Eminent Domain
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Hello and welcome to Halting Toward Zion, the podcast where we limp like Jacob to the Promised Land and talk about life, the universe, and everything else along the way. I’m your host this evening, Bryan Broome, joined by Greg Uttinger and Emily Maxson.
Today we’re talking about a thorny topic probably, eminent domain. We’re going to be talking about Naboth’s vineyard, so Greg, why don’t you start us off.
Actually, I’m going to have Emily start us off because in my original article on this I referenced in 2012 a movie from Disney called Wreck-it Ralph, and Emily says it’s such a good movie, so she’s going to tell us about it and how this leads into our topic.
Wreck-It Ralph is the bad guy in a video game. He is trying to fight off Fix-It Felix, except he’s not fighting him off, he’s protecting the property that was taken from him, except that’s kind of the back story to the video game, if I recall. I’m not telling this very well at all. It was like 10 years ago that I saw this movie, but it was really great.
The player of the video game plays as Fix-It Felix and he has to go and fix everything that Wreck-It Ralph has wrecked. But in the movie, Wreck-It Ralph realizes that he never gets a gold coin, a recognition that he’s cool. All the other video game characters, because they’re heroes, earn these little tokens. It’s really to have the video game players win achievements or something.
Ralph is like, “You know, everyone hates me and I think it’s because I don’t have one of these achievement tokens,” so he leaves his video game and goes into other video games, trying to win a token so that he will be liked. And as you might guess, that’s not what ends up happening because that’s not what makes you liked – your achievements. It’s a good movie. You should watch it. It’s got music by Owl City, what more could you want?
Speaking of that, the music at the end has lyrics that no one ever pays attention to because credits are rolling and the story is way over, but if you listen carefully you’re told this about Ralph –
He was minding his own business on the day they came
They showed a piece of paper saying "Eminent domain"
They built an apartment building saying progress was to blame
So he got mad
And he turned bad
Brick by brick, he's gonna take his land back!
Bryan was suggesting to me earlier that they threw that in at the end for parents who might wonder what in the world was going on in this movie. I’m sure kids don’t understand the term ‘eminent domain.’ I’m not sure how many parents understand it either.
How often do you ask why the villain in a video game is doing the thing that they’re doing? If you’re playing fancy video games from the last decade, sure, but not if you’re playing the original hardcore arcade games. Wreck-It Ralph just wrecks. That’s just who he is, and if you’re a kid that’s enough.
Let’s get back on topic here. The point is this little phrase ‘eminent domain’ is a legal term. It has to do with the right and authority of a governing body to acquire the land of one of its citizens because said governing body needs it more than the citizen does, or some other citizen or corporation or industry needs it more than the citizen does.
Sometimes it’s because we need to put a freeway through your living room. Sometimes it’s because we need to build a pharmaceutical industrial complex right through your house and your neighbor’s house. Maybe we need to run some kind of water pipe right through there. Whatever it is, it is something that obviously is more important to the community at large than whatever you’re doing with your house, assuming someone is living in it, or your business, which presumably you’re running a business in it.
This is an established principle in American law and it’s written into the Constitution, though not under those words, that the federal government cannot take land unless it pays appropriate compensation to the owner. There doesn’t seem to be any question as to whether or not the federal government should have the right to take away property. It just does. And here, pleading conservatism or traditional American values is not much help.
I’m not a legal authority on this at all, but I can present you with two instances. One is Kelo vs. New London in 2005. Susette Kelo sued the city of New London, Connecticut for giving her home to a pharmaceutical company in the name of economic development. She argued that it was unconstitutional for the city to take private property from one individual or corporation and give it to another. This became a federal issue on appeal to the Constitution itself. The United States Supreme Court disagreed in a 5-4 decision. The court announced that public purposes qualifies as public use as it’s described in the 5th amendment.
That is such specious reasoning, because you could also make the same argument that because it’s public purposes – “Oh, well, I sell timeshares to the public, so that’s a public purpose.”
The person living there presumably contributes to their community by being a person in that community. That’s just as much public purpose.
The second case involves the Brooklyn Nets, a basketball team. New York real estate developer Bruce Radner discovered a choice piece of partially undeveloped land in Brooklyn, perfect for luxury high-rises, but 14 acres of older businesses and homes stood in the way of any sort of redevelopment project. Radner needed those structures condemned, so he fastened onto a traditionally sanctioned public use for other questionable property, and that public use was a stadium for its basketball team, so he bought the New Jersey Nets. The city of Brooklyn jumped on board, exercised the power of eminent domain, and handed off the land to Radner. This was 2010.
