Gatewaypundit notes Bahrainis Protest for Political Reform. This is just one more domino if you will in the struggle agaisnt the last redoubt against modernity. Like a broken record, I have written repeatedly on the great change that is sometimes slowly and sometimes rapidly taking place in the middle east. An entire region is undergoing cataclysmic shifts in power and perception. It isn't pretty, smooth, or even predictable, but then again, when has such ever been.

Throughout the Arab world terrorism is finding less and less appeal. The great Satan is suddenly not so evil incarnate any more. Opinion polls show US viewed more favorably than just a few years prior. And this is by younger Arabs, not their parents. So much for "squandering international good will".

Throughout the Arab and Muslim world, the moderate voices are beginning to be heard.

Our greatest allies in rounding up terrorists are other Islamic nations, other Islamc nations, and other Islamic nations.

Imagine for a moment that on January 21st, 2001 newly sworn in President Bush had predicted anything close to this. We'd have all thought he was completely crazy. Surely that part of the world is immune to the love of liberty, the desire for freedom, the yearning for prosperity. But less than half a decade later, the terrorist threat which metasticized in the 1990's would be real, but on the run. Their leaders are killed or in hiding, their supporters are overthrown or suddenly seeing the light, and their popularity is receding.

Imagine for a moment a national debate about how to fight the war, not whether we're even in a war at all. Imagine for a moment the terrorists knew they were facing a united effort, that they couldn't just "wait us out", win the war in the press.

Instead, we hear now that the old relic herself, not content to destroy the US in one war, has resurfaced. No, there are no anti-aircraft guns to sit atop, no POW's to betray. Surely she knows what her fate would be shold her "heroes" make her acquaintnace.

Yet from the beginning, we've been beseiged by the immature left's "no blood for oil", deranged former vice-presidents, screaming presidential candidates, an archaic senator whose name has given him far more than he's deserved, filmmakers who can't resist cheap political attacks, and a whole host of other incessant yet draining attacks that have diminished our efforts.

While the middle east realigns itself, begins to find its way, and slowly, unsteadily, and none too easily, emerges from its death throes, we find ourselves overcome with self-doubt and self-loathing. Some can't decide the greater evil, the man who started all of this or those who seek to stop it.

I read that things are slowly erdoing in Iraq. Some even confirm that the civil war has already begun. For all the progress, much is still uncertain, much is still too dangerous.

Some find it all too easy to blame the president. Not enough troops. Well, where'd yo think they were going to come from? No post-war plan. Well, where has this ever been tried before? No, the real problem has been that all along, the enemy knew us, knew us too well. He knew all about us.

He saw us in Vietnam. We won every battle, even won the war, yet unwilling to acknowledge victory. He saw us in Iran. Humbled, embarrassed, ridiculed, impotent, inept. He saw us in Beirut. Forceful yet reticent, all to quick to pull out. He saw us in Somalia. Brave and fearsome warriors, but not enough. And more fearful of our own blood. He saw us in Bosnia. So fearful of putting even one soldier on the ground. We were a giant with a glass jaw. Mighty, but one blow would knock us out. He saw us in Yemen. After an act of war, we sent police.

Who was this so-called superpower? It was so easily brought down, not from without, but from within. Just wait them out, use their own against them.

We are on the cusp of great sweeping change in the world and we are snatching defeat from the jaws of victory.

or governed by laws? Andrew McCarthy has the finest analysis of Roe I've read.

The core problem for the GOP and RNC lies in continuing to discuss Roe strictly in terms of abortion rights. Rigorously confining Roe as an abortion case, understandably, is the tactic of the Left, which favors judicial determinations over democratic rule. Nationally, the notion that abortion should be available within limits is more popular than the concept that we should be ruled by judges rather than ourselves. It thus makes perfect sense for the Left to try to own Roe and to demand that it be argued exclusively in terms of abortion. But conservatives, Republicans and classic liberals have no obligation to play into this strategy — as they invariably seem to do.

