Source: https://prfamerica.org/indices/PrivatePropertyRtsNatl-Index.html
Timestamp: 2019-04-22 04:53:44+00:00

Document:
During the Twentieth Century, private property rights, the cornerstone of freedom, were greatly diminished in exchange for government power under environmental law, regulatory takings, rent control, scenic regulations, historic preservation, architectural review, and eminent domain abuse. The radical left is winning.
The National Wildlife Federation has admitted to pirating the copyrighted work, The First Forest, by children's book author John Gile and has paid $350,000.00 to terminate civil copyright litigation in Federal Court.
"Federal Courts Put Napster in Line with Copyright Law"
"Oregon Voters Protect Property Rights"
A human rights group to meet the urgent need for individuals and organizations who oppose euthanasia to work together to provide information on euthanasia and related issues.
increasingly ignored private property while approving socialism. Demonstrates the triumph of private property in promoting prosperity, and compares experiences throughout the world.
Nate Dickinson's insight about the progress of democracy and liberty. Is the future a single trend or separate paths?
The Speak Up America newspaper, so much appreciated by the property rights movement, is now the Speak Up America web site, both in English and Spanish.
For the first time or place, anyone in a Spanish-speaking country will be able to read articles by Mona Charen, Walter Williams, Thomas Sowell and Chuck Diaz.
Focusing on U. S. Supreme Court decisions related to government regulation of private property, whether a Fifth Amendment Taking is recognized and whether the situation is "ripe" for litigation, James Burling spoke especially about recent victories beginning with the Supreme Court's recognition of extortion in Nollan v. California Coastal Commission and Dolan v. the City of Tigard, and, more recently, Koontz v. St. John's River Water Management District decided in 2013 and the 2012 decision recognizing a temporary taking in Arkansas Game and Fish Commission v. United States. Pacific Legal Foundation litigated all of these important cases except the Dolan case.
Jigs Gardner found in historical differences the explanation for the contrast between the proud self-reliance of Americans and the dependency on government of Canadians in Nova Scotia, where he moved from Vermont with his wife Jo Ann to establish a farm in 1970.
Environmental organizations are harnessing major corporations like Pepsico, Caterpillar, General Electric and JP Morgan Chase against their own corporate interests and capitalism itself to promote universal government government-funded health care and an economy centered on global warming-based regulation. Acting as a shareholder activist, the Free Enterprise Action Fund successfully sought a stockholder proxy at JP Morgan Chase against their support for global warming regulation.
Roger Pilon presents an overview of private property rights, beginning with first principles, including a discussion of the history of the founding documents, followed by the police power and eminent domain power; then four scenarios of government restrictionsgovernment actions that reduce the value of private property, regulation to stop nuisance, regulatory takings, and full eminent domain; and finally the four categories of eminent domain: transfer to the public, transfer to a private owner for public utilities and the like, condemnation for blight reduction, and transfer to another private party for economic development. Highlights of court rulings illustrate how the Progressive Era led to today's regulatory state.
"Rancher Frank Robbins Loses at the Supreme Court" - By Carol W. LaGrasse, Reprinted from the New York Property Rights Clearinghouse, Vol. 11, No. 3 (PRFA Summer 2007.
In June, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down a mercurial decision in Robbins v. Wilkie reversing the jury verdict that Bureau of Land Management officials violated the Fifth Amendment private property rights of Frank Robbins by repeatedly harassing him to retaliate because he refused to grant a free right-of-way easement across his Wyoming ranch. Only Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg held that Robbins' property rights deserved protection.
Turn them out, knaves all three." Nursery rhymes, the language of children, lay bare the traits of government today.
"Often the best template by which to judge a member of Congress is not whether they have an R or D behind their name, not whether they say they are a conservative or say they are a liberal, but what their philosophical impulses are towards Kelo."
Go to the mirror to see the real enemy of property rights, ourselves. Pacific Legal Foundation has won lawsuits such as the Suitum and Palazzolo cases by looking at what happens to real-life people hit by regulations. In the older Nollan and Dolan cases, the property owner won because of the nonsensical results of regulation. But an oil company was not a sympathetic litigant in Chevron v. Lingle, and the justices failed to grasp economic logic. The Endangered Species Act Reform Act has important provisions to help landowners.
The Oregon Measure 37 referendum created a solution to the "regulatory overkill" that besets Oregon's property owners, under arguably the strictest land use planning regulations in the country, excessive wetlands, endangered species and forest practice regulation. Oregonians in Action is still fighting against government's attempt to nullify the law.