But then came this thing called a recession and Radner suddenly couldn’t pull off his plan. He had to rearrange his capital and that involved selling the Nets, who were supposedly the purpose for having the stadium, and scale back his building plans. So he went ahead and built stuff anyhow – not a stadium. He still ended up, by his own projections, with an annual return of 10%. In other words, he made good money off of it – not as much as he hoped, but it was worth his while. And those people who had old homes or businesses in that area lost them.
Now, they were paid at whatever the city took to be fair market value, which of course is always debatable. How much is a thing worth? How much is it worth to you? How much money are you willing to take in place of it? How much money is someone else willing to give you? Which of those is the fair market value exactly? If we want it more than you seem to want it, because we really want it and you kind of really want it, where do we draw this price line? And if you don’t want to sell? That’s just too bad.
When one party has no power to walk away, it’s impossible to have a true negotiation of any kind, even if it were attempted.
It all becomes hypothetical, whereas if there were somebody living there who did want to sell, I’m sure they would be satisfied with this much. That’s what other land in other places is going for when people want to sell.
Anyway, that’s eminent domain. It’s not a recent socialist invention. Its roots are in the Constitution, but we’ve gotten really good at elaborating on those principles and pushing it into ways that even our Founding Fathers didn’t plan on.
We might even suggest that just because it’s in the Constitution doesn’t make it right.
It doesn’t make it right in the first place. There are some other economic things we could talk about some day that are in the Constitution that don’t make it right.
Interestingly enough, the Bible does not have a high opinion of eminent domain. For instance, there’s that commandment about stealing stuff – Thou shalt not steal. But that only means you shouldn’t steal unless it’s better for everybody else if you do, right?
Yes. I was reading Thomas Sowell, a really good book, earlier. I forget the name of it at the moment. He, of course, is a conservative with Libertarian leanings, but a conservative first, and I was reading his defense of private property. There came a point where he said, “Ultimately yes, private property, individual property, individual property rights – except ultimately they’re founded in the social compact that creates the State, so if the State needs it more it really can take it from you, and that’s just the way the system works, because majoritarianism and Locke and all that.” Wait, what?
Who defines need? Who defines the greater community? There’s just a lot to wiggle there.
I was teaching Sunday School one morning on this very topic. I don’t remember it was exclusive to this, but it got to this, and I was pointing out this is theft and government does not have the right to take its citizens property. I thought I was being rather black and white. The State does not have the right to steal property because “Thou shalt not steal.”
I was rather surprised – nay, even shocked – when one older gentleman, who has served in the church for years and who is certainly no stranger to either politics or economics, raised his hand and said, “Now surely you don’t mean…”
I don’t remember his exact example but it was something along these lines – “There’s this community here, and you’re over here, and your land runs right through where the water needs to go to get to them, and you’re not saying that they can’t require your land so that this larger community can have water?” and I went nonplussed. I thought I had shifted into an alternate universe.
Not wanting to make a fuss over this and say, “When did you become Marxist?” I said something simply along the lines, “Well, there may be things in the Bible that I have missed, but I would need to be shown them, because as far as I can see in the Bible…” and I got some kind of response, and I think our friend David Farschman also responded about the same time saying, “What? Theft?” By the way, thank you, David, for standing up at that point.
There’s an interesting thing there because there are two principles that are at play at the same time. The first is that the government is bound to respect property and not steal. But at the same time, individuals, especially Christian individuals, are called to acts of charity and love for neighbor and neighbors. I think there’s a kind of bond binding necessity, binding morality in favor of allowing that sort of action, but it’s not the government’s job to enforce that at the same time.
Forced charity is no charity at all. If they’re taking your land at gunpoint, that’s not really an act of loving your neighbor. That’s being burglarized.
But I do appreciate, Bryan, what you’re saying. Is it right for Christians sometimes to say, “I’m really not doing much with that land. These people on the other side do need the water. I don’t need to milk this deal for all it’s worth. I can accept something. If I had planned to sell it on my own, what I would ask for it? Okay, I’ll take that. I’d even take a little less because I’m a good guy and I want to help out.”