Roe is a transcendent decision. Far more than abortion, it is about defining the judicial task itself. Why should we be offended by a “litmus test” about such a thing? President Bush promised to appoint judges who would interpret the law as it was enacted and would not see their role as inventing (and, more importantly, imposing) new law — a job that belongs to the political branches who are directly accountable to voters. By that standard, Roe is a litmus test. Or at least it should be.

If you think Roe is good law, if you think it was well reasoned, if you think it reached the correct result, then you are basically saying that you think it is proper for a handful of lawyers, bereft of compelling precedent, and without competence in dynamic and relevant disciplines like medical technology (while unable institutionally to become competent by holding hearings like Congress does), to impose their policy preferences on the American people, and thus insulate those policy preferences from the democratic process.

To all the terrorists and their supporters, here's what America looks like, courtesy of Michael Yon.

Meet our newest citizens, just sworn in on their base in Mosul, Iraq. They know what they're fighting and they know what's worth fighting for.

We are the only nation in the world whose immigration "problem" is that we just can't stop them from coming here. People will do whatever it takes. To me, it means we're doing something right. Anyone is free to leave yet nobody does. The only ones who threaten to are rich northeastern liberals whose loss wouldn't be noticed anyways.

People willing to fight and die to get here, willing to fight and die to be Americans. That was Americans have always looked like.

David Ignatius writes that Iraq can survive this:

Pessimists increasingly argue that Iraq may be going the way of Lebanon in the 1970s. I hope that isn't so, and that Iraq avoids civil war. But people should realize that even Lebanonization wouldn't be the end of the story. The Lebanese turned to sectarian militias when their army and police couldn't provide security. But through more than 15 years of civil war, Lebanon continued to have a president, a prime minister, a parliament and an army. The country was on ice, in effect, while the sectarian battles raged. The national identity survived, and it came roaring back this spring in the Cedar Revolution that drove out Syrian troops.

What happens in Iraq will depend on Iraqi decisions. One of those is whether the Iraqi people continue to want U.S. help in rebuilding their country. For now, America's job is to keep training an Iraqi army and keep supporting an Iraqi government -- even when those institutions sometimes seem to be illusions. Iraq is in torment, but the Lebanon example suggests that with patient help, its institutions can survive this nightmare.

Too bad there wasn't an internet in 1785, people might have been wondering if America would survive. The nascent democracy was faced with states revolting and failing to support the federal government, nor under any authority to do so. Indians were ravaging the border states and nothing could be done to stop it. Domestic insurrection was spreading throughout out the states, such as Daniel Shay's in Massachussettes. Trade was next to impossible as every state ahd their own currency, tariffs, and trade policies. States were negotiating individually with foreign governments. States relied on their own locally raised militias for an semblance of control. Inflation ran rampant.

But hey, we turned out alright, or so the pre-politically correct textbooks presume.

As I wrote last post, Professor Hanson noted so astutely that history isn't a parlor game, to be played in critical fashion. It is however important to note that even we had a very turbulent period following our liberation. We weren't coming out of thirty years of tyrannical rule, brutal repression, and societal decay beset by a rampant ideology of hate.

For some reason, those critical of the president and the war effort have constructed a straw man of quick easy victory followed by painless transition to democracy. The president never said anything close to this, and quite to the contrary, he stresed the long and difficult struggle that we are in.

But to some, history is just a cheap parlor game, isn't it?

Everything is my fault
I'll take all the blame

Kurt Cobain, Nirvana, All Apologies

Mansour El-Kikhia writre that Arabs shouldn't have to apologize

I am fed up with the ceaseless requests by columnists, religious personalities and other American public figures for Arabs and Muslims to apologize for terrorist acts committed by thugs and murderers in the name of Islam.

He's got a point. Everyone these days seems to need, want, or demand an apology for anything and everything. Most notable is the groveling act the US Senate recently did apologizing for failure to pass anti-lynching legislation. As if that's going to do anything. As if any apology is going to do anything.

