Libertarian ping! Click here to get added or here to be removed or post a message here!
While I strenuously oppose asset forfeiture practices, I’m tempted to try them out on employers of illegal aliens who didn’t due their diligence. Including private homeowners and those who hire the businesses who hire illegals (sorry, your suit has been seized from the tailor because they employed illegals).
Done right, they’d all go home.
At best, government is a necessary evil, best kept limited and controlled, but people trade liberty for what they think government can offer, and the beast grows out of control.
The laws vary widely by state. North Carolina's good:
"Only one state, North Carolina, bans the practice [civil forfeiture], requiring a criminal conviction before a person’s property can be seized."
I am outraged every time I read one of these stories. I do not understand how we the people allow it to continue.
You can thank supporters of the war on drugs for this criminal behaviour on the part of government thugs. They cheered it all on.
“Now the government can only take property if it obtains a criminal conviction or its equivalent, like if a property owner pleads guilty to a crime or becomes an informant”
Wait, “or becomes an informant” leads to confiscation? What’s the quid pro quo there? They took his stuff, and they could have put him in jail too, but they won’t put him in jail?
But I like to think I’m also a decent human being. And this is why I get even more agitated when politicians and bureaucrats engage in thuggish behavior against comparatively powerless citizens.
He phrases this like he thinks it's a conflict or potential conflict. I don't see it. Reining in gooberment scope and expecting them to act like decent people is not conflicting in the least, as far as I can see.
Bonorum ereptionem delenda est!