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)

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.