A couple of months ago, the family was driving around Brant County, looking at a nearby tobacco farm about to harvest. Then-five-year-old Stuart asked what those plants were for; we reminded him of cigarettes. From his readings, he recalled that those are unhealthy, and asked us why the government doesn’t just ban tobacco growing.

I told him it’s not that simple, for at least two reasons. First, people must be free to do things that are dangerous only to themselves, to develop their judgement, enjoy their lives, and be independent citizens. We talked about a few examples. Second, the government’s judgement is not exactly perfect — that they make mistakes all the time, yet have the power of force. I was not going to go into too many details on this, but it turned out we didn’t have to.

By this time, you see, we just merged onto Highway 403, accelerating around the speed limit. Just then in the passing lane, there came a convoy of three big black SUVs, at least 20 km/h above our speed, and therefore well above the legal limit. I got out of their way. As they passed us, we saw that they were OPP – police vehicles, not on an emergency call (no sirens or lights), just casually breaking the law.

I rested my case.