You may own your home, but you are not your own landlord. Big Brother is, and he can evict you at whim. This has been the unlawful law of the land, imposed but not legislated, since Kelo v. New London. Of course, this means, at least from the state's perspective, that you don't really own your own property--unless you live in a locale that has reaffirmed private property rights since Kelo. From the property owner's perspective, he does indeed own his own property, which makes incursions upon it by the state for private use theft. Last night, New London, Connecticut's city council voted 5-2 to evict the holdouts from the Kelo case, and confiscate their property to make way for private development. City councilman Robert Pero, a defender of the expropriation, declared: "This was a plan that was well thought out." Lots of thefts are. Usually the most well thought out heist schemes aren't so brazen.

I have traveled to Dubai in March for the last two years, and in doing so, have noticed quite a change in the way property ownership is handled over there from year to year. (I learned the following from a citizen of Dubai. No guarantee that it is 100% accurate) Last year, there was still a rule that you couldn't actually buy property, you had to lease it from the Ruler, who would grant you a 99-year lease. The reason is, the Ruler owns Dubai, your property and, hence, your ass.

This policy was hampering investment in the city, so the Ruler allowed private ownership of land, with the caveat that he could take it back at any time. This actually spurred investment, for some reason, but it strikes me as ridiculous that the environment around private property in the US is so similiar. The US Ruler (i.e., the state or local government) can take your land whenever they want.

How is this possible?

IMO, it's due to the fact that private citizens have no interest, or even desire, to influence their local governments. I say this is a rule, there are, of course, exceptions. We have the "you can't fight city hall" mentality on the one hand, on the other it's "I really don't feel like fighting city hall, I think I'll go watch American Idol" on the other. When the throne is abdicated, a new ruler will rise to take it. The US voting public has abdicated its responsibility to govern itself.

In other words, the Constitution is slowly being killed by "we the people" because we rarely hold politicians responsible for their actions. Our apathy or our willingness to believe everything pols say, will be the enslavement of us.

"The final form of democracy is tyranny."