Smugglers are heroes of sorts. The essence of what a smuggler offers is: "Government tyrants want to either prevent or interfere with peaceable voluntary exchange among individuals. I can reduce the impact of that interference." Let's look at smuggling, keeping in mind that not everything illegal is immoral and not everything legal is moral.  

Leading up to our War of Independence, the British, under the Navigation Acts, had levied taxes on a wide range of imports. One of those taxes was on molasses imported from non-British islands. John Hancock, whose flamboyant signature graces our Declaration of Independence, had a thriving business smuggling an estimated 1.5 million gallons of molasses a year. His smuggling practices financed much of the resistance to British authority. In fact, a joke of the time was "Sam Adams writes the letters (to newspapers) and John Hancock pays the postage."

Hancock's smuggling, as well as that of many others, made the people of our nation better off by providing cheaper prices for molasses used for making rum. British oppressors were worse off by having lower tax revenues.

In 1920, the 18th Amendment, prohibiting the production, distribution and sale of alcoholic beverages in the United States, went into effect. It had wide public support. In my opinion, no case can be made for stopping another person from enjoying beer, wine and whiskey. That's oppression, but along came heroes to the rescue. The ink hadn't dried on the 18th Amendment before smugglers started smuggling beer and whiskey from Canada and Mexico. Ships lined up along our shores, just beyond the three-mile limit, to off-load whiskey onto speedboats. Smugglers and bootleggers spared millions of Americans from do-gooder oppression.