Someone with the unlikley name of “Paulo Freire” managed to get the first comment in on the P-I online discussion about yet-another eminent domain editorial, this one on the Burien case (which frankly, doesn’t sound like the wisest use of eminent domain around.)

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/soundoff/comment.asp?articleID=295500

Posted by paulofreire at 12/11/06 8:58 p.m.

What’s with the P-I’s recent obsession with eminent domain? Has the Institute for “Justice” kidnapped a member of the publisher’s family, demanding two letters and one editorial a week on eminent domain?

If your editorial board were dedicated to good urban planning with the same dedication you have to property rights, I’d have more sympathy. But come on already, enough with the eminent domain.

Our good buddies at the Institute for Justice are hot on the heels of yet another critical case:

As the Akron Beacon-Journal reports, via the AP, Court to decide battle over ‘for sale’ sign

CINCINNATI – A federal appeals court will decide if an Ohio village violated a man’s freedom of speech when it forced him to remove a “for sale” sign on a car parked in front of his home.

Chris Pagan said Glendale police threatened to cite him in 2003 under an ordinance forbidding such signs on vehicles in public areas.

Pagan removed the sign from his 1970 Mercury Cougar and said it hurt his ability to sell the car.

“I sold it under market value, because it was the best deal I could get,” said Pagan, an attorney who later filed a federal lawsuit to challenge the village’s half-century-old sign regulation.

What’s astonishing about this to me is the way they manage to frame their commitment to freedom of commercial speech not in terms of free speech more generally, but rather in terms of a “taking”. The guy couldn’t put a proper for sale sign on his car, you see, and so he ended up having to sell for less than market value, he says. The horror!

(What *is* a 1970 Mercury Cougar worth, you ask? Well, in Kuwait, they apparently go for 8,000 Kuwaiti dollars — but that price is no doubt affected by the fact that this is the only 1970 Cougar in all of Kuwait.)

Damn over-regulated emirate must have laws barring the import of great free American cars, or something. Because everything can always be explained by referencing the freedom to buy, except when it’s all about freedom to sell, or freedom to exploit, or freedom to pollute, or the freedom to behave with utter social irresponsibility.

IJ lays it down this way:

“If they can ban totally harmless speech on a whim, what happens when more controversial speech comes along?” said Jeff Rowes, a lawyer for the institute who is helping Pagan with the case. “If we decide that putting someone in jail is the right way to deal with ordinary speech like a ‘for sale’ sign, the First Amendment is in grave jeopardy.”

But really, now, just how slippery a slope is it from purely commerical speech like “for sale” to political, religious, or some other kind of expressive speech? The line seems easy to draw: selling for the highest possible price just isn’t a critical speech right. And “I want to make more money more money more money” is tawdry selfishness, not protected political expression.

Of course, in my book, keeping suburbs clean of ugly signage isn’t a compelling government interest either — which is why this seems an entirely trivial case.

The P-I on Sunday printed a letter by one Edwina Johnston, responding to my letter (which was responding to their editorial — this is getting a little meta, isn’t it) on eminent domain & community renewal. In this letter, it’s recommended to me that I “read the Constitution” (by which she actually means the Bill of Rights — a pedantic distinction, sure, but she started it). She goes on to make a distinction between eminent domain for “use” and for private benefit, which seems somewhat off-point, both in regard to my letter and the larger debate.

It gets better, though:

The Constitution was written to spell out the rights of citizens and to protect them from the power of the government. A government that elevates the “common good” above “individual rights” is a communist government. In our republic, the individual’s right is protected from the tyranny of the majority.

The tyranny of a communist majority?! Where, exactly, has this been a threat?

A quick google search reveals that Johnston is involved with reactionary property rights groups and even wrote a guest column in the Seattle Times in support of I-933 and her case was cited by John Carlson in the King County Journal. Her issue: she can’t fully exploit the imagined value of the 30 acres she purchased in Preston “to retire on.”

So real estate wasn’t a secure retirement investment for her? Shocker, that.

A good opponent to draw out, I think.

Update (11/29): The Seattle P-I prints my letter and with only minor edits!

To the editors:
In your editorial opposing the use of eminent domain to keep Southeast Seattle affordable, you suggest there’s a need for community involvement, but don’t suggest how else to make this happen. A blue ribbon panel, perhaps? Or maybe a toothless neighborhood plan?

The basic principle of eminent domain is that the common good can take precedence over private interests. This is hard to object to – unless, I guess, you own blighted property and want to hold on to it. But even then, you’d receive fair compensation. So who loses?

Sure, area property owners may want to take another spin on the real estate roulette wheel, hoping to hit another jackpot. But they’re already benefiting greatly from public funds and attention to the area—from light rail to rezoning, and beyond. The rest of us deserve something in return: to help make sure there’s room for everyone in Southeast Seattle.

A community renewal agency with eminent domain powers is one of the few tools available with the teeth to give the public a real voice in the process, as equals with private developers and property owners. And I suspect that this is at the heart of the objections to the plan.

The P-I on Sunday takes a strong and strongly misguided position on those use of eminent domain for community renewal. No two ways about this:

But the city’s role must be limited. Forget using the power of eminent domain to acquire, assemble and sell properties for redevelopment.

Why such strong objections to the use of eminent domain? There’s nothing more American than property rights, I guess.