Oh I see, so in the case of Writs of Attainder, you take the most general empowerent of The Government (ie only Bills of attainder passed by Congress are prohibited, the executive can wield them to heart's desire), but in the general welfare clause, you seek to limit Governmental power to an absolute minium. IOW its ok to lock someone up on a capricious charge with no meaningful due process or habeas but its not ok to improve the lives of citizens.....

as for "terms of art" - Thomas doesn't claim to rely on "terms of art". He CLAIMS to rely on the pure meaning of the text. After all "terms of art" are inherently cotemporaneously nuanced. And "use" the textual definition is sufficiently broad as to include "using" the property by simply having it in the public inventory.

And note that the US Constitution does not set a minmum period that property must be held by a government before it can be sold off to "satisfy the debts" of the government.

Thus for a TEXTUALIST - which is what Thomas claims to be - there is nothing more than the text, an the text places no limits on the TYPE of use that The Government must place upon the property, nor the duration that The Government must hold the property.

I have no problems inherently with Thomas' analysis. As I've said before, I largely agree with it. THAT IS NOT THE ISSUE. The Issue is that Thomas claims to be a textualist, yet in Kelo he invokes contemporary meaning ("Most natural reading") as the reason for opposing Kelo. IOW he opposes Kelo on belief first, and then fashions an arguement to fit. In this case a "Living Constitutional" arguement.

Thus Thomas demonstrates that he is every bit as much an "activist" Warren, Burger or anyone else you decry as "activist"/