In a victory for private property rights, "takings" compensation received 60% of the vote in an Oregon referendum. The law, passed in a traditionally liberal state, could start a national movement.
Environmental policies that emanate from liberty are the most successful. But constitutional principles of liberty, private property, due process, speech trials, and just compensation have been diminished in the name of environmental protection. We must advance an ownership society. Communicating with Congress and networking with potential allies are essential.
Private property rights were held to be absolutely inalienable in the American constitutional system. But the Communist Manifesto of Marx and Engels began to have influence, calling for the abolition of private property and inheritance. The 10% inheritance tax of World War I rose to 77% by 1941, and is currently at 48%. A close battle rages in the U.S. Senate for permanent repeal.
The Constitution is the biggest bulwark to protect our rights, including private property rights. Government keeps trying to expand its power, and important cases hold its power in check. The cases protecting property owners from regulatory takings began in 1922 with Pennsylvania Coal. "Inverse condemnation" is when so many land rights have been taken away that a Fifth Amendment Taking occurs.
Chander and Ashima Kant's house worth $199,000 was disposed of by Montgomery, Md., for $6,020 to pay a disputed bill, but the courts haven't allowed the Kants to have a hearing on their claim of discrimination. PRFA has filed a friend of the court brief before the U.S. Supreme Court because the federal rules are meant to allow litigants to bring issues before the court so that they are prevented from losing suits where they would otherwise win.
"U.S. Supreme Court Brings Reason to Punitive Damages - State Farm Ruling Builds on the Record in 1996 BMW Case"
Justice Anthony M. Kennedy held for the majority of the Supreme Court that a punitive damages award of $145 million was excessive for an award of $1 million in compensatory damages in the case of State Farm Mutual Automobile Insurance Co. v. Campbell, thereby strenthening the trend to bring punitive awards within the bounds of reason that was widely applauded in the Court's 1996 ruling in BMW of North America, Inc. v. Gore.
Private property has been neglected by economists, but is the logical starting point of economic analysis. Mr. Bethell points to the role of private property in the development of Western civilization, contrasting it with the failed one-hundred year "experiment" in Communism.
A broad overview of significant recent cased that have occurred in New York State and in other parts of this country, which affect agriculture and other land-intensive business such as logging and will touch individual property owners: Tahoe-Sierra Preservation Council, Inc. v. Tahoe Regional Planning Agency (122 S. Ct. 1465 (2002); the victorious Palazzolo v. Rhode Island and related historic cases; Town of Lysander v. Hafner (New York State Court of Appeals, October 18, 2001); the disappointing Long Island Pine Barrens v. Town of Riverhead; the California case Pronsolino v. EPA; and another Ninth Circuit case Borden Ranch v. Army Corps of Engineers.
Justice Stevens writes that the Tahoe Regional Planning Agency took only a "temporal slice" of the property interest by imposing lengthy building moratoria. No compensation to landowners is required. The troublesome ruling broadly affirmed the justice of central planning, but left open room for "ad hoc" appeals for compensation for temporary takings.
An environmental scientist for 44 years who helped write every piece of federal environmental legislation between 1965 and 1987, Jay Lehr states that today's wetlands enforcement is irrational; that the Endangered Species Act is one of "the most terrible pieces of legislation in the whole environmental arena"; that pollution of our air, water, soil, and from solid waste has been greatly curtailed; and that some issues, including radon and ozone, are a farce.
The federal and state governments, and Indian tribes own 87 % of the land in Arizona. State sovereignty under the Tenth Amendment should be implemented. Protections for property rights to implement the Nollan and Dolan decisions, to provide "Takings" compensation, and to do "Takings" assessments of legislation should be passed in each state.
"Takings" implications of proposed governmental actions shall be assessed by the office of the Attorney General and permit requirements shall minimize restrictions on private property.
Large corporations and developers are delighted with regulation, because that helps cut down on competition. Chris Doss's important ideas include the first mention of "informed consent for conservation easements" and "mandated review property taxes" after regulation decreases property value.
One of the most radical changes in American's lives in recent years is the proliferation of asset forfeiture laws. Federal agents have confiscated over $5 billion in cash, cars, homes, boats and other property from citizens in the last 10 years - in most cases, with no proof of criminal wrongdoing by the owner.

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