That is what the Fifth amendment says and it is fair enough. But the U.S supreme court's ruling last week expanded the power of government to grab land for private projects just blew my mind away! For example, now it is possible for the city to take your land (and of course pay the compensation) to build a shopping mall instead just because it might produce jobs and tax revenues.
This just leads the way for the people with money/power to force people out of their homes easily since any commercial development will ofcourse produce jobs/revenues. As Justice Sandra Day O'Connor warned in her dissent in this decision: "Nothing is to prevent the state from replacing any Motel 6 with a Ritz-Carlton, any home with a shopping mall, or any farm with a factory."
The government and the consitution is there to protect the minorities and the powerless. But these rulings simply expand the powers of the powerful and this is not what the framers intended.
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