Of course, he does go off the deep end:

It is rejection of U.S. and British policies in the Middle East, not Islam, that has promoted terrorism against America. And for the benefits of those who do not know, 95 percent of Middle Easterners are Muslims. Hence, it is only natural that those opposing the United States and Britain in the region would be Muslims. In India, they would have been Hindu; in Latin America or Northern Ireland, they would have been Catholic.

More important, it was the British and the United States that drew first blood. The Middle East didn't come to America or go to Britain; rather, America and Britain went to the Middle East. Both powers used and abused regimes, toppling some and keeping others in power. They never thought that the people they were helping suppress were human beings with needs, beliefs and emotions. They didn't care as long as their interests were served.

Which leads to this outstanding piece (again) by Professor Hanson, where he chides those who misuse
The past as today's politics:

But history is not a parlor game used to prove a political point. Instead, at its best, history should offer us solace that we are never really alone.

Let's take a long (or not so long) look at Mr. El-Kikhia's premise:
Did the war in Iraq happen before these?

Here's a brief list:
-the Iranian embassy
-the Beirut bombings
-the Achille Laurel
-the German nightclub bombings
-Pan Am 103
-Desert Storm
-WTC bombings in 1993
-Embassy bombings in Africa
-Khobar towers
-Luxor Massacre
-USS Cole
-Bali
-Clinton bombed Iraq in 1998
-9/11

and hundreds of others that were committed against innocent people all around the world. This doesn't even mention the internal terrorism of the Ba'athist party in Iraq and Syria, the Taliban in Afghanistan, or the mullahs in Iran. For all the venom against the west, nobody has been more injurious to Muslims and Arabs than other Muslims and Arabs.

Who killed several hundred thousand Muslims and filled mass graves in Iraq? Who has repressed half the Muslim population (women), who has refused to allow honest elections in Iran, who stole billions of international aid and siphoned it off to Swiss banks whil Palestinians suffered? Why is it that excluding oil, the entirety of the Arab world's exports are measured in the ten's of billions? Sure, one can blame the west, and especialyl America, but before that simply turn the mirror inwards. The greatest threat to a and Arab Muslim in the middle east comes not from the infidel, but from their own governments. Casting blame for grievances decades old only excuses the terrorist, who hasn't a solution for the problems, nor the desire for one.

If Bush's rationale for war has changed, surely bin Laden's and the jihadists are far more maleable. Is it US support of Israel, the UN sanctions on Iraq, US troops in the Islamic holy lands, Enduring Freedom, support of the Shah, the reconquista, or the crusades? Or is it simply:

3. Women drivers
4. Allowing homosexuals to live
6. R-rated movies / freedom
7. Pork
8. An unwillingness on the part of the majority of Westerners to submit to the will of Allah and Sharia law…
9. Harry Potter

Being nuanced is considered the height of intellectualism for the left. That truism hasn't escaped the Islamicists either.

Tom Friedman writes today, of the current thug leaders in the middle east that they are beginning to all fall down.

In short, Iraq is not the only country in this neighborhood struggling to write a new social contract and develop new parties. The same thing is going on in Lebanon, Israel, Egypt, Syria, Jordan and Gaza. If you like comparative politics, you may want to pull up a chair and pop some popcorn, because this sort of political sound and light show comes along only every 30 or 40 years.

He's entirely correct. This is a unique historical opportunity and it isn't going to come around again for quite some time. Professor Hanson describes the armchair historian/pundit/critic perfectly:

So the next time someone quotes philosopher George Santayana for the umpteenth time that "Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it," just assume that what follows will probably be wrong. Having a Rolodex of cocktail party quotes to beef up an argument is not the same as the hard work of learning about the past.

There isn't a precedent for the current battle being waged. For all the malevolence of the communists, that they possessed, yet failed to use, their nuclear arsenal stands in stark contrast to the enemy we face today. Is there any doubt that once in possession, for this enemy, the next step will not be rattling of sabres but detonation?

We needn't apologize for our previous policies, nor should we apologize for our current efforts to help transform the middle east. Before we contemplate one, we must first examine the past, and not as a matter of finding our already pre-concieved conclusion.

Perhaps we should apologize for not acting soon enough. Perhaps some should apologize for not knowing, or not caring to know, history.

