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Comment by gg82 | Hacker News Reader

Just stop trying to justify highway robbery. The criminal is the government until the person has been properly adjudicated by the courts!

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I agree it sounds absolutely absurd - first time I heard about it I couldn’t believe it.

The Wikipedia page has more on the rationale, good or bad:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_forfeiture_in_the_United...

I like how the first two paragraphs under the intro (History) is basically outlining how the British doing it to American colonists was a catalyst for violent revolution to come…

…and then the third is describing how American courts immediately recreated the laws with these inspirations to increase their budgets.

I mean say what you will about monarchism and its many flaws, they at least had the sense to hang or behead highway robbers instead of funding them!

Only as long as they weren't the ones who worked for the monarch.

Monarchs used to sponsor pirates to harass enemy nations, so long history.

It was a great work program for young overactive men with low morals and high intelligence - Sir Francis Drake proved his worth to the crown.

https://medium.com/luminasticity/adrenaline-culture-bed2d640...

(note: non-serious article has some crude language and scenarios)

It cost the US a failure to use the metric system.

Though I heard that during Drake's circumnavigation his body count was remarkably low, especially for the age.

I figured Drake was the kind of guy who would stock his crew with men of his caliber, and those guys tend to make it through hell with a smile.

Basically, they (almost?) didn't kill any Spaniards when they raided their ships and settlements in South America.

It's a smart move. Word gets around (slowly) that if you don't fuck with Drake, he'll let you live and be on your way, just a little bit lighter

It's an irrelevant move. For this voyage Drake traveled faster than news of him. That's a big part of why him and his crew were so successful again and again.

While that's true, you absolutely don't have to settle for monarchy because a lot of democratic countries don't have this problem. Start with Canada (ignoring its namesake monarch). Civil forfeiture is a US specialty.

While perhaps specifically Canada does not have this type of asset forfeiture, I’m not sure they’re a good example of financial liberty that we should aspire to here in the US.

So let me understand this please: Canada is bad because it doesn't have what the US doesn't have either but aspires to have?

It's bad because they deem a protest a terrorist event and freeze your bank account if they found you donated.

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/22/world/americas/canada-pro...

As a Canadian I'd like to take this opportunity to ask you what you know about Canada.

Like what do you really know about Canada?

Because I'm getting the same "Montreal is the capital of Canada" vibes that I got from an American tourist when I was a little kid visiting the same tourist town that they were on summer vacation.

It astounds me how confidentially incorrect Americans (I'm assuming that you're American) are when it comes to their close neighbour.

So please, tell me more about Canada.

Are you refuting the NYT story, or do you just like playing trivia games?

Not refuting it at all, just find it hard to see the relevance to the thread.

I would imagine that the funds that Canada froze in a unique situation are a rounding error compared to the funds some random US state seizes in a year.

Whatever their flaws so many other countries including Canada are so much better at this thing than the United States.

This is whataboutism. Both are bad, so where's your argument?

And this is relevant precisely because it's an example that shows the lack of financial liberty, that you could fall prey to in Canada. I thought it's a fitting answer to the parent comment.

No, its not whataboutism, because corruption in America is literally the subject that we're discussing.

How many people were affected by this issue? Again, it's a rounding eror compared to the number of people who are affected the corrupt practice of civil forfeiture.

These things are night and day different. A one off event compared to a systemic issue.

I'm not an American, and instead of asking an open-ended counter question you could try to address the issue

Did they not freeze bank accounts of people donating to the freedom convoy? Please note that this is a question of facts and not opinions. It is also completely removed from whether you (or I for that matter) support this cause or find the means that they chose legitimate.

"What about all the bad things in Canada"

Whataboutism is not a great argument. We should aspire to take the best features from each country, not to mirror any country exactly.

Given the horrible wealth disparity in the US, I'd say it absolutely is. Or pretty much any other western country would do also.

Yeah, the point wasn't aiming for monarchy but shaming them for being so bad at governance that monarchs did a better job in the one particular area.

I think it exists in Ireland too. I suspect it may be a legislative flaw that can be exploited in all common law countries (with the buy in of legislatures of course).

I dunno, there's some stuff like French ferme générale private tax collectors that weren't constrained in their profit-margin [0] or privateers with letters of marque and reprisal that went after civilians from other countries. [1]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ferme_g%C3%A9n%C3%A9rale

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Letter_of_marque

That's because a monarchy wants to have a monopoly on the highway robbing in the first place.

Monarchs are happy to use robbers. See the age of piracy and letters of marque

I believe the correct term you are looking for is privateers, not robbers.

They were outside the color of law and often targeted specific trade coming out of adversarial nations.

One kings privateer is another’s thieving pirates.

It depends on who is getting robbed.

Kings and governments just make up special words for when they commit crimes.

Yup - it’s a special kind of outlaw (literally, outside the law) who has a home he can go back to and be protected.

The Sheriff of London paid the monarch for their position, ￡300, and paid for this (as well as stashing away some for themselves) through taxes and fees or fines assessed by the sovereign.

This would have certain parallels to contemporary civil forfeiture.

<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sheriff_of_the_City_of_London#...>

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