Here I was Googling to see if SCOTUS had ruled on file sharing and I found something far worse. They had taken The Fifth Amendment to the Constitution which states in part “… nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation” and perverting it. According to SCOTUS’s latest brain dead decision, public use can be a shopping mall, hotel, offices, Wally World, MickyD’s, the Neverland daycare center, whatever, all owned by private corporations or wealthy individuals. We’re not talking libraries and parks here. We’re talking big business, increased tax revenue, money, money, money. Dissenting Justice, Sandra Day O’Connor wrote:

“Any property may now be taken for the benefit of another private party, but the fallout from this decision will not be random. …The beneficiaries are likely to be those citizens with disproportionate influence and power in the political process, including large corporations and development firms.”

I think that’s giving government way too much power. What ever happened to individual property rights? Guess that’s only for the wealthy developers. We just lost ours and we’re not talking occupied territories, Gaza strip, we’re talking the whole U.S. of A. No property rights, none, nada, gone. Churches aren’t exempt either, they pay no taxes hence would be ripe for pickings.

The other dissenters, Scalia, Thomas, Rehnquist, are all conservative. The liberals and moderates were the ones to side with big business. Makes you think. It only took five people to take away our Constitutional rights. The Constitution is kaput, gone, no more.

GOP Bloggers has more, interesting stuff in the trackbacks. Michelle is a must read and naturally she has the definitive roundup on the issue. Maybe not, Arguing with Signposts has more. Looks like this has the Blogosphere buzzing.

And the MSM, well FoxNews, is finally reporting on this. Er, more like a brief mention swallowed up in the Natalee Holloway story.

Glenn writes:

Perhaps we’ll have a political Perfect Storm, then. Nothing would please me more.

Not that it hasn’t happened before (the taking of private property for big business), it’s the Costco M.O.. Now they won’t have to go to court with any private owner or church as SCOTUS has ruled.

All your homes are belong to U.S.

Link and quote thanks to comments at /.

Jeff holds out one faint ray of hope:

“Fear not. John McCain will step in and save us all, mark my words.”

Very faint.

Post updated at 4:42PM and at 12:21AM Friday.