How will we know if we've won the war on terror? Simple. When Intel opens up facilities somewhere else in the middle east.

They've been operating in Israel for thirty years and just signed a deal to build a new four billion dollar plant.

Perhaps that is the real reason why they hate Israel so much. Jealously.

Haven't done one of these in a while.

Instapundit looks back to a quote from Mickey Kaus dated April 2004:

Keep this between us, but would a violent-but-short Shiite vs. Sunni civil war (in which the U.S. was not involved) be the worst thing that could happen? Just askin'! It might be the essential predicate to a rough ethnic and religious balance of power. Or it might produce a stable, de facto partition.

Professor Reynold opines:

Well, it might not be the worst thing that could happen (from our perspective), but it would be very bad. However, from the Sunnis' perspective, it would be the worst thing that could happen, since they are growing increasingly unpopular as sponsors of / collaborators with terror attacks through Iraq -- and nobody liked them that much anyway. They're also growing militarily and economically weaker.

He links to a post from Westhawk:

A full-blown sectarian civil war in Iraq would be bad for all, but it would be positively lethal for the Sunni position in Iraq. At the limit, they would be ethnically cleansed from the country.

Hmmm...all this sounds so familiar, like I've read it somewhere earlier. In January:

3) The Sunni see the writing on the wall.
No matter what happens, there will be elections, Iraqis will go to the polls, they will draft a new constitution, they will form a government, and they will ascertain a level of sovreignty over their own country. As they say, it's all over but the crying. The writing is on the wall, and the Sunni can read it quite well. They either play or pay. After thirty years of minority oppressive rule, and the Kurd and Shia are offering an olive branch, and most Sunni, I believe, are smart enough to take the best deal they're going to get. This leads to the final point.

4) All other options are bad.
Actually, they from bad to worse. If the Sunni don't participate, they are ending any chance they had at representation in the new government. And they'll have nobody else to blame but themselves. Who's going to come and help them out? Syrian or Iranian involvement would be seen as a violation of territorial sovreignty, aimed at overturning a legitimately elected government. And surely the US would have something to say about that as well.

Should they provoke a civil war, a remote possibility, the odds are decidely against them. They know they can't win. The Kurds are armed, the peshmerga a fierce fighting force. The Shia will certainly field a force more than willing to exact revenge. That Sunni would start a war they cannot hope to win, and worse, one they know will crush them, is highly unlikely. The few jihadis who harbor their own jihadist gotterdammerung are going to find few happy warriors among the mostly educated populous. They know that all options go from bad to worse. And go that way in a hurry.

It's time for another V-Q award. Lest anyone think this a partisan site, the award is purely based on merit (ah, conservative principle) and not only to be conferred on one particular side. Though the award has been predominantly earned by those on the left, this time it is for someone on the right.

Congressman Tom Tancredo, when asked about possible US responses to a nuclear attack recently said:

"Well, what if you said something like — if this happens in the United States, and we determine that it is the result of extremist, fundamentalist Muslims, you know, you could take out their holy sites," Tancredo answered.

"You're talking about bombing Mecca," Campbell said.

"Yeah," Tancredo responded.

In football, we call this bulletin board material, quotes from the other team that you post in the locker room and use for moitiavation. But here, we'll call it was it is: aid to the enemy.

Huhg Hewitt does a thorough fisking of his comments and is well worth the read. But suffic to say, Tancredo's words were as detrimental to our efforts as anyone's, including Durbin's.

Millions of Iraqis went to the polls despite threats of violence and reprisals afterwards. Eighty percent of the Iraqi population (the Shias) has shown tremendous resolve and restraint in not starting a sectarian civil war which will lead to great chaos in Iraq and beyond. Thousand of Iraqis are joining the police and military and are not deterred by being targeted by terrorrists. They are out patrolling their streets, capturing and killing their enemies, and making their country safer.

In Afghanistan, the country is moving forward despite decades of civil war, terrorism, invasions, and brutal regimes.

In Lebanon, a peaceful revolution threw out the Syrians and demands for democratic reform are growing.

