Jonathan S. Tobin makes the case that big cities are experiencing a crime wave, in part because of delegitimization of police.
This may or may not be true. However, I think it does reflect the views of those who think in terms of the civilization vs. barbarism axis.
I think that recent developments in the Middle East, starting with the behavior of Hamas during the Gaza war and continuing with the behavior of ISIS, have struck a nerve among those inclined toward the civilization vs. barbarism axis.
Even if you do not believe that conservatives are right, you have to acknowledge that the news cycle suggests that we are in a civilization vs. barbarism wave. In my opinion, that is why Rand Paul is doing so poorly in the polls. You can criticize him as a candidate, but it is hard to argue that the other candidates are so stellar that they outshine him. I just think that the public is more receptive to the conservative axis than to the libertarian axis. This may always be true, but it is particularly true now.
Sure, and they are wrong. They are wrong because they pick a team rather than a side. Cops and Westernish states and puppets are more than capable of being barbaric.
Of course if it leads it bleeds. People forget how bad and Third World Violence was 30, 40 or 50 years ago. Sure the problems are bigger than they were 10 – 15 years ago but economic growth was greater which helped keep the population working. (The drop in commodities has not good for a lot of nations.)
HOWEVER, be a libertarian on Rand Paul Presidential. He has run a terrible campaign so far and it appears he has lost interest in running. Honestly, I don’t know why he does not drop out.
Rand Paul isn’t really a candidate for this term. He needs to be a little older, get more name recognition, and the country has to catch up to him. One reason to stay in is that the field is so terrible. The only reason Republicans should field a candidate this round is that the Democrat field is almost as pathetic.
Also, I almost forgot because it goes without saying that as the only alternative voice amongst the muddled-thinking neocons he needs to stay in the race. Why would he drop out? To throw his support behind….?
Maybe with crime it’s not really ‘no libertarians’ but ‘no half-libertarians’?
Let’s say you have someone with strong Libertarian sympathies, but who also thinks it’s reasonable to want safety and security and to have violent crime managed to a level closer to Irvine’s than Detroit’s.
A half-libertarian that will only criticize government activity has nothing to tell a person alarmed by the sudden, incredible, and persistent increase in gun violence in Baltimore and other cities since the Gray incident. They work within the framework of the current state apparatus, and only recommend downward tinkering of policing instead of radical decentralization. They may tell tales about the drug war or policing methods, and assert that violent crime would be lower if these things were fixed, but that’s far from a slam-dunk case, and hardly persuasive.
A full Libertarian might supplement these criticisms with proposals for policies that are enabling for private individuals trying to protect themselves and their local communities. Maybe private neighborhoods with their own laws, with private police forces that are at liberty to enforce them as they see fit and constrained only by local bylaws instead of being worried about federal persecution.
There are plenty of possibilities. And yes, robust private police power is a double-edged sword just like government police power. But a half-libertarian criticizes the bitter without providing a substitute for the sweet. A full-libertarian is going to allow people to develop their own substitutes.
Maybe the half-libertarians are mostly concerned with staying on good terms with their fully (and full of it) leftist friends. But perhaps I’m not being charitable.
One can recognize the genius of a marketing strategy even if it isn’t carried out by geniuses. For example, the “black lives matter” meme is genius. If you disagree with it as a movement then “What? You don’t think black lives matter?!?”
So, for 3 words that fit on a bumper sticker, they set up blacks as oppressed and police as oppressors in a way that is difficult to oppose in a slogan. What would such a slogan be? “Cop lives matter?” Well, if you do that, then you automatically accept the bifurcation and now you make people pick a side. It’s not just that there are more non-cops than cops, but what about the 3rd side(s)?
The correct response to BLM is, “All lives matter,” notwithstanding the cowardice of certain national political figures. And then to rationally analyze whether, on the whole, we have (1) a police brutality problem or (2) a crime problem. Recognizing, of course, that (1) there will always be incidents of police acting inappropriately and (2) there will always be some level of crime.
“to rationally analyze whether, on the whole, we have (1) a police brutality problem or (2) a crime problem.”
We have both. But there is no 3rd party in a 2 party system that could deal with this rationally.
