Here is an interesting story I came across directly out of the government hates you category. Apparently during Prohibition people were still drinking alcohol. That’s right even though it was illegal people were still consuming it. It’s almost as if banning a substance doesn’t stop people from obtaining it. Well the consumption rate was so high the federal government decided to try something new:
Frustrated that people continued to consume so much alcohol even after it was banned, federal officials had decided to try a different kind of enforcement. They ordered the poisoning of industrial alcohols manufactured in the United States, products regularly stolen by bootleggers and resold as drinkable spirits. The idea was to scare people into giving up illicit drinking. Instead, by the time Prohibition ended in 1933, the federal poisoning program, by some estimates, had killed at least 10,000 people.
Government was willing to indiscriminately kill people just to enforce the law. This isn’t like a police officer shooting a criminal in self defense. This would be akin to officers walking around and killing anybody they found who had consumed any alcohol.
And people wonder why us libertarians are proponents of small government. Hit the link and have a read it’s a rather interesting story.