In Egypt, Kuwait, even Saudi Arabia, elections are occuring, debate is becoming more public, and even women are having their voices heard.

In Iran the call for reform and change is a constant reminder that the yearning for human liberty transcends nation, race, culture.

All this progress, and much more as well is occurring throughout the Arab and Muslim world, and it is not an accident. President Bush recognized, when so many will not or can not, that the greatest battle is really the that of ideas. Are freedom and democracy the best, most effective way to provide peace, security, and prosperity throughout the middle east and beyond? Or is the expansion of clerical barbarism and a return to the seventh century caliphate more appealing?

Part of the struggle, probably the hardest part, is not the shooting but the aftermath. We have to prove, somewhat unfairly I might add, that we have the best of intentions. We aren't in a "war for oil" or "war agaisnt Islam", but in a just struggle for the hearts and minds of millions across a ten thousand mile wide expanse. It isn't going to be easy.

Irresponsible journalists reporting falsified stories about Korans or US senators comparing our soldiers to Nazis give aid and comfort to the enemy. Calling for the possible destruction of religious holy sites equally does exactly the same.

For aiding the enemy in a time of war by making our mission to win the hearts and minds of the Muslim world more difficult, by recklessly and dangerously impugning our motives and moral clarity, and by proposing that we act no better than the evil we face, the city of Mandelinople hereby confers the sixth Vichy-Quisling award to Congressman Tom Tancredo.

Hanoi jane is at it again.

Actress and activist Jane Fonda says she intends to take a cross-country bus tour to call for an end to U.S. military operations in Iraq.

"I can't go into any detail except to say that it's going to be pretty exciting," she said.

Why now, two and a half years into the war? Perhaps her new book isn't selling so well?

Last time she protested, she went to North Vietnam. I don't expect her to head over to Baghdad too soon, as unlike the North Vietnamese, the enemy won't be too friendly to her. (What a pleasing thought though.) So, she'll head around in the safety and security of the US, protected by the very people she's protesting.

What an absolutely useless and disgusting person. Why people pay attention to her anymore (or ever did) I'll never understand.

Hat Tip Quietist

Pedro links to a great thrashing of the whole Live8 specatcle by a Cameroonian legal consultant and journalist. (By the way, Cameroon is in Africa.)

We have nothing against those who this month, in a stadium, a street, a park, in Berlin, London, Moscow, Philadelphia, gathered crowds and played guitar and talked about global poverty and aid for Africa. But we are troubled to think that they are so misguided about what Africa's real problem is, and dismayed by their willingness to propose solutions on our behalf.

We Africans know what the problem is, and no one else should speak in our name. Africa has men of letters and science, great thinkers and stifled geniuses who at the risk of torture rise up to declare the truth and demand liberty.

Don't insult Africa, this continent so rich yet so badly led. Instead, insult its leaders, who have ruined everything. Our anger is all the greater because despite all the presidents for life, despite all the evidence of genocide, we didn't hear anyone at Live 8 raise a cry for democracy in Africa.

Don't the organizers of the concerts realize that Africa lives under the oppression of rulers like Yoweri Museveni (who just eliminated term limits in Uganda so he can be president indefinitely) and Omar Bongo (who has become immensely rich in his three decades of running Gabon)? Don't they know what is happening in Cameroon, Chad, Togo and the Central African Republic? Don't they understand that fighting poverty is fruitless if dictatorships remain in place?

Even more puzzling is why Youssou N'Dour and other Africans participated in this charade. Like us, they can't help but know that Africa's real problem is the lack of freedom of expression, the usurpation of power, the brutal oppression.

Neither debt relief nor huge amounts of food aid nor an invasion of experts will change anything. Those will merely prop up the continent's dictators. It's up to each nation to liberate itself and to help itself. When there is a problem in the United States, in Britain, in France, the citizens vote to change their leaders. And those times when it wasn't possible to freely vote to change those leaders, the people revolted.