I don’t agree that we have both. But I suppose that makes me irrational according to you, which renders further discussion pointless.
Well yes. I can send you video links. But you are on this jag that voters (and you) can’t possibly have wrong oponions so why would I bother?
But my real point is that you immediately jumped to an,either or paradigm which I think is the definition of irrational in our 2 party system where you are pushed to pick a team rather than a set of principles.
Djf don’t tap out just yet.
A huge percentage of people were absolutely wrong about Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown.
Is your position that a huge portion and maybe even a majority of people can’t be wrong?
Andrew’, I never said that the majority can’t be wrong, or that “the voters” can’t be wrong. Where you get that from anything I wrote, much less that I am on a “jag” that the voters are infallible, I don’t know.
Nor did I intend to say (though I see from my use of the word “or” that I left myself open to such an objection from hairsplitters) that we can have only a police problem or only a crime problem but not both or neither. However, it happens that, as a matter of fact, I think we have one problem – a crime problem – but not the other (which is NOT to say that police misconduct does not occur – it just has to be guarded against and punished when it occurs). I don’t think that my taking this view of the facts makes me irrational. You apparently disagree on the nature of the problem we face, but I don’t think either of us is going to change the other’s opinion through this exchange. I will leave it at that.
Because my memory goes beyond the last comment. This is the second or third time you’ve said something to that effect to me. I’m trying to get to the root of it.
And I didn’t say you said that we can only have one or the other. What I am saying is that your first comment was from a paradigm that it is largely an either or and you do indeed think it is only a crime problem and not a police brutality problem.
My point is that when you accept these either-or propositions, your side is going to be pushed into some silly positions. I think it is silly that we don’t have a police brutality problem, even if only because humans have a police brutality problem like we have an air, water and food problem. If it is not currently a critical problem, that just means we are doing a good job handling the problem. But there is no point trying to convince people that will never be convinced. I have the video links to prove we have a problem and the inane comments on those videos to prove that people will always make excuses for cops because they accept the either-or paradigm.
“I don’t agree that we have both. But I suppose that makes me irrational according to you, which renders further discussion pointless.”
This pissy comment. I forget what the previous pissy comment was about and I’m not going to scour the blog for it but it was something similar.
It would be funny if the response to Daniel Kahneman et. al. was always “well, if you think we are irrational we don’t need to hear anything else from you.”
Andrew, that you can send me videos of instances of police acting badly does not mean we have systematic police brutality problem. You keep ascribing to me an “either/or paradigm” to which, as I just said, I do not subscribe; I simply don’t believe, as a matter of fact, that the police systematically abuse or brutalize minorities (which is not to say policing does not suffer from other systemic problems). Your 11/2, 4:01 p.m. comment seems to me to imply that the conflicting sides in this debate (and probably any public debate) are irrational. That’s what I was responding to you in the immediately following comment you dismiss as “pissy.” I have never said, anywhere, that majorities are always correct ; in fact, I have never heard of any one, from any school of thought, who takes this position. I voted for the loser in the last 2 presidential elections, so it would be odd for me ascribe infallibility to the majority.
Plainly, you don’t respect my position, which you insist on distorting, so there’s no point in continuing this exchange.
@djf:
Perhaps that’s part of the reason, but the point I was trying to make – and discussion I as hoping to provoke – is that when people hear half-libertarian proposals, they perceive that there are substantial risks involved and that they may be left holding the bag without any recourse. Look at Stuntz’s The Collapse of American Criminal Justice The US tried extreme leniency, vastly increased defendant’s rights, and less vigorous, more progressive policing, and crime exploded. Correlation is not causation, yeah, yeah, but still. In New York City, the murder rate more than quintupled in the mere 22 years between 1950 and 1972, an average annual growth rate of nearly 8% – which caused a long and continuous turn towards more draconian penalties. Once the important people finally started to accept (if not admit) they had made a mistake.
So, an ordinary person, maybe even a Libertarian, hears some harsh criticism of the police that proposes a decrease in discretionary policing, observes actual discretionary policing drop off in Baltimore, and sees violent crime immediately and persistently increase. That’s risky! They are the ones holding the bad, not some think-tanker or journalist in DC.
