Correspondence
Correspondence Scalias of Justice Terry Eastland's "The 'Good Judge'" (Nov. 13) shows one side of Justice Antonin Scalia's career, but that is not the only side. At a recent dinner party where he...
...Dlsenfranchise Sloths Regarding Andrew Ferguson's "Convenience Voting" (Nov...
...By focusing solely on the property rights of developers and speculators, the authors neglected to consider the importance of protecting the property rights and safety of future homeowners and their families that may potentially live on that land...
...It is strange that Eastland should ignore Scalia's ignoring the original intent of the Declaration of Independence, our founding document, since he himself, with William J. Bennett, authored a book entitled Counting by Race: The Idea of Equality from the Founding Fathers to Bakke and Webber...
...Leonard Gilroy and Shikha Dalmia respond: There is nothing that damns John Beauman's case more than what he says himself...
...Who was responsible to ensure that the land in Laguna Beach was safe for development...
...The developer's plans for those parcels are currently being processed by the city of Brea...
...Edward Ver Hoef Boonsboro, Md...
...Reconstruction is expected to cost local taxpayers $20 million, but how does one compensate for the shattered dreams and lost lives...
...That's fluff," he said...
...At a recent dinner party where he was the guest of honor, Justice Scalia was asked a question about the Declaration of Independence...
...Houses built on steep slopes in Laguna Beach, Calif., met with disaster when those slopes failed—destroying homes and taking lives...
...Shouldn't the state require local authorities to prepare similar analyses detailing the impact of new regulations on property rights and land values...
...Would you like to have surgery performed on you by a doctor who learned his skills from someone who was trained in "teaching techniques," but had only a rudimentary knowledge of medicine...
...What the authors overlook is that Hayashi, who purchased the land for speculation, has yet to submit plans for development, and that he did achieve a portion of his American dream by selling one parcel for $500,000 and another for $1.3 million...
...The last time we checked, no constitution gives government officials like Councilman Beauman the right to establish the maximum return on property on a whim...
...When a city approves an environmental impact report (EIR) for development, issues building permits, and approves construction, isn't that assurance to potential homeowners that the site is safe and potentially worth investment of one's life savings...
...That's just politicians' talk," Scalia replied...
...Substituting "slavery" for "abortion," one has exactly the position taken by Senator Stephen A. Douglas in his debates with Abraham Lincoln...
...Those rights have their origin, not in the majority, but in God...
...Wayne Johnson Ham Lake, Minn...
...Now, Vickers informs us that many of the members of the National Council of Teachers of Mathematics have degrees in education, not math...
...Why is it necessary for authorities to resort to a blunt, blanket restriction that would wipe out over 90 percent of the development potential of Hayashi's land...
...That's why Prop 90—the ballot measure that 47.5 percent of California voters, just shy of a majority, voted for this November—would have required local authorities to compensate property owners for lost value from regulations not related to public health or safety...
...The callous disregard for the plight of Hayashi demonstrated by Beauman and the city of Brea illustrates that such a requirement would be a wise way of protecting property rights...
...But Brea wants to wipe out much of the accumulated value of Hayashi's saved land by down-zoning the units he could build on it from 400 to 15...
...In that book, Bennett and Eastland denounced "counting by race" and based their argument squarely on the proposition about the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution that was set forth in the Republican platform of 1860...
...TO state that Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia is not a politician, as Terry Eastland does, is to ignore Scalia's track record of advocating a particular political point of view, both on and off the bench...
...Leo Hayashi—whom Beauman derides as a speculator— bought 400 acres of land, sold a fourth of it, and saved the rest to develop in the future...
...Obviously, the developer and his engineers made the wrong call—with tragic consequences...
...Not even the Constitution guarantees a maximum return on investment for land speculation...
...Allen Groves Waynesboro, Va...
...If it wants abortion to be illegal, then it ought to be illegal...
...Gilroy and Dalmia also complain that the developer would be expected to pay the costs for necessary infrastructure...
