A man's Home ain't his Castle

[Guest guest]

http://www.homelandstupidity.us/2006/09/27/property-rights-in-21st-century-ameri\

ca/

 

 

 

After the Supreme Court’s 2005 eminent domain

decision, saying that a government can take any

property it wants for any reason it wants, or no

reason at all, what is the future of property rights

in America?

 

This is the theme of a new book by Timothy Sandefur,

Cornerstone of Liberty: Property Rights in 21st

Century America, on which he spoke at the Cato

Institute last week. (Listen to MP3)

http://www.catomedia.org/archive-2006/cbfa-09-19-06.mp3

 

Your usual Cato Institute event is pretty dry, and

only of interest to serious policy wonks, but this one

veered completely off the “dry, boring” track fairly

quickly.

 

First off, Sandefur’s talk was easily accessible and

much less dry than one would expect. He laid out

pretty quickly where things stand with respect to

eminent domain abuse today, and where things are

likely to go in the future. It’s worth listening to

just for that.

 

Surprisingly, the Cato Institute actually managed to

find someone to come in and defend eminent domain, and

the book forum is worth listening to or watching

simply to hear Georgetown University professor John

Echeverria, who has written quite a bit in defense of

eminent domain and regulatory takings, try to defend

the government stealing people’s property from under

them and destroy the property’s value through

environmental regulations.

 

At one point during the question and answer session,

the debate became quite heated, and I was under the

impression that people were actually going to begin

fighting. With their fists, chairs or whatever else

was at hand. You just don’t normally see things get

quite that heated in Washington.

 

At another point, an audience member said that he

participated in civil disobedience against the city of

Kansas City, Mo., for trying to tell him what he could

do with his land, and proposed an interesting way of

possibly stopping an eminent domain action in its

tracks. You’ll have to listen to see what he said.

 

You’ll also have to listen for yourself, and buy the

book, to see what Sandefur says about why you

shouldn’t be fooled by states passing laws which

purport to restrict eminent domain, and what exactly

is the future of property rights in America.