It’s one thing if the cops impound a getaway car and sell it at auction once some bank robbers are tried and convicted. It’s quite another if the government threatens to seize the home of a family who unwittingly rents to pot growers, as the BC government did to the Jang family in 2009. The Jangs, afraid of losing their home despite having committed no crime, settled out of court for a sizable sum, according to the Globe.

In response to the BC Justice Minister, it is not in the legitimate or long-term interest of “the public” to confiscate, or threaten to confiscate, the property of innocent people. On the contrary, we all have a strong interest in strictly limiting the power of those we pay to protect us, lest they succumb to delusions of grandeur and elect to turn that power against us.

Bradley Doucet is Le Québécois Libre‘s English Editor and the author of the blog Spark This: Musings on Reason, Liberty, and Joy. A writer living in Montreal, he has studied philosophy and economics, and is currently completing a novel on the pursuit of happiness. He also writes for The New Individualist, an Objectivist magazine published by The Atlas Society, and sings.