violent -- and often non-resisting -- civilians a brief taste of electrocution torture.

The odds are steadily growing shorter that sometime in the life of each of us we'll run into some state functionary as arrogant, violent, and despicable as Dixon. When assaulted by such a specimen -- or, more importantly, when someone we love comes under such an attack -- we would be morally entitled, if not morally required, to go "Woodrow Call" on his a**.

The key question is: Would we be ready -- mentally, emotionally, and physically -- to do so, knowing the possible consequences?

For news and commentary, and to purchase my new book, please visit The Right Source.

Dum spiro, pugno!

Building a Fence to Nowhere: The Real Border Invasion

Government action generally splits the difference between “useless” and “harmful.” Although it began as a perfectly useless and demented idea, the federal campaign to build a fence on the southern border has graduated from mere uselessness into a genuinely harmful undertaking.

Perhaps the only unintended benefit of that initiative (unintended benefits being the only variety conferred by most government action) is the fact that it illustrates to any reasonable observer that we have far more to fear from the government ruling us than we do from the foreign nationals flooding across our southern border without official permission.

For many years, many Americans living along the border with Mexico have found their properties wrecked and polluted by caravans of desperate people who are shepherded northward by cynical flesh-peddlers called Coyotes. Some communities in the southwestern US have found their hospitals and school systems overburdened, largely because of federal policies requiring that such institutions accommodate people who crossed the border illegally, irrespective of their immigration status (or, where hospitals are concerned, their ability to pay).

There is a perception (one I've done more than a little to help create) that the current influx of immigrants from Mexico has created a huge population of welfare parasites and violent criminals. That perception is a reasonable one, even though it hasn't been clearly validated by statistical studies. And as troublesome as it is to manage the current influx, it is not an unusually large one in historic terms. Nor are the cultural differences separating the mainstream US population from Mexican and other Latino immigrants as vast as we're sometimes told.

To me it seems clear that the key distinction between today's immigration challenge, and that of roughly a century ago, is the existence of the welfare state and the influence of a large and well-funded counter-assimilationist lobby.

We should also bear in mind the economic role played by the Federal Reserve, which didn't exist during most of the great immigration wave of the late 19th-early 20^th centuries. Much of the illegal immigrant laborer population attracted to the United States during the past several years found work in housing-related fields that flourished as a result of the Fed-engineered housing bubble; the bursting of that bubble has already had a measurable impact on the rate of illegal immigration – probably a much larger impact than any enforcement action taken by the Feds.

The incentive structure built by our rulers has created an economic gradient favoring unchecked immigration from Mexico. This is why enforcement measures simply don't work: It's a bit like standing at the threshold of a large waterfall and trying to beat back the currents with a toothbrush. If we had a system akin to the one that existed a century ago – a hard money economy without a government welfare safety net -- it's likely we wouldn't attract as many illegal immigrants, and those who came here wouldn't be an economic burden of any kind.

But in time-honored fashion we've seen the immigration issue transmuted into yet another justification for expansion and enrichment of government power. And thanks to the asinine Border Fence campaign, American citizens who were not threatened in any tangible way by illegal immigration now confront the prospect of losing their homes, property, and businesses through eminent domain seizures.

One thing must be addressed up front: The Border Fence is not going to be completed. Sections of it will be constructed, and huge profits will be made by the corporations who have received contracts to develop and deploy sensing technologies for the “virtual fence.” But there's no way Washington is going to erect a seamless barricade running the length of the border with Mexico. Yes, there might be some kind of Potemkin fence that starts in San Diego and ends in Brownsville Texas, albeit with gaps at least as large as the ones in the continent-spanning “human chain” created during the 1986 “Hands Across America” fiasco.

“Hands Across America” was pointless and stupid, but it didn't cost anything (apart from the $10 a head paid by those gullible enough to participate). The Border Fence is pointless, stupid, and immensely expensive. It was inspired by coarse political opportunism, and whatever portion of it is eventually built will be a tangible testament to the vanity of our political class.