That’s great but, as Emily says, when the government comes and holds a gun to your head and says, “You don’t get a yes or no here, nor do you get to set the price. We will set the price. We will take you in…”
In this instance, I just fell back. Mostly what I said is, “Show it to me in the Word of God,” and then quickly ended the class because we were near the end of time. But it was very surprising to me in someone who is most certainly politically conservative and who knows the Bible well that such a thing should just pop up without some kind of argument or preface or “Have you considered…” or “Have you thought…” or something like Bryan just did. “What would you do in these circumstances? Couldn’t a Christian willingly let go of his property, let go of his rights?”
There’s a lot in the Bible about letting go of our rights for the good of others, but you have to let go of rights, and to do that you have to kind of acknowledge that they’re rights. There’s a legal permission and authority from God that other people can’t simply take from you because they think they have a need that’s bigger than yours.
There are warnings in scripture about rich men piling up riches and not considering the poor, or hoarding the crops that they’ve gathered in when people want to buy them. But there is no permission to the king or anyone else to simply take the stuff. In fact, “Thou shalt not steal” can also go with what Jesus said in the parable of the vineyard. The vineyard owner says, “Is it not lawful for me to do what I will with my own?” like sell it or not sell it, hire you or not hire you, give you a bonus or not give you a bonus?
Speaking of vineyards, when we come to the original request of Israel for a king, God told Samuel, “Tell them the kind of king they’re going to get.” He said, “Among other things, he will take your fields and your vineyards and your olive yards, even the best of them, and give them to his servants.” That was considered a bad thing. This king will exercise eminent domain over your property and he will take it away from you and give to his servants. That’s not good government. That’s bad government. That’s tyranny.
Especially in the Old Testament national Israel economy, which looked forward to the coming of Messiah and also put great stock into family inheritance as how you are remembered throughout time, if you didn’t have land to give to your children then you would not be remembered because your lot would not be in the Promised Land. But also you would be considered a functional failure as a father, as a provider, because you don’t have land to give to your children, and you’ve lost the ability to give them their lot in the Promised Land and be remembered.
So it was especially heinous to have a ruler come and say, “Oh, I’m taking this land and it’s not even going to your relatives. It’s not going to your kindred. It’s not going to your children or your grandchildren or their grandchildren. It’s going to this guy that I really like and who’s cool because he told me my hat looked nice. Sorry, it’s just the game.”
That’s the next point. In jubilee the land was supposed to revert to its original owners. That probably wouldn’t happen in this situation.
Because God had given the land. God had pointed out for each family and that’s incredible. God knew who I was and gave me this land.
And he knew who my children would be, and their children after them, at least until the coming of Messiah. They didn’t know what would go on beyond that.
Bryan is getting ahead of us, and much to the point, because in the text that we’re coming to which has to do Naboth’s vineyard, Naboth does not explain a great deal of why he won’t sell. To us it can just look like a stuffy capitalist who has covetous designs on his land and won’t sell to someone who has a reasonable market offer. But what Bryan just said goes here.
This is a religious issue. This is a cultural issue. This is an issue of inheritance, not just of property but of place and of remembrance and of holding things together the way God ordained until Messiah should come. So it becomes a big deal, so much so that in the restoration covenant as Ezekiel looks forward and prophesies he says this –
Moreover the prince shall not take of the people's inheritance by oppression, to thrust them out of their possession; but he shall give his sons inheritance out of his own possession, that my people be not scattered every man from his possession.
The ownership of land was a big deal, and although in the new covenant we are not commanded to have land, we certainly have many good examples of it being a good and useful thing for many people. About the only place in the new covenant where we see this principle kind of jettisoned is in the early church after Pentecost when everybody sold their land, but they sold their land for a really good reason.
Within 40 years the market value would be below zero. Jerusalem was about to be destroyed, and therefore the land no longer meant anything. But had Israel been faithful and received their Messiah, then presumably those land tenures would have gone on or been used by the church or something, because God would not have had to destroy everything to make his point.
In terms of even the prophets, a godly kingdom is where the king does not take your stuff and give it away to his servants or his sons. You get to live on your land and farm your land, because it’s your land from God.
These are things we’ve talked about before. God owns everything, yes, obviously, and just as clearly from scripture God delegates property, including land, to individuals who are to take it and use it for his glory. They’re to develop it. They’re to dress and keep it, to use the language of Eden, to exercise dominion over it, to be stewards, to use the language of Jesus’ parables, to take what we have and improve on it and make it better and then pass it on as a covenant inheritance. This is basic.
