The proposed design of the 9/11 memorial near Shanksville, PAWould the 40 passengers and crew of Flight 93 agree with the government's using eminent domain to seize private land in order to erect a huge memorial to their memory? Somehow, I doubt it....
By DAN NEPHIN, Associated Press Writer Dan Nephin -
PITTSBURGH – One man inherited property that his grandfather bought during the Depression. A Lutheran pastor owns a cottage where he planned to retire with his wife. Two others own businesses.
But they and other property owners in rural southwestern Pennsylvania knew things would change in the aftermath of United Flight 93's crash on Sept. 11, 2001, which killed 40 passengers and crew and four terrorist hijackers. Plans were soon in the works for a memorial to honor the victims. Property owners say they realized that and were willing to cooperate and help make it happen.
But now that the government intends to take their land by eminent domain so the Flight 93 memorial can be built by the 10th anniversary of the terrorist attacks, property owners say they're disappointed and surprised by the plan.
The seven property owners own about 500 acres still needed for what will ultimately be a $58 million, 2,200-acre permanent memorial and national park at the crash site near Shanksville, about 60 miles southeast of Pittsburgh.
What in the world do they need 2200 acres for? Just for comparison purposes, the World War II memorial in DC occupies 7.5 acres and commemorates 300,000 Americans who died. Frickin' Disney Land, for heaven's sake, occupies only 85 acres. Do we really need a memorial that is almost 23 times the size of Disney Land? This memorial isn't so much about somberly remembering the heroic deaths of our fellow Americans as it is about government taking what ever it wants for it's own glory.
But the size of the memorial footprint doesn't really matter other than for me to comment on the preposterousness of it. The real issue here is the government seizing privately held land without first substantively negotiating in good faith with the owners, meanwhile painting the land owners as greedy and insensitive. Does anyone else find it disappointingly ironic that we were attacked on 9/11 partially because of the freedoms we embrace in America yet, the memorial to that attack is predicated upon trampling those freedoms?
Trample the Constitutionally guaranteed freedoms of American citizens? Yes We Can!
5 comments:
I too wondered about the amount of property they want for the memorial - and completely disagree with the way they're doing it. Personally, I liked the informal memorial anyway. For starters, it wasn't a big red crescent.
I researched what the final design for the memorial was to be, and there are still rumors that it'll be the crescent with the sun-dial indicating the prayer times, etc. But this rendering is the most recent published design that I could find. If it turns into a mosque or some other shrine to Islam in the name of appeasance, people will really be pissed.
Now come on, Ed. You're not REALLY surprised by usurpation of yet MORE of our Constitutionally guaranteed rights, are you?
This is just another in a long line of them, starting with the most damaging ones back in 1913 when they amended the Constitution itself to actually make the trampling of rights Constitutional - the 16th amendment - and passage of the Federal Reserve Act.
It's all been downhill since then.
Just look at what's going on today, and you will see it is going to get far worse before it ever gets better, if we haven't already passed the point of no return. I mean, if King Barry can violate the contracts clause and undermine the rule of law as established by Congress regarding bankruptcies (as dictated in the Constitution), what's to stop him with regard to anything else? With an all-powerful and utterly corrupt government embodied in 3 infested branches - legislative, executive, and judicial - where is there ANY hope for that proverbial fourth branch, the one from whom the other three derive their power to begin with, WE THE PEOPLE OF THE UNITED STATES?
There is a reason they are dead set against state and individual rights, and if they had half the chance, I think they would be more than happy to use a chainsaw to remove Article IV and Amendment 10. They are just not conducive to the totalitarian government they desire to impose upon us.... with the happy blessings of 53% of the population....
Great take Angie! The tyranny of this administration, this Congress, and soon this Judiciary will be mind-bogglingly scary when all is said and done. It shows just how tenuous and fragile the rule of law really is, as outlined in the Constitution. When a slim 53% majority can effectively hand the CiC a free hand to do whatever it pleases, regardless of Constitutionality, then are we really in the America the framers created? I'm starting to wonder if that America is retreivable.
I can tell you the answer to wondering about restoring our former glorious union: "No."
http://alleesbitchbox.blogspot.com/2009/03/my-thoughts.html
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