Eminent Domain is like the death penalty, something for extreme cases. There are plenty of circumstances where I find it entirely justified to sneak up and put a bullet in the back of someone's head, but that does not mean I would bring a government process into approving it unless I was pretty darn sure it was justified. Even on personal initiative, if I were to stand judgement for it, I want to be able to explain why it needed to go down that way.
On Eminent Domain, there is a point of absurdity where we can look at issues like "property ownership" and "public good" and have to make some fairly easy choices. If some stubborn person is holding up a major freeway interchange, then the traditional legal thing to do has been to take over the land, evict them, and pay a sum equal to what is the average purchase price of similar properties, minus realistic court and legal costs. There just has to be a point where some stubborn grandstander is not going to be getting in the way of progress, especially in cities where they know damn well the decision to live there has everything to do with proximity to services and that constantly upgraded infrastructure.
I also would take a point with some issues on the Bundy Ranch. Measuring very specific issues of domestic productivity vs what Harry Reid was going to use the land for. I personally saw Bundy and the other ranchers as having used the land productively, and that all of those ranchers could have easily gone another 25-50 years as the status quo. What was happening in that circumstance is that Harry Reid's real estate interests wanted to get in the game early on land grants and subdivisions to create "value" where there was none. Nevada can't handle Harry Reid's brand of development because it lacks water, so it's not like anyone was getting fooled on that one. We are also talking about the kind of development which is horribly outdated, as urban sprawl development in Nevada has generally been. That's part of why I view Eminent Domain as something that is to be looked at on a case by case basis.
