So the other day, the Supreme Court ruled that the government can allow one private party to obtain land from another private party by claiming “eminent domain” if it can be shown that the tax revenue from the pre-empting party would exceed that generated by the existing one. This has all sorts of implications, and is of course just another nod to big nasty corporations who want to bulldoze neighborhoods to make way for factories or whatever.
In a stroke of genius, and what can only be called poetic irony, a hotel developer named Logan Clements filed paperwork with the city of Weare, New Hampshire to allow him to bulldoze the house of Justice David Souter and build a hotel in its place. The hotel would be called The Lost Liberty Hotel and would include the Just Desserts Cafe and a small museum with exhibits about the loss of freedoms in America. All guests would receive a complimentary copy of Ayn Rand’s novel Atlas Shrugged.
I love it!
Of course Clements had no problem demonstrating that the tax revenue from a hotel would greatly exceed Justice Souter’s annual property tax, and therefore it’s perfectly within the jurisprudence of the new ruling. If three of the five members of the town council vote in favor of it, I guess Justice Souter will be shopping for a new home…