Is This Gonna Be On The Exam?

From Overheard in Lawschool:

Our favorite 1L

Property Prof: So are there any questions on the rule against perpetuity?

1L: Yeah, is this gonna be on the final? Cause I have to know if I should care or not...

Prof: Oh Mr. 1L for you, EVERYTHING in the class will be on the final.

Do Definitions of "Family" Relate To Property?

You betcha! See ProprtyProf blog for the scoop.

We will be covering similar issues soon (see assignment 21).

"City to seize church by eminent domain"

"The city of Long Beach, Calif., is using the power of eminent domain bolstered by last summer's U.S. Supreme Court ruling to condemn a Baptist congregation's church building.

The city wants to remove the Filipino Baptist Fellowship's building to make way for condominiums, the Baptist Press reported."

Link.

Zones of Tolerance

My friend, Prof. J Bud from UT, has some interesting things to say about tolerance and the modern culture wars. Consider this excerpt (from J. Budziszewski, The Revenge of Conscience (1999) at 53-54):

The bottom line is that Neutrality is no more coherent in the matter of religious tolerance than it is in tolerance of any other sort. What you can tolerate pivots on your ultimate concern. Because different ultimate concerns ordain different zones of tolerance, social consensus is possible only at the points where these zones overlap. Note well: The greater the resemblance of contending concerns, the greater the overlap of their zones of tolerance. The less the resemblance of contending concerns, the less the overlap of their zones of tolerance. Should contending concerns become sufficiently unlike, their zones of tolerance no longer intersect at all. Consensus vanishes.

This, I believe, is our current trajectory. The embattled term "culture war" is not inflammatory; it is merely inexact. And we can expect the war to grow worse. The reason for this is that our various gods ordain not only different zones of tolerance, but different norms to regulate the dispute among themselves. True tolerance is not well tolerated. For although the God of some of the disputants ordains that they love and persuade their opponents, the idols of some of the others ordain no such thing.

Something to think about while sitting on the beach at Cancun or Deltona over Spring Break.

Does this relate to Property? As we head into the law of restrictive covenants and consider covenants designed to exclude all sorts of land uses and even people from certain neighborhoods, it is well worth our time to think about our own zones of tolerance--those things we think are tolerable and those things we think are intolerable--and then factor in J Bud's insight above.

"The lady doth protest too much, methinks."

Here is a statement Justice O'Connor recently made in protest against statements made in Congress decrying "judicial activism":

"I, said O’Connor, am against judicial reforms driven by nakedly partisan reasoning. Pointing to the experiences of developing countries and former communist countries where interference with an independent judiciary has allowed dictatorship to flourish, O’Connor said we must be ever-vigilant against those who would strongarm the judiciary into adopting their preferred policies. It takes a lot of degeneration before a country falls into dictatorship, she said, but we should avoid these ends by avoiding these beginnings."

And here is something I wrote in response:

Well, let's rewrite this eloquent statement of Justice O'Connor just a teensy, little bit:

"I, said Braveheart, am against judicial decrees driven by nakedly partisan reasoning. We must be ever-vigilant against those who would strongarm the People by imposing their preferred policies from the Bench. It takes a lot of degeneration before a country falls into judicial dictatorship, but we should avoid these ends by avoiding these beginnings."

The fact that the Justices are beginning to act so defensively encourages me that they are beginning to get it. I am cheered and renewed on the eve of Spring Break.

RLUIPA Developments

Here (from the religion Clause blog).

Judicial Non-Activism

Follow this link to a story and an hilarious picture (artist rendition) of Justice Ginsburg sleeping on the High Court bench.

Warning--this article has absolutely nothing to do with Property. It is just for fun.

I remember my favorite President of all, Ronald Reagan, occasionally fell asleep during cabinet meetings. And I remember at one press conference he responded, with his usual wonderful humor, to a question about whether he had gotten any rest on some trip, by saying something like "I haven't had such a good night's sleep since the last cabinet meeting." Great man.

Online Debate on Kelo

Legal Affairs is sponsoring an online debate between Judy Coleman and Steven D. Anderson on legislative responses to Kelo. Here's the link.