There’s nothing unbiblical, unloving, selfish, or ungodly about any of this. This is, in fact, the way God presents property throughout scripture, although as Bryan says the emphasis was much stronger in the old covenant because the land was special, the land was promised, the land was holy because that’s where Messiah was coming and Israel had to be there. God implanted deeply within them a consciousness of that particular land and had given it to them.
And interestingly – you kept saying lot – he gave it to them by lot. That’s where the word ‘lot’ comes from. “We have lots of property. We have lots that make up our property,” because once upon a time property was designated by lot. They cast lots to see who got what, so God’s fingerprints are all over this thing.
And it came to pass after these things, that Naboth the Jezreelite had a vineyard, which was in Jezreel, hard by the palace of Ahab king of Samaria. And Ahab spake unto Naboth, saying, Give me thy vineyard, that I may have it for a garden of herbs, because it is near unto my house: and I will give thee for it a better vineyard than it; or, if it seem good to thee, I will give thee the worth of it in money.
Although in light of everything we just talked about, Ahab is kind of acting like God saying, “I will take away this land and give you different land,” like he has authority to do that.
Well, if you read it in the most generous context it would mean, “You will lease it to me long-term until the jubilee,” which was allowed, not particularly encouraged but it was allowed, the understanding being, “I will lease it to you for the rest of my lifetime,” which might be another 40 years or so, and if the jubilee had happened recently, the jubilee would revert everything. “And in the meantime I’ll give you something just as good or I’ll give you money.”
He says “buy it from you,” so again that’s putting the best possible construction on it. If he literally means, “I’ll buy it and your family will never get it back,” then yes, that crosses boundary lines real fast. But whatever the case, at this point Ahab is making an offer. There’s no sword behind it, no threats, just “I have a good business deal for you,” but Naboth says –
And Naboth said to Ahab, The LORD forbid it me, that I should give the inheritance of my fathers unto thee.
That’s all we get from Naboth, and what Bryan said earlier is the background that Naboth is assuming. If you’ve read the entire Old Testament to this point, we should assume too that this is something from God not just for him but for his family, for his fathers, given at the time of the conquest and has continued in the family line until now, and he’s a trustee whose job it is to pass it on to his kids.
That’s just part of being an Israelite, and he’s not willing to break with that for money, even a lot of money, even something better. We’re not told it was the greatest vineyard in the world, but it was his favorite, the one God had given him.
Sometimes I think the writer of Kings has fun with satire where Ahab is concerned. He always picks these wonderful words – heavy and displeased.
…because of the word which Naboth the Jezreelite had spoken to him: for he had said, I will not give thee the inheritance of my fathers. And he laid him down upon his bed, and turned away his face, and would eat no bread.
But Jezebel his wife came to him, and said unto him, Why is thy spirit so sad, that thou eatest no bread? And he said unto her, Because I spake unto Naboth the Jezreelite, and said unto him, Give me thy vineyard for money; or else, if it please thee, I will give thee another vineyard for it: and he answered, I will not give thee my vineyard.
And Jezebel his wife said unto him, Dost thou now govern the kingdom of Israel? arise, and eat bread, and let thine heart be merry: I will give thee the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite.
“Perk up, dear. I’ve gotcha covered. I’ll take care of this. You are the king, right?”
Well, yeah, and in Israel the king couldn’t do stuff like this, or wasn’t supposed to at any rate. She was a Canaanite princess and Canaanite rulers did this all the time so she knows exactly what has to happen. She does not tell her husband, but when her husband hears her say, “I’ll take care of it,” this requires no great imagination to figure out what she has in mind.
First, as king he ought to know. Then, as her husband he almost certainly does know. At least he knows it’s going to be very shady, but he goes and eats his cornflakes or whatever and everything is fine. Plausible deniability – he’s not going to get involved. He’ll just see what happens.
…and sent the letters unto the elders and to the nobles that were in his city, dwelling with Naboth.
Jezreel was the summer palace. Samaria was the main palace, but when things were a little warm they would go up to Jezreel, so she has contact with these people and just drops them letters which say this –
And she wrote in the letters, saying, Proclaim a fast, and set Naboth on high among the people…
Have a public fast and honor Naboth as a godly man who somehow needs to be honored because of whatever. She’s leaving them room for imagination to figure this one out.
