Reply #156: What you say is absolutely true, BUT

[GarySeven]

this is political brinksmanship for selfish and short-term interests. This ruling may indeed, as you say, thwart the conservative agenda on property rights but the proper and most effective means of thwarting that agenda is NOT through the courts, but through effective voter action.

This ruling, for whatever strategic constitutional aim it may have had, has the immediate effect of eroding the rights and political power of low and middle class property owners. The justices have indeed asserted their power over the conservative hegemony, but they have acted in the worse tradition of judicial activism. These justices have stepped in, in effect saying only they can save democracy; but in doing so they have shortcircuited the political process in almost exactly the way the conservatives would have wished.

The majority justices have upheld their own power, but in such a way that they have muted the far more powerful force of individual property owners.