Damon Root on Lessons from Kelo, the Eminent Domain Case That Wiped Out a Neighborhood

The latest issue of The Weekly Standard
describes the Supreme Court’s 2005 eminent domain ruling in
Kelo v. City of New London as “a tragedy with all the
classical Greek elements: hubris, turn of fortune, cathartic
downfall, and possibly the ‘learning through suffering’ that
Aristotle in his Poetics argued was the point of tragic
drama.” That is certainly a plausible interpretation of the case,
argues Reason Senior Editor Damon Root. But unfortunately,
Root adds, there’s at least one major player in this tragedy who
has yet to show any signs of learning his lesson from the suffering
he caused. That person is Justice John Paul Stevens, whose majority
opinion allowed the forced condemnations to proceed.

View this article.