...and this is a supposedly "conservative" Supreme Court, no less.

The Supreme Court and, I'm sorry to say, the last several Administrations, have consistently followed a trend of increasing government control at the expense of individual rights and freedoms.

Here's a title you might want to add to your list of summer reading.

And, given the way things are going nowadays, I'm not sure that giving Bush a free ride on the next few SC appointees is going to make any difference. What a depressing realization...

I just got an education in all of this in my township this week. It turns out that a good chunk of the land our homeowner's association maintains is owned by the township.

In the words of one of the township trustees, "you choose to maintain it." When asked what would happen if we chose to stop maintaining it, he replied "we could come over, remove all the landscaping and cover it in gravel."

Most of our budget - funded by annual dues - is set aside for landscaping. Turns out that a good chunk of it is for land we don't own, and have no rights to. And if we don't like it, they'll come make it nice and ugly for us.

I can't believe this stuff is happening in the country of liberty I learned about in grade school...

Brian, while I'm sympathetic to your plight, I can't help wondering why the HA didn't check out the title to the land beforehand, and why it didn't work out some ongoing contractual understanding with the township regarding upkeep in perpetuity.

Absent such a contract or some other memo of understanding, I have to admit that I don't see why the township should inherit an obligation to maintain something that was done on its land.

However, there is the puzzling question of why the township owns land in private housing developments to begin with. One could argue that that's not a proper thing for government to be engaged in, unless it's for the benefit of the citizenry at large, in which case I would think the township would have the implicit obligation to maintain it to the community's expectations.

This should look familiar to Midlanders and, frankly, anyone supportive of any ED Tax has no right to complain about this.

A taking is a taking, whether it be your house for the land to give to a new Hilton or your tax dollars to "incent" Cingular, it is the transfer of property from one private concern to another all for "the greater good" and/or "increased tax revenues", etc.

Truly, this whole principle has been whole-heartedly embraced by the voters of Midland.

At least in the former you will probably get some money for your house. In the latter you get only self congratulatory press releases.

Oh, come on, Natalie...if you want to make a "slippery slope" argument tieing local ED initiatives to this ruling, that's fine. But I can't believe that you seriously consider a voter-approved minor sales tax equal to unilateral eviction from one's home.

The principle is exactly the same and the arguments are exactly the same. The beneficiaries again being the greater good and an expanded tax base.

The only difference being how thinly the cost is spread.

A person losing their house that you don't see should be no less important than a person who loses their house that you do see.

And as I said before, the latter at least gets compensated.

(BTW, I am not arguing that anyone has lost their house or business because of the 1/4 cent ED sales tax add-on. But it is inarguable that many have because of the cumulative effect of higher taxes across the board.)