Standing Up for the Fifth Amendment - in China

[mahatmakanejeeves]

You have to see this to believe it. On the front page of this morning's New York Times, above the fold, is a huge picture of an urban renewal project in Chongqing, China. There's a problem with the project: a couple refuses to leave their home, and as a consequence, the project is going on all around them.

Wu Ping's house in Chongqing, China, sits on its own island of land amid construction all around it.

The story made the network TV news tonight as well. If you Google news for Wu Ping Yang Wu, you'll come up with more hits.

As you may recall, there was a Supreme Court case decided two years ago, Kelo v. New London, that dealt with the issue of eminent domain. The decision was not popular.

I'm pleased to see someone take a stand for the Fifth Amendment, even if it is in China.

[RL3AO]

1. I never knew you had a choice in china.

[BayCityProgressive]

2. I support "eminent domain" if it means

that a highway or some other function for the benefit of the VAST MAJORITY is absolutely needed in the area of your property. I think you should be paid a very generous amount to cover the market value of the property, your moving fees, and bonus money for the inconvenience. I live in Michigan and the state paid everyone on a road here to move so they could expand this essential road. Everyone was compensated very well and msot of the businesses are now twice their original size. Am I taking a controversial stand on this?

[BayCityProgressive]

3. I posted this in a different thread

but I think it would be of interest here to:

China just passed a new property rights bill..supposedly the most important bill in decades...it for the first time, lays out legal boundries for private, public, and co-op property rights. There was a lot of debate over it and it was shelved 7 times before passing-very unusual for China. It guarantees many new rights to private property to encourage investment, gives new powers to people to form co-op living and businesses and own the land collectively, and also gives more protection to socialist property-outlawing the sale of any socialist property or any mergers of socialist industry without the express approval of the central government. The bill was debated for over a year. The right-wing of the party said they needed more investment and more protection of private assets and the left-wing argued that they were copying capitalism "like pathetic slaves", lawmakers form the countryside argued for more protections and aid for rural areas where civil unrest has been growing. All sides finally agreed on this bill which will go into effect in Oct.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/6429317.stm

[shatter]

4. this is a bit off topic

but your comment made me think of something that a friend had told me about. he said some years ago the city of (chicago?) gathered up a whole bunch of homeless people and gave them all one-way tickets to hawaii so that their homeless problem became another state's problem. has anyone else heard of this before? i tried finding more information about it, but i couldn't find anything....