Revolutions (Again)

Jeffrey Rosen’s NYT Magazine piece on possible libertarian Supreme Court Justices was surprisingly reasonable (the photographer, however, must have been a real statist).  It’s funny, however, how frightened the center is of Epstein, Barnett, Greve et al.  Consider this:

…Epstein was promoting a legal philosophy far more radical in its
implications than anything entertained by Antonin Scalia, then, as now,
the court’s most irascible conservative. As Epstein sees it, all
individuals have certain inherent rights and liberties, including
”economic” liberties, like the right to property and, more crucially,
the right to part with it only voluntarily. These rights are violated
any time an individual is deprived of his property without compensation
— when it is stolen, for example, but also when it is subjected to
governmental regulation that reduces its value or when a government
fails to provide greater security in exchange for the property it
seizes.

Can’t you just hear the fear?  ‘Sir, all this talk of "economic" liberties, that is wild, crazy talk.  Irresponsible, I say.  Serious people shouldn’t go around promoting this kind of thing – it’s liable to stir up the population.  Why sir, your views, they reek of revolution.’