Really? “I want you to put up there two sons of Satan who can be trusted to do any kind of screwy criminal thing we want.” “Yes ma’am, got ‘em. Pull out our lists of sons of Belial, please.”
And set two men, sons of Belial, before him, to bear witness against him, saying, Thou didst blaspheme God and the king. And then carry him out, and stone him, that he may die.
And the men of his city, even the elders and the nobles who were the inhabitants in his city, did as Jezebel had sent unto them, and as it was written in the letters which she had sent unto them. They proclaimed a fast and set Naboth on high among the people. And there came in two men, children of Belial, and sat before him: and the men of Belial witnessed against him, even against Naboth, in the presence of the people, saying, Naboth did blaspheme God and the king.
So we’ve got two witnesses to a capital offense, and apparently no one stood up to protest or to defend Naboth, so with two witnesses and executioners ready, they grab him and carry him out of the city and they stone him with stones and he dies. Apparently, at the same time his sons were also executed, because later on we find a reference to that, but that’s not the focus at the moment.
Just in passing, I’ve been making a big deal now for a few years that the Bible relies upon original source documents and eyewitness testimony wherever possible. Very rarely does God simply drop information into people’s heads. There may be a few times, but largely, especially in the New Testament – and Luke is a good example – either the writers were there at the time, or they go and interview people who were, or they quote public documents, genealogies, royal decrees, things like that.
Who is the lame-o who left these letters lying around for someone to record? This is like Watergate, only worse. Someone did not burn the letters when they should have.
This reminds me of everything going on with the FBI lately. It’s one thing to live in a country where corruption is going on under the hood all the time. It’s another to live in a country where corruption is done openly and no one even tries to hide it. It’s like, “Oh yup, these letters are on public record and no one’s going to do anything about it because that’s how this place is right now.”
And it came to pass, when Jezebel heard that Naboth was stoned, and was dead, that Jezebel said to Ahab, Arise, take possession of the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite, which he refused to give thee for money…
…for Naboth is not alive, but dead. And it came to pass, when Ahab heard that Naboth was dead, that Ahab rose up to go down to the vineyard of Naboth the Jezreelite, to take possession of it.
So he doesn’t know anything, right? He’s completely uninvolved. If there are any shady dealings, he doesn’t know about it. However, there is a God in heaven who sees the heart.
And the word of the LORD came to Elijah the Tishbite, saying, Arise, go down to meet Ahab king of Israel, which is in Samaria: behold, he is in the vineyard of Naboth, whither he is gone down to possess it. And thou shalt speak unto him, saying, Thus saith the LORD, Hast thou killed, and also taken possession? And thou shalt speak unto him, saying, Thus saith the LORD, In the place where dogs licked the blood of Naboth shall dogs lick thy blood, even thine.
And Ahab said to Elijah, Hast thou found me, O mine enemy? And he answered, I have found thee: because thou hast sold thyself to work evil in the sight of the LORD. Behold, I will bring evil upon thee, and will take away thy posterity, and will cut off from Ahab him that pisseth against the wall, and him that is shut up and left in Israel, and will make thine house like the house of Jeroboam the son of Nebat, and like the house of Baasha the son of Ahijah, for the provocation wherewith thou hast provoked me to anger, and made Israel to sin.
And of Jezebel also spake the LORD, saying, The dogs shall eat Jezebel by the wall of Jezreel. Him that dieth of Ahab in the city the dogs shall eat; and him that dieth in the field shall the fowls of the air eat.
But there was none like unto Ahab, which did sell himself to work wickedness in the sight of the LORD, whom Jezebel his wife stirred up.
There’s a little bit more that we may come to, or not. But notice that the prophet says, in so many words, “Thou art the man.” It’s not, “Your wife is a murderess. Bring her out.” No, it’s “You killed. Your authority, your guys, your wife, you knew, you are responsible. You ought to be executed.
“Of course, there’s no one here to execute you, and God has not told me to do it, but someone’s going to do it. They’re not only going to take you out, they’re going to take all your kids out, because eye for an eye. You tried to dispossess Naboth and his heirs of what God had given them, so God is going to take away not simply your lands, but he’s going to take you away and your kids and their kids, and there’s not going to be anybody left. That wife of yours? She’s gone, she’s dog meat.”
There’s a God who rules in heaven and who does call men to account for their crimes sooner or later, and God does take an interest in private property and real estate that’s been stolen, and it’s proper to call upon him for such things.