In Africa, our leaders have led us into misery, and we need to rid ourselves of these cancers. We would have preferred for the musicians in Philadelphia and London to have marched and sung for political revolution. Instead, they mourned a corpse while forgetting to denounce the murderer.

What is at issue is an Africa where dictators kill, steal and usurp power yet are treated like heroes at meetings of the African Union. What is at issue is rulers like François Bozizé, the coup leader running the Central Africa Republic, and Faure Gnassingbé, who just succeeded his father as president of Togo, free to trample universal suffrage and muzzle their people with no danger that they'll lose their seats at the United Nations. Who here wants a concert against poverty when an African is born, lives and dies without ever being able to vote freely?

But the truth is that it was not for us, for Africa, that the musicians at Live 8 were singing; it was to amuse the crowds and to clear their own consciences, and whether they realized it or not, to reinforce dictatorships. They still believe us to be like children that they must save, as if we don't realize ourselves what the source of our problems is.

I wrote in December.

Liberalism, the modern version anyways is about selfishness and nihilism. If you want to do it, if it feels good, then do it. If anyone questions you, then they are a racist, bigot, homophobe, hate-mongering Christian.

Everything the left does to advance a cause requires a celebration, a telethon, a mass marketing effort. That is why actors and actresses make a big show of going to TIbet, to Africa, to Mars if needed, to show how caring they are. Care about the 9/11 victims? Then simply hold a telethon, raise billions, and then never ask to see where the money went.

Starving people in Ethiopia? Hold a three continent Live-Aid concert. Where'd the money go? Did anyone get fed? Who cares? "We care!!" How many times did Mother Theresa call a press conference?

For liberals, benevolence is a self-serving, self-affirming assuagement of guilt. They help because it makes them feel good, it makes them feel worthy, it makes them important.

No greater cause celeb exists then the environment. Of course, liberalism is about moral relativism, thus a tree and a person are equal. Decry the lack of affordable housing in Los Angeles, but Rob Reiner and his cohorts hold a big press shidig to announce how they stopped Ahmonson Ranch construction. Decry the overcrowded schools, but challenege every new school construction site in my school district with enivronmental lawsuits which add millions of dollars in extra costs and delays new schools be several years.

Live8 wasn't for Africa you silly mortals, it was for the leftist demi-gods. Just as the the Aztecs sacrificed humans to Huitzilopotchli to renew his strength and assure his arrival the next morning, so too must the leftist deities be blood borne. (Like a pathogen if you ask me.) Without suffering and without their egregious displays of concern, they are powerless, or at least feel as such. In their minds, words replace deeds, thoughts and feelings replace facts. It's their world, they created it, and by __________________ (insert unnamed, non-denominational, non-judicial, deity-like being), they're going to live it, irrespective of that pesky thing called reality.

When you wonder why the left is so opposed to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and the promotion of democracy around the world, it's because freedom and opportunity embolden the individual and destroy the need for the leftist demigod. Nobody needs to be "governed" by the elite when one can take care of themselves. The "just state" has no guardians.

My wife is very apolitical. We don't often discuss politics because a) she doesn't care and b) she really doesn't care. But on that rare occasion that we're driving somewhere, I happen to have the local newspaper, and there's something that hits close to home, then I talk.

At what cost a newer Newhall?

The local city council has decided to "upscale" the downtown area of Newhall.

The city's much touted Downtown Newhall Specific Plan is intended to set design and zoning standards that planners believe could convert these 50 blocks over the next two decades into a trendy entertainment and residential destination -- a mixed-use pedestrian urban village.

"We want to create a destination," said Jason Smisko, a city planner. "We want an urban village. ... We want to create civic gathering places."

Newhall, for those who don't know, is a very old and once very rural part of Southern California, 20 miles or so north of Los Angeles. Cowboy film star William S. Hart took up residence here many years ago and helped solidfy the towns "western" image. Downtown Newhall is very old, some would call it rustic, but it is simply an older lower rent business area. Nothing fancy, yet certainly nothing blighted.

(For you un-PC types, the two local high schools with the longest and fiercest rivalry are nicknamed, get this, the Cowboys and the Indians respectively. Oh the Friday night football games!!!)