Not since the ancient Egyptian ruler Cheops wasted the lives of 100,000 slaves a year to build his mausoleum (Herodotus says that the king actually forced his daughter to turn tricks in order to raise funds once the treasury was depleted) has the world witnessed such a concentrated outburst of servile enthusiasm for a project that would serve no purpose beyond gratifying the whims of a ruling elite. At least the Pyramid is as architectural marvel that has endured for millennia. Within fifty years, whatever is built of the Border Fence is likely to be nothing more than rotting, rusting debris.

For those who live along the southern border, construction of the Border Fence may mean the loss of everything they hold dear. They are doing what they can to obstruct the federal officials who have descended on their communities without invitation and are making plans to seize whatever acreage is necessary to construct the Fence.

Noel and Cecilia Benavides, who live in Roma, Texas, are in some ways representative of those who stand to lose their property to the Border Fence scam. The land on which they live has been owned by Cecelia's family since 1767. In recent years, Noel and Cecelia have grudgingly given the Feds more or less permanent access to their property in order to conduct counter-narcotics and border enforcement operations. But they have dug in their heels after the Department of Homeland Security announced plans to run its Border Fence right through their land.

“They're going to destroy an ecosystem that took centuries [to nurture] and that's never going to come back,” complained Noel, a village alderman, to the Washington Post. “But it's the law, we're told, and it's homeland security.”

Last Friday, residents of South Texas who had refused to permit federal surveyors on their land received an ultimatum from Michael Chertoff, the Commissar for Homeland Security. With the magnanimity that comes from the discretionary power to impoverish and kill those who don't cooperate, Chertoff expressed an interest in negotiating with the refractory property owners but said that if a deal isn't reached, the Regime will go to court and “seek title and possession [of the lands], and the court will determine fair market value.”

This refers, of course, to what I regard as the second most troubling provision of the US Constitution, the power of “eminent domain.” (The most troubling, I think, is the line permitting Congress to suspend the habeas corpus guarantee under certain conditions; if I had my way, both of those provisions would go the way of the Fugitive Slave Clause.)

Name the drone in this photo: George W. Bush poses next to a Predator B Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) developed for battlefield use and now deployed along the southern border. At least one Border Patrol Predator has crashed (below).

Just a few years ago, most of the conservative movement was in high dudgeon over the Supreme Court's Kelo decision, which upheld the seizure of private property through eminent domain for the purpose of enriching politically connected private developers. Well, exactly the same thing is now facing scores, or hundreds, of property owners along the southern border – and where is the conservative movement's property rights auxiliary?

Oh, that's right: They're at a Minuteman rally somewhere, being marinated in a rich broth of nativist rhetoric about the Brown Peril before adjourning to the local Mexican restaurant for chalupas and margaritas.

Meanwhile, the clock is ticking, and the engine of official expropriation is being revved up.

“The door is still open to talk, but it's not open for endless talk,” insists Chertoff, adding: “We won't pay more than market price for the land.”

Oh, how cute: After pissing away countless billions in unaccountable “cost-plus” deals for “reconstruction” projects in both the Persian Gulf and the US Gulf Coast, the Regime has suddenly discovered the merits of austerity when it comes to paying Americans whose homes and lands they plan to seize.

The same corporatist junta that was sending pallets of freshly minted $100 bills to Baghdad, whence they were tossed from the back of flatbed trucks in football-sized bundles, now considers itself honor-bound to low-ball the price it will pay to property owners along the border.

Did I mention that at least some of the corporate interests connected to the Border Wall project likewise profited from the Iraq War and reconstruction racket, as well?

These are some of the reasons why there is a literal rebellion brewing along the border.

“I tell you, on this one issue, the Farm Bureau, the United Farm Workers, Democrats and Republicans, white, black, brown, everybody is against the border fence,” insists Hidalgo County Judge Juan D. Salinas.

For a long time, the immigration wave across the southern border has been referred to as an “invasion,” which is both usefully inflammatory and factually imprecise usage of the expression. Whatever can be said about the problems generated by unchecked immigration, or the grandiose ambitions of the Reconquista movement, the word “invasion” applies much better to the actions of the federal government, which is prepared to seize the property of innocent, law-abiding citizens by whatever means may be necessary.

Please be sure to visit The Right Source.

Dum spiro, pugno!