One passing thing here. When the witnesses witnessed against Naboth they said, “You blasphemed God and the king.” Now, speaking evil of the king and speaking evil of God are not the same thing, but it may explain how Ahab suddenly comes into possession. Yes, it seems that Naboth’s sons were eliminated and that may be part of the whole picture, but there’s probably more to the trial and the evidence that was brought forward than we know of.
But if Naboth had in fact spoken evil of the king – “You shall not speak evil of the ruler of thy people. You shall not blaspheme the gods or curse the gods” – then that could put Ahab in the place of one who has been offended by the crime and who deserves restitution, and thus might constitute his minute claim to getting the land afterwards, but, you know, really this whole thing is illegal and who cares. He just went down and took the land and no one is going to stand up to him, possibly. Oh wait, here’s Elijah – rats.
If anyone has the willingness to get in the way of Ahab’s plans it’s Elijah.
I love that we don’t really know that, though. Did Elijah love that he was the guy who always had to go up to Ahab and be like, “Dude.”? Or was he like, “Here we go again!”
He seems like a guy who would, I’ve got to be honest. There’s probably a slight annoyance like, “That guy again, Lord?” But I also feel like there’s a part of him that’s like, “It’s been a while since I’ve gotten to tell him off. This is great. Let’s go in the name of the Lord. It’s going to be awesome.”
And it came to pass, when Ahab heard those words, that he rent his clothes, and put sackcloth upon his flesh, and fasted, and lay in sackcloth, and went softly.
I don’t know what that means. It means he was quiet and meek, I suppose, in his behavior and didn’t slam doors. It’s mocking. The writer is mocking him here, there’s no doubt about that.
Yeah, that’s what it means. But interestingly enough, God took this as meaning something – not a lot, but something – because God honors history and our actions within history, even when they’re far from perfect and far from making up for the bad things. God notices when we at least act out the role of repentance, and he says to Elijah –
Seest thou how Ahab humbleth himself before me? because he humbleth himself before me, I will not bring the evil in his days: but in his son's days will I bring the evil upon his house.
That sounds good and all, but in the next chapter Ahab dies in battle. “Okay Lord, so he won’t live to see it. Oh, because he’s not living much longer. Alright, that works.”
So there’s the story. It centers on this idea that somehow the State – well, it doesn’t actually because even Ahab knew that you shouldn’t just go steal your people’s property. Israel in its apostasy during the time it worshiped Baal, the State was still not in the position where it could simply come and take your land without some kind of legal pretext. Israel at its worst was still not so bad as to simply take its people’s property, but some legal trickery, some judicial games, a little judicial murder – yeah, they were up for that, and God calls them on the carpet. There is a just God who presides over the affairs of men, who does see and does hear and does judge.
When we think of Hannah’s song at the beginning of Samuel, and Mary’s song and Magnificat, one of the things that they both appeal to that will be accomplished in the coming of Messiah is that Messiah will establish judgement and justice. He will bring down those who are oppressors. He will exalt those of low degree. He will act in history to turn things upside-down and bring down the scoundrels, though they are wealthy and powerful, and to put his people eventually into positions of power.
So here we just have one simple example, and of course we’re not done yet, because Ahab dies and the kingdom goes to his son for a little while. Then Elijah gets pulled off the scene and Elisha takes over, and we’re going to come to these stories shortly.
Remember that Elijah was given three chores at Sinai. One was to anoint the next prophet, which he’s done, Elisha. Then he’s supposed to anoint Jehu king of Israel. Jehu is not in the royal line. He’s not a descendant of Ahab. In other words, he’s going to authorize regicide and revolution, and it’s coming real, real soon.
This is the God we serve. He is not meek, mild, timid, afraid to say boo to us. He will do what he needs to do to enforce his law, and he will do it ultimately in eternity as we stand before the throne of the Lamb, the white throne of judgement, but he will do it also in history. He will overturn to establish the power and kingdom of his Son and to protect his people.
I think just a reaffirmation that we’re talking about rights, in some sense anyway. That’s the language that is used for these moral issues in American law.
Yeah, common law, broadly speaking. It really does come down to sort of layers of authority and scopes of authority, where you have been given something by God. It is yours. It is something he has given to you in the due course of providence.
