Well, another government is at it again:  attempting to force people to sell their property so that it can be turned over to a real estate developer for a project that ostensibly is for the good of the community.  In this case, the government of the city of Auburn, NY, is threatening to use eminent domain to force property owners to sell their businesses to a private developer for the development of a hotel and conference center.

Auburn Mayor Michael Quill, according to the news report apparently a Republican fan of former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, said that "Eminent domain, no one likes it.  We have a responsibility to the entire community... we do not want to hurt an individual property owner or business owner, but we have to look at the long range for the entire community."

Also quoted in the story:  "'Do you want to use eminent domain to get those properties?" asks the head of the Auburn Industrial Development Agency,  Jim Dacy. "I don't think anybody wants to use eminent domain.'  But that is the exact threat if the landowners say they don't cower under the pressure from big business in partnership with the city. "

In response, I sent the following letter to the City of Auburn and Mayor Michael Quill :

Dear Mayor Quill,

I read with interest about the ongoing situation in your city about the potential to use eminent domain to force the sale of private property to a private developer in order to build a hotel conference center.  I am writing to you to urge you and the city government not to violate the property rights of the current owners in order to force the transfer of property from a disfavored owner to one favored by the government, as doing so is an affront to property rights.

In 1772, patriot Samuel Adams wrote that "among the natural rights of the Colonists are these:  First, a right to life; Secondly, to liberty; Thirdly, to property; together with the right to support and defend them in the best manner they can."  Indeed, as such great philosophers of liberty as John Locke, James Madison, and Frederic Bastiat have eloquently suggested, protection of property rights is one of — perhaps the — most fundamental purposes of government itself.

In defending your potential exercising of the eminent domain option against the remaining recalcitrant property owners, you mention that you "do not want to hurt an individual property owner or business owner, but we have to look at the long range for the entire community."  I would submit that nothing is better for the long range of any community than having a government that respects the rights of individual citizens equally before the law — no matter how great, or how small — and upholds the inalienable rights of all.  I would also submit that by threatening to use force to acquire the property, you have already damaged the liberties of those remaining holdouts, as commerce conducted with negotiations tainted by the threat of coercion is not truly voluntary exchange (if you doubt this fact, consider a negotiation between a would-be convenience store robber and a cashier:  if the hopeful thief only threatens to take out a gun but doesn't actually do so, is the cashier's negotiation any more voluntary?).

I realize that as a resident not of Auburn, but rather of Houston, TX, I have no standing and in one sense no "skin in the game", to borrow a phrase from our current President.  However, I believe as Thomas Jefferson did, that "what is true of every member of society, individually, is true of them all collectively; since the rights of the whole can be no more than the rights of the individuals" and that "the right to sell is one of the rights of property."  That is, the property rights of all Americans are infringed upon when those of one are, and the right to sell (or not to sell) is a fundamental aspect of property rights.  In terms of property rights, we are all citizens of Auburn in this matter.

So I urge you and the government of Auburn to continue to attempt to negotiate and persuade the remaining holdout property owners to sell their land, if you believe that the development truly is in the best interest of the city.  But I urge you even more fervently not to engage in coercion, and instead to retain the utmost respect for one of the most basic rights on which this great country was founded.

Sincerely,
Dave Smith
Houston, TX