An effort by the California legislature to seize, by eminent domain, property of a Silicon Valley venture capitalist is a subject of a dispatch in the New York Times:
Vinod Khosla, a Silicon Valley venture capitalist, paid $37.5 million in 2008 for a 53-acre parcel of ocean land that includes the beach and the road — and proceeded to close the gate, posting armed guards and signaling that he was prepared to spend what it takes to keep the public off what he contends is private land....Last month, the California Senate approved a bill that would permit the state to use the power of eminent domain to seize enough land to provide a public passageway to the beach. Next, the bill will be considered by the Assembly...
This is quite an example of the erosion of respect for property rights, saying, in essence, If you don't let us trespass on your land, we will pass a law that lets the government take the land away from you.
Put it together with the political effort to prevent the owners of the Stuyvesant Town-Peter Cooper Village apartment complex from selling their property to the highest bidder, and the forced sale by the NBA of Donald Sterling's L.A. Clippers, not to mention what happened to the Chrysler bondholders and the Detroit bondholders, and you get what amounts to a series of examples of how property rights are subject to political interventions. I'd concede that there are some rare cases where other political interests or values should trump property rights; the abolition of slavery is a fine example of that, with the value of human freedom prevailing over the slaveowner's claim to a property right. But when such cases become frequent rather than rare, everyone's property rights become less secure, and that comes with real costs attached, deterring investment and eroding value.