Above that there are varying levels of authority that determine what you are allowed to do with that. There’s the law of God. There’s the law of the State. But there are laws that determine what the State is allowed to do in regards to that property as well. It’s just an annoyance, I think that the State does not always adhere to what it even says about its own law, that it feels free to flout it at its own convenience.
When we were going over some of the American case laws regarding eminent domain, I just kept thinking about what if the State is the one who has the power to determine the value of the land? How is this not a conflict of interest, an example of what the Bible calls unjust weights and measures? That may not be the exact term, but the false weights and measures.
It’s really unconscionable to essentially say, “This agency that wants to do things with your land also is the one who is determining what they’re going to pay you for it, and is also forcing you to accept those terms at gunpoint, metaphorically or literally,” and the person on the receiving end of that basically has no recourse. And especially since 2005 or whenever the first case law you mentioned came about, not even the highest court in the land technically is allowed to overrule that decision, because it is based on past precedent.
You mentioned gunpoint as being perhaps figurative, but you know what? If you try to stay on that land and you handcuff yourself to it, or you hole up in it with a gun, it stops become figurative real fast. They will dispossess you by police or military means, because in their mind it’s not yours anymore. You are now stealing from them and they have the right to remove you. Presumably they’ll be nice about it, but if you’re going to start pulling guns on them, well, it stinks to be you. We use the phrase gunpoint, and this is not hyperbole. This has happened over and over again.
I also think – and maybe this is getting a little bit more controversial – but you hear about stories, like somebody who lives on a farm in the middle of Nebraska and the state says, “We’re going to build a highway through your land, so we’re dispossessing you,” but there’s also – I hesitate to put the full force of my reasoning behind this because I don’t have any examples on-hand to pull from – but inner cities where the supposed minorities that the state supposedly cares so much about are the ones who are being dispossessed of their property as well. “Sorry, this is something we’re putting in for the Brooklyn Nets.”
Pick what your standard is. Do you care about these people or does that stop when you think there’s something better? It becomes more egregious when essentially the argument is, “Oh, people have been racist in positions of power for the last 150-200-300 years,” however many years they’re saying, “and we need to do our part to stop that, but we’re still going to take your land, in case we think it’s valuable to us.”
“Because you shouldn’t be living in houses like this. These are rodent-infested. They ought to be condemned. We’ll give you money equal to or maybe a little above market value for living in a slum, because that’s a lot. I’m sure you can go and find a better place to live, and we’ve done you a favor in the name of humanitarianism and love for the poor. Go thou and be warmed and filled.”
“How am I going to move my belongings to another place?” especially if you’re in a city. In New York, no one has a car. Like three people have a car in New York City, and the rest are taxis.
Those are all the sorts of thoughts percolating in my head. It’s very much a hypocritical set of policies and actions that they’re taking.
I found something earlier today and it was about Chicago affordable housing. Somebody who’s a politician in Chicago shared this letter that she received that week. She said in 1993 she applied for affordable housing, and last week she got a letter saying she been moved up the list.
First, that just goes to show how much the government cares about the poor. Secondly, the person who shared this then drew the inference that the real error, the real cause, the real problem here was the disease of capitalism, and I audibly laughed.
It’s because of capitalism that you’re hopefully not as poor as you were in 1993.
No kidding. It’s the straw man of it all. “Capitalism is when the government does a thing that’s bad.” No, it’s not.
Right, because they exist. I mean there’s something to be said about rich people buying political influence in some sense…
And we just talked about how rich people buying land at very much a non-premium for building a sports stadium seems a little unjust.
Very much, and they’re doing it not with the power and influence that their money has in and of itself – the personal influence that they have as a charismatic person, perhaps – they have co-opted the sword of the State and said, “I want you to help me out here, man. Can you lend me your police department on perhaps a lend-lease kind of situation going on here?”
They’ve said, “Get out, because I have a stadium to build. I have high-rises that I want to put in this area, and your slum is in the way of that plan.” That’s not good.
No, we’re very sarcastic about this. And that’s the last I’ll say because we’re running out of time. Theft is theft, no matter who’s doing it. Let’s end on that agreement point.
I’ve got one, thanks to some things you just said. There’s a book called The Myth of the Robber Barons by Burton Folsom, and I just found out by Googling it that the author taught at your old school, or still teaches there at Hillsdale.
He retired, actually. Yes, I had the privilege of taking the history of American economics with him. He was a wonderful professor and a very cheery individual.