Newhall is part of the Santa Clarita valley, once populated with more onion fields than people. But that was a long time ago. Now, it's populated with yuppies, dinks, and upper middle class families. Once it was the sticks, where families could afford to buy a home, albeit with a substantial commute to work. Good schools, hot summers but clear skies, safe neighborhoods, and no urban congestion attracted swaths of middle class families out of the city. And grow the city did.

Now, home prices average over half a million, our streets are clogged, and the rural cowboy image is passe'. We even have a Hummer dealership in town. We didn't have the five guys from Bravo, but in the last decade the town has undergone a tremendous makeover. So it is no wonder then that the city wants to further upscale the area. What is most ironic for my apolitical wife is that she grew up a mile from where the city wants to redevelop confiscate.

I have tried to explain to her why presidential elections matter. She figures that they have so little impact on her daily life, why bother with all the fuss. Simple. Here's the perfect example.

I explained to her the story of New London, Connecticut, and the Kelo decision. I explained that the president appoints supreme court justices, and they get to rule (such a magnificent word it is, rule, for that is what they do) on cases like Kelo. And with a decision as horid as this, it impacts our lives almost immediately.

While city officials have said they will not force out residents and property owners by declaring eminent domain, fears of city-led land grabs prevail. And a U.S. Supreme Court ruling last month granted municipalities the right to condemn property for private development to generate tax revenue.

Still, Smisko maintains Santa Clarita won't abuse this right -- in particular with people's homes -- because the city cannot go after the area without a lengthy process to amend its eminent domain policy, he said.
...
But some businesses tapped for big changes objected. While a parking garage -- a key component of the plan -- confronts Jasik, clothing boutique owner Adriana Gammert is aghast her property on San Fernando Road between 8th and 9th streets is within the proposed site of a 35,000-square-foot merchant hall planners are calling the "Mercado."

"My building is a tree in that drawing," she told the commission Tuesday. "The designation of our block as a ... mercantile building is unacceptable to us. The designation is an invitation for eminent domain."

And in case anyone didn't catch the more subtle message of Kelo, and the kinds of people who think it "almost as if God has spoken", here's the upshot:

The redevelopment zone also includes East Newhall -- a predominantly working-class Latino residential neighborhood. Despite promises of "no eminent domain" by the city staff, homeowners fear the specific plan's new building codes would mandate expensive renovations few could afford, hence forcing them to relocate.

Quick question. What is wealthy, white, and wants nothing to do with "those people", save for use as cheap political props? a) a MoveOn.org rally b) the democratic party leadership c) hollywood activists d) all the above.

I've no doubt that "a pedestrian-friendly district attractive to private developers and national retailers" would generate far more tax revenue and certainly be far more eye-appealing. None of that matters however.

Property rights are deeply enshrined in our psyche, our history, and the constitution. It was the measure of citizenship in Greece and it was the privilege of nobility in the middle ages. What makes America so special and historically unique is that anyone can own property. It's also what was most vile about the communists.

(Ever wonder where the term "real estate" comes from? Real? Think of the "El Camino Real" in California. The royal highway. Yes folks, real means "royal". Estate? Think statue or status, same root word. What does a statue do? Stands there. Your status means your standing. Thus real estate means, drum roll please, royal standing. When you own land, You have royal standing. You are a special member of the society, and don't think for a moment that was lost on our founders.)

The greatest act one could do, the grandest expression of freedom and someone's place in society was owning land. No king, potentate, or legislature could revoke one's claim to the land. John Locke's three natural rights were "life, liberty, and property". Land ownership, private property, private enterprise, the entire free market system, and in fact our whole idea of a free society are at stake with decisions like Kelo.

So, for people like my wife, presidential elections really do matter. It's why the left is so feaful and motivated to stop people like Judge Roberts from ever seeing the supreme court. What kind of justice would Kerry have selected? I shudder at the thought. Roberts will most certainly, as his "predecessor" O'Connor did, see the pernicious nature of Kelo and will certainly vote to strike it down. Sadly, we still need one more vote.