Pleading the Fifth And so it continues, the conservative assault on the American dream. The Supreme Court has taken its sword from the sheath and hacked off the Fifth Amendment from the Bill of Rights. Down the slope we go. Most people tend to think of the Fifth Amendment in terms of mobster movies and Enron proceedings, something one pleads in court when one doesn't want to incriminate oneself. It does allow for that, yes. The rest of the language in there, however, speaks volumes about the worries of the Founding Fathers as they crafted the Constitution. They were cynical about the future of liberty for all Americans, and so they wrote this: No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a Grand Jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the Militia, when in actual service in time of War or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation. If you fizzled out about halfway through, that's okay - just go back and read the last eleven words, because that's the bleeding stump. They were not gurus or Tarot card dealers, these heroes of the Revolutionary War. They were people who had lived in and defeated oppression. It's in vogue now to bash them as "white, slave-trading property owners from Europe", but to do so is not merely a snotty thing to do. It is akin to flag-burning. To the Founding Fathers, the Fifth was an important public safeguard against government intrusion into our lives. As it happens, "pursuit of happiness" is an inalienable substitution in our national jargon; the rough draft actually called for protections of life, liberty and property. The case just decided by the Supreme Court gives local and state governments the right to seize land (with compensation) in favor of new development that is in no way "for public use". Through the tyranny of eminent domain laws, the city or state you live in can decide to move you out of the way so that hotels can be built, or stadiums, or malls. Those things generate a good healthy property tax, just like you did, but they also produce (as many pundits have already pointed out) sales taxes, not to mention corporate profits up the proverbial wazoo. As far as anyone's rights are concerned, their greed trumps your deed. Some of you have already been immersed in all the libertarian hubbub surrounding this decision. Old news, you say. Can't we all just move along? I am, admittedly, a step or two late in getting into this dance, but that's due to my hunter's sense. I like to wait and see what else comes out of the woods. The House of Representatives has passed a bill that cuts into spending on such inconsequential matters as "job training, rural health care, low-income schools and help for people lacking health insurance", as described by the Associated Press in a four-paragraph news trickle. On paper, it looks like a net increase of zero in labor, health and education spending (lumped together for convenience by our lazy Republican Congress), but in reality, 48 federal programs were shuttered, with a billion dollars being taken away from citizens who need it. Perhaps President Bush would plead the Fifth when asked today about the things he said on the campaign trail, or in his State of the Union speeches. Government actions (cutting job training, short-shrifting No Child Left Behind) certainly do not match his rhetoric. His silence on the Supreme Court decision, too, speaks loudly and clearly about his true notion of an "ownership society" in America. These are all very wealthy people, by the way - officials in the Bush administration, members of Congress, the Justices of the Supreme Court. What could they possibly have to gain from an America that cannot generate substantial income (or, therefore, tax revenues)? Maybe that last line in the Fifth Amendment would've dried up and fallen off on its own. Untrained, uneducated people don't much worry about buying property anyway. They're too busy trying to eat. Paul Heller 6/27/05 << back to the archives
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