Renting from the government

For those of you who think you own real estate, I've got bad news for you. YOU DON'T OWN SQUAT! Actually, you are RENTING it from the government. "Not so, you say! I've got the deed right here."

It doesn't mean a thing. As I said, you are renting your property from the government. No, they don't call it rent, they call it property taxes.

"But I paid a lot of money for this place." Yes, you probably DID pay a lot of money, but you are NOT buying your property. You are paying for the privilege of renting the property from the government.

If you rent a house, and you stop paying the rent, what happens? The property owners institute legal proceedings, and eventually you get evicted.

What happens if you stop paying your property taxes? The property owners, in this case the government, institute legal proceedings, and eventually you get evicted.

Sounds kinda similar, doesn't it! The only difference is that in the second case, you have a financial stake in the rental, since you had to pay for the privilege of being the renter. When you "sell" your property, you are actually only selling the privilege of renting it from the government to the new renter.

Until yesterday, as long as you paid your rent, the only way you could get thrown off your land was by eminent domain by the government itself, and you would be compensated something similar to fair market value. The government would have to show that THEY needed your property for THEIR use, and for the good of the people (whatever THAT means). Maybe to build a road, fix an intersection, build on to the county courthouse, that kind of thing.

The Supreme Court has now changed that. If the government wants to take your farm and build a factory to create more jobs, even if it's for a private business, they can now do that. If the government wants to take your factory, tear it down, and plant rutabagas, it can do that, provided it can show that additional rutabaga farming would be a benefit to the community, or even if it could show a community benefit by the removal of your factory!

What if the local government decided that one part of town had too many Mexicans, Baptists, farmers, Republicans, gun-nuts, or whatever, and getting rid of them would be a benefit to the community?

It kinda opens the door for some real "Community Cleansing", doesn't it..........