Kelo and the Taggart Tunnel Disaster

I’ve not read Rand’s Atlas Shrugged in years but I recall the scene of the Taggart Tunnel Disaster (where the incompents allow a coal fired train to go into a tunnel, killing all the people aboard), where Rand highlights a few of the victims’ own participation in the general irrationalism of the times, I suppose to show that ideas have consequences.

Something similar occurs to me re the Kelo case. I don’t know who the Kelos are, but is it relevant? Does it matter? Let’s say we find out they are democrats. Or, regular Americans who believe in the typical things. Including, of course, the notion that the government needs the power of eminent domain. If this is the case, is it really a violation of their rights for the state to take their land? Or, at the very least, doesn’t their plight go way down on the list of things we have to gnash our teeth about?

Am I saying that only libertarians are true victims of state violence? Well, yeah, kinda.

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5:04 pm on June 29, 2005