Here at Sun Media we pride ourselves at being advocates for smaller government. We believe public sector bureaucrats are wading into people’s affairs too often. We know the little guy is being nickel-and-dimed all over the place. There are too many laws and regulations. Something has to be done.

But we also think the Freemen of the Land are 100% wrong in their view of government and society.

They're the group that Norman Raddatz is believed to belong to. He’s the man implicated in the killing on Monday of Edmonton police Const. Daniel Woodall.

As Lorne Gunter explained it in a recent column: “The Freemen insist they are sovereign individuals and therefore are not subject to Canadian laws, unless they choose to be. They reject all taxes, ignore any laws they find inconvenient and insist they are not bound to repay personal debts because on their own say-so they have declared themselves 'free.'”

Everyone has beefs with the government. But the Freemen take their grievances to completely unacceptable extremes.

As former Alberta justice minister and solicitor general Jonathan Denis recently said: "The whole concept behind our democracy is that the law applies to everyone. They believe they can contract out of the laws and therefore they don't have to pay income tax. What I find crazy is they will wilfully consume our hospitals, schools and roads that our taxpayers pay for. It makes zero sense."

There are people from all parts of the political spectrum who aren’t happy with the laws of the land. But instead of cowardly opting out of it all like the Freemen do – with results that evidently can be deadly – they spend years of their lives working within the system to change it.

That’s called political activism. It’s called running for office. It’s called voting. It’s called being a good citizen.

The Freemen are bad citizens. They don’t understand the social contract. They’re reckless and selfish.

Think the parking tickets you’ve got are unfair? Maybe they are. But pay the ones you’ve got, then work through the proper channels to change the system.

The rule of law matters in Canada. If you don’t like it, leave.