The Knights Templar were accused of heresy and condemned, not because they were heretics, but because they had money and property that the King of France wanted for his own.
Watching “the Tudors” and was amused that the list of all the religious orders in England was presented to King Henry VIII as 1) how much wealth and property they own, then 2) the crimes they can be accused of if we want to take their wealth and property.
This judicial looting was started by rabid proponents of the drug war, and as such it makes a little sense that profit gained by illegal activity might be subject to government seizure. But now it has spread to taking the trucks of drunk drivers. The drunk driver did not buy his truck from the proceeds of his illegal activity, and I cannot see the justification for taking his truck (especially when it, as in this case, isn't even HIS truck).
How ignorant of history do you have to be before you think giving the government the power to take private property after a finding of judicial guilt (or even, as in this case, before any adjudication of guilt even takes place) is not a perverse incentive to rampant judicial and economic abuse by the government against its citizens?
It was a little more insidious than that. The King of France was heavily in debt to the Templars. Rather than pay up, he simply had them arrested and executed.
No. It was well underway before the drug war, look at game wardens as a typical example of drug war predecessors..
The drug war became an issue about which much of the populace was passionate enough about to an extent that further abuses could be pushed through under it's guise. Further erosion of property rights would have been attempted under some other guise were it not the drug war. Perhaps addressing child labor, or maybe human trafficking. There would have been some cause clelebre.
The founding fathers understood this tendency within government very well, and addressed it extensively in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.
How ignorant of history do you have to be before you put complete trust in ANY part of government. Government is power and very few people are able to handle power and not abuse that power. Even though a person may believe that he is incorruptible and is doing everything in the best interests of the citizens he is supposed to serve he may in fact be acting in the same manner as a common criminal. Some people have a nearly infinite capacity for self-delusion, they will swear to be acting for the good of all while they loot and plunder the whole community for their own benefit.