5 January 2006 @ 5:25PM >> The Kelo v. New London decision gave government vastly expanded powers to take your land. But there are other, sneakier ways for the government to seize control of what’s yours:

What do you call it when government takes away the use of private property, but leaves the title in the name of the property owner? The Constitution makes no provision for this function of government, but government is exercising this function with increasing regularity and severity.

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White County, Georgia, is about to adopt a resolution for the “protection of mountains and hillsides,” which will severely restrict how private landowners may use their land. If any owner’s land happens to slope as much as 25 percent, the owner may not use it at all, unless the lot is at least 1.5 acres. Then, he may disturb no more than 30 percent. If he wishes to build a home with a driveway, the total “impervious” area may not exceed 20 percent of the land.

This resolution in White County will empower government to take away the use of 70 percent of the land of a private owner. The owner must continue to pay taxes on 100 percent of the property, but may use only 30 percent.

5 January 2006 @ 9:20AM >> American Enterprise magazine has a review of Brainwashing 201: The Second Semester in the current (January/February 2006) issue. The report is based on the screening of the film at the Liberty Film Festival last fall:

“Fascists have no right to speak!” yelled a left-wing protestor, stomping onto the stage at the premiere of Evan Maloney’s new film, Brainwashing 201. It was a dramatic example of what Maloney’s picture is all about—the lack of fairness on college campuses, where liberal academics turn their classrooms into pulpits for political indoctrination, while conservatives “have no right to speak.”

For those who haven’t been on college campuses recently, Maloney’s documentary is eye opening. Non-left academics are harassed for their political views. Students who show a conservative bent are threatened. Military recruiters are driven off campus.

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Indeed, students in the film express amazement at how left-wing academics manage to wedge politics into nearly every subject. “It’s pretty inventive,” says one. “In geography class I learned that gender is socially constructed,” illustrates another. “I really don’t know why issues such as global warming, globalization, and militarism are brought up in a class in German literature,” puzzles a third student.

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Campuses are supposed to be marketplaces of ideas where issues stand and fall on their merits. Brainwashing 201 demonstrates effectively that this is now far from the case.