A must see video on a U Chicago thinker...

As government continues its increasing role in everyday transactions, we have to consider what right the government has to seize property or value from people. This fellow has spent a life of scholarship dealing with these issues....

Few legal scholars have blown as many minds and had the tangible impact that Richard Epstein has managed. His 1985 volume, Takings: Private Property and the Power of Eminent Domain is a case in point. Epstein made the hugely controversial argument that regulations and other government actions such as environmental regulations that substantially limit the use of or decrease the value of property should be thought of as a form of eminent domain and thus strictly limited by the Constitution. The immediate result was a firestorm of outrage followed by an acknowledgment that the guy was onto something.

From here.