Trump's Opinion on Kelo Decision All the Reason You Need to Dismiss Him as a Candidate

I've never considered Donald Trump to be a serious candidate for President in 2012. I certainly never considered voting for him. He strikes me as less a serious candidate and more of an attention seeker, using the media's restlessness in waiting for Republicans to announce (so they can start the dirt-finding) as a platform to put on a show. Listening to him lend his wholehearted support to the infamous Kelo decision lends credence to that characterization.

"But the fact is, if you have a person living in an area that’s not even necessarily a good area, and government, whether it’s local or whatever, government wants to build a tremendous economic development, where a lot of people are going to be put to work and make area that’s not good into a good area, and move the person that’s living there into a better place -- now, I know it might not be their choice -- but move the person to a better place and yet create thousands upon thousands of jobs and beautification and lots of other things, I think it happens to be good."

The Kelo decision has been roundly criticized from all corners of the legal world, and rightly so. It gives local governments nearly unfettered power to seize property for "community development" purposes, which is a thinly-disguised way of saying it gives local governments the power to redistribute private property to land developers -- like Donald Trump -- to increase the tax base. That this is done at the expense of personal property rights does nothing to discourage these governments, which have a very powerful incentive to enact exactly these sorts of land redistribution schemes.

If Donald Trump really does consider himself a real candidate in 2012, the quote above should be more than enough justification to cast your vote for someone else.

(Crossposted at Say Anything)