...Do the authors expect the taxpayers to pay for this infrastructure without receiving any benefits for doing so...
...The city of Brea requires developers to present detailed plans demonstrating the stability of proposed construction before issuing a building permit...
...The authors portray Leo Hayashi as a victim of draconian regulations imposed by the California city of Brea—regulations that would nullify most of the long-accumulated value of Hayashi's 300-acre property purchased 30 years ago...
...Read any number of Scalia's opinions (for example, his reference to the "homosexual agenda" in his 2003 dissent in Lawrence v. Texas), and you will see a politician at work...
...It is a valuable lesson: Cities must practice due diligence in establishing hillside zoning ordinances that help determine both suitable locations and the number of homes that can be built safely...
...When disaster hits, the government is blamed for not anticipating it and, worse yet, allowing it to happen...
...Taking Issue Shikha Dalmia and Leonard Gilroy's "Taking 'Takings' to the Voters" (Oct...
...This is the United States, not the Soviet Union...
...Brea is misrepresented as being hostile to property rights by an emotional appeal depicting Hayashi as a poor immigrant arriving on these shores penniless in search of the American dream...
...While reasonable accommodations should be made, of course, there should indeed be a hurdle between the voting booth and those who are too lazy to make the effort to exercise their duties as American citizens...
...Harry V Jaffa Claremont, Calif...
...The alternative is "home buyers beware...
...And now the city's taxpayers, not the developer, are picking up the tab...
...Math Addicts Melana Zyla Vickers's "Down for the Count" (Nov...
...If the slope of Hayashi's property could not support all the units, surely the permitting process could handle that concern...
...California requires developers to prepare environmental impact analyses for proposed developments...
...Could it be that disaster planning is simply Brea's pretext to grab land to amass open space...
...in New Orleans, for example, the government is now expected to pour billions of dollars into shoring up levees to protect vulnerable developments...
...30) is an exception to the customary objectivity of The Weekly Standard...
...Whatever your political point of view may be, Scalia's vote in favor of George W. Bush in Bush v. Gore can only be seen as Scalia the activist, moving to cut off the state of Florida's own internal ballot counting process...
...I do not understand why we should care about the votes of those people too "inconvenienced" to go to their precinct and vote...
...Yet asking individual property owners to bear the cost of public goods is unfair...
...It is no wonder that so many people in this country say that they despise and have never understood mathematics...
...They belonged to the black human beings in the antebellum and post-Reconstruction South, no less than to the white majorities that denied them those rights...
...Beauman's claim that the down-zoning was necessary to minimize property losses during disasters is a red herring...
...In his famous Rome interview, Justice Scalia declared that the "whole theory of democracy" is that the majority rules...
...If Beauman doubts that proposition, he should consider this: Would he consent to the government confiscating his IRA to purchase parks for his neighbors simply because he had previously sold some of his portfolio for a profit...
...20): I am a quadriplegic, and I still manage to vote every two years...
...My undergraduate and graduate degrees are in mathematics, and I have long deplored the way math is taught in elementary school...
...According to Scalia, if a majority wants abortion to be legal, then it ought to be legal...
...When developers are allowed to build homes in a flood plain, the authorities are held accountable for not protecting those homes...
...Beauman justifies this by claiming that "not even the Constitution guarantees a maximum return on investment...
...According to Lincoln, the minority is entitled to the rights with which we have all been equally and individually "endowed by our Creator...
...It would be totally irresponsible for government to ignore such risks...
...As an elected representative of all the people of Brea, I recognize that not only must we safeguard individual property rights, but we must also protect the "general welfare" of the community...
...6) is the clearest explanation that I have seen of our nation's woeful math scores...
...John Beauman Councilman Brea, Calif...
...I then observed that the Republican platform upon which Abraham Lincoln was elected president asserted that the principles of the Declaration of Independence were "embodied in the Constitution...
...According to Scalia, the minority has only those rights that are granted to it by the majority...
Vol. 12 • December 2006 • No. 13
