Then something happened, and it was worse than nothing. The Justice Department rewrote the bill and increased the government's power. Hyde, whose name was on a book describing the problem, is going along with the Justice version. Well, at the Wall Street Journal, a synapse just twitched. On December 27, the Journal editorial page carried an article by the popular libertarian author James Bovard, which succinctly describes the threat.
Property rights are too important to cast overboard with each new passing political frenzy.
In any case, it remains to be seen whether the private property lobbies in Washington are going to sleep through this. At least the Journal gave them a wake up call. Experience says that alarm clocks have no effect on flatliners. And the clergy will be silent while the sick and dying fall under Dan Lungren's gubernatorial campaign. Our lights are on, but nobody's home.