The Myth of the Robber Barons has been on our required reading list as an alternate for decades. I don’t know if anyone has ever read it. Probably a couple people have. The subtitle is “A New Look at the Rise of Big Business in America.”
Recommendation: The Myth of the Robber BaronsThe basic idea is sort of what we’ve been talking about. There were two sorts of 19th century capitalists who are often tarred as robber barons. Some were not capitalists at all. They simply bought and sold votes and got power from the government. Others didn’t. With their two hands and the blessings of God they built financial empires. The thing in the background is that even the slimy stuff would not have worked had there not been a healthy free-market American economy to play off of.
He talks about some of the specific players at the time – Vanderbilt, Rockefeller, Schwab, and others. I have both the book and a shrunk-down article based on the book that I do assign in my economics class.
For those of you who’ve been told that rich businessmen are always evil and it’s all the fault of capitalism, yes, many businessmen are in fact evil – small and large – but it’s not capitalism that got them there. It’s socialism, actually. And there are some people who got there without being robbers and without being socialists. They actually worked the American system and raised themselves up from nothing to being multimillionaires because the American system allows for that.
I’m just reminiscing about Dr. Folsom’s class now. It was such a good time. He had this bell, like a little countertop service bell, and we would talk about the 1920s and he’s like, “You know, this is going great, this is going great, prosperity everywhere,” then we get to the 1930s and the whole New Deal, and he would give the bell to a student in the class and say, “When things get too awful and FDR crosses too many lines and you can’t take it anymore, ring this bell and we’ll take a break and I’ll tell you about a great entrepreneur.” It was beautiful.
My recommendation for tonight – I think I already recommended another book by Dr. Folsom, Uncle Sam Can’t Count, which is a collection of stories about entrepreneurs in America who succeeded by overcoming the obstacles of crony capitalism, and of their opponents who were getting subsidies and who were leveraging their political influence. I’ve already recommended that, so I won’t recommend it again.
Instead I will recommend cooking with gas. Gas stoves are so great and I really look forward to when we are moved. We’re moving and we’re having a gas stove in our new place and I’m excited about it.
Yes. We’re currently in an apartment and we’re moving into the home that we purchased.
Thank you. I was very confused. I thought you were currently in the place you had purchased and I was like, “You’re moving again? You bought another place?”
Okay. I will recommend the audio book that I’m currently listening to. As far as I know it also should be a print book as well. It’s called Lost Boy by Christina Henry. I still have a third of the book left, so I can’t quite say anything about the conclusion or denouement or anything like that, but essentially it takes the premise of Peter Pan and the lost boys and asks the question, “Why exactly is Peter the hero? Think about what he does.”
There was some kind of post on the internet that I saw awhile ago that said, “If you think about Peter Pan for like two seconds, you’ll realize he is a fairy who kidnaps children. He should be terrifying.” This book is definitely bringing that out.
I will say it is very violent. If that is something you’re sensitive to, maybe skip this book. There’s some graphic descriptions of horrible deaths. But it’s like what happens when you take people who are 11, 12, 13, sometimes as young as 7 to an island where pirates are, and where alligators live, and mermaids regularly try to drown people? People die and that’s not a good thing. Let it be known, the author of this book and I and probably all the people on this podcast agree that dying is bad.
Lost Boy by Christina Henry has been an excellent read. There are moments of psychological insight to the main character, and I figured out who he’s supposed to be and I will not tell you – first spoiler.
Recommendation: Lost BoyNo. It’s a fictional retelling. It’s set up like a prequel to the Peter Pan story that we know, and it’s just saying, “Look, we’ve seen the Disney movie. I don’t know if that’s the best way to analyze the details that we know,” so it is sort of an analysis in a very loose sense of the term, but it is a fictional story. It’s a good fictional story. It has a narrative that I’m really enjoying.
They actually really set up Peter as a cunning manipulating narcissist, all the buzzwords that you could imagine, and they do a very good job of making you not like him.
Which requires no effort on my part. You’re right, he steals children from the nursery and they never come home again.
With one exception of the nice story that we get told. Anyway, it’s a very good book. I am enjoying it. Like I said, it’s very violent so be aware of that, but it’s a good book.
Thank you, Greg and Emily, for joining me and for the good conversation about theft being theft, and what God thinks of it. Thank you to our listeners for joining us for this episode. We really appreciate you downloading the episode and listening to it with us.
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