Ever since the Supreme Court endorsed radically expanded use of eminent domain, in 2005’s Kelo v. New London, we have witnessed pitched battles between governments eager to trample property rights and citizens fighting to protect those rights.

Among recent efforts is a Missouri initiative to reform the eminent domain process, led by Ron Calzone with Missourians for Property Rights.

Alas, it’s all too easy to ignore the suffering of human beings whose property rights are violated by “legal” means when you neither see these human beings nor hear their stories. This is why critics of flipping property from the hands of rightful owners to the claws of rapacious opportunists with political pull must be grateful to the producers of Begging for Billionaires: The Attack on Property Rights in America.

The film exposes how city governments “brazenly seize property after property from the powerless” to turn over to well-connected players “for the pettiest of non-essential ‘economic development’ projects,” many subsidized by taxpayers. Neighborhoods flattened, lives uprooted.

Among other stories, we learn that of James Roos, property owner of an area called “blighted” who created a controversial mural to oppose eminent domain abuse.

Friends of liberty and property can defeat the enemies of these rights. Begging for Billionaires dramatizes why we must do so.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Trichotillomania is a mental disorder, the compulsion to pull one’s hair out. I think I have it. At least, I find reasons to tear out my hair.

Frayda Levin knows what I’m talking about. As chair of the New Jersey chapter of Americans for Prosperity, she’s been very passionate on a host of issues. I met her in the course of fighting against eminent domain abuse. We risked follicular damage after Kelo.

Like all sensible taxpayers, Frayda opposes Congress’s corrupt earmark culture, whereby congressmen use our tax dollars to fund their personal favor factories. Recently, she wrote to New Jersey Senator Robert Menendez asking him to support a legislative moratorium on earmarks.

Instead, Senator Menendez wrote back defending his support for earmarked pork. “While our federal agencies implement programs from Washington,” he countered, “they often do not understand the unique needs of the communities and the states.”

When Frayda responded to Senator Menendez, she pointed out how completely ludicrous it was to “send money to D.C.” and “then have to spend resources finding a sympathetic ear, who can, as you note, understand local needs.”

Frayda asked why the senator hadn’t initiated a shake-up of the admittedly out-of-touch federal bureaucracy. She mentioned the 10th Amendment, the role of the states, and inquired why this money should be going to the federal government in the first place.

She got no response to that.

I’m sure Menendez saw danger to his own scalp.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.