When hearing only the criticism side, and the proposals for less intense public policing, a normal person is bound to think, “Boy, that sounds like this person is kind of crazy and reckless and an unreasonable, dogmatic ideologue with regards to this issue, which is a really raw deal for me!” You don’t have to be on a civilization-barbarism axis to recognize your own personal interests in a matter, and to discern whether some politician is going to take away some tools without providing any others, or any upside.
There’s nothing in Libertarian ideology that insists that this person is being irrational, unreasonable, or doctrinally or ethically wrong in being alarmed by this and wanting better public safety and security. It’s not like they’ve defected to ‘conservatism’ over this one issue, all of a sudden. Libertarianism is not Anarchism. It’s different between being against all power and being for individual power over their own private domains.
The full Libertarian answer is to tell this person, “Yes, there are many things the government’s police should not be doing, and under our proposals they would stop. And let’s be honest and not engage in any wishful thinking or happy-talk, this would probably increase certain risks in the short term in the absence of anything else. However you don’t have to worry about holding that bag. You don’t have to take the bitter and lose the sweet. You are going to be have alternatives and choices and the private authority to rely on your own mechanisms and judgments and discretion in your own local areas without fear of state persecution. We can expand freedom, reduce state brutality, and keep ourselves safe in a manner consistent with the dictates of all our various consciences.”
Of course there is a whole spectrum on how far this decentralization can go, and which authorities could be devolved downward in a hyper-federalist subsidiarity. But there are already plenty of examples of exceptions to the general social rule, where this solution is being permitted to some degree, for instance for the military and on college campuses – with their own limited-scope police, rules, and courts. Why shouldn’t everybody get to benefit from that wise exception?
The funny thing is that my readings of the Libertarian classics of a generation ago indicates to me that what I call full-Libertarianism used to be a mainstream intellectual view. Yes, there were some that advocated a near-Anarchaic situation of radically maximal individual freedom, but even those extremists would concede the right of an individual or group to make and enforce the rules on their own private property, and to deem any individual who enters the land as having voluntarily accepted the liabilities and limitations of those local, private rules.
But that view does not reflect the rhetoric of whatever mainstream libertarian politicians may even exist; Rand Paul probably being the best example.
When you hear Rand Paul give the Radley Balko line on things, well, ok, that sounds right and just and so forth. But where’s the flip-side of the coin? If the Libertarianism we get is only the progressives-approved half of Libertarianism, that’s worse than useless; it’s suicidal.
The analogy is to the pacifist side of Libertarianism. One can be in favor of mutual disarmament while still understanding that it involves difficult coordination game that can be very hard to solve. The wise answer is not the half-libertarian answer gamble of hope-is-our-plan unilateral disarmament.
But this is exactly the problem with the attempt to promote mainstream libertarian politicians. The proverb is “Hope for the best, but plan for the worst.” But if ‘mainstream’ means a constrained, progressivism-friendly Libertarianism that is marketed as “Hope is our plan!”, then of course few people are going to find that sensible or appealing, especially when the wave of current events weighs in the opposite direction.
But my point is that it’s not just the current events wave that’s responsible for the problem. I don’t even think it’s most of this problem.
Wow, Handle, that’s quite a response to my off-hand comment. I think your insightful essay is entirely consistent with my somewhat snarky drive-by remark. I should add that I’m not a libertarian of either kind you identify, so the problems of the libertarian movement are not my problems. I am happy to rely on government police for my security. And I don’t see how the alternative self-help security forces posited by thoroughgoing libertarians would be immune from the abuse problems that inevitably crop up in conventional governmental police forces.
BTW, I enjoyed your blog when it was active, and hope you will return to blogging at some point.
In theory, at least the cop half of of this barbarism/civilization wave (radical Islam is the other half) should leave libertarians no worse off…with the left, anyway. After all, it’s their opportunity to get some points for dissing mean ol’ state agents.
Alas libertarians are shocked that the left isn’t bashing cops qua cops, but only the extent to which they are seen as manifesting the ultimate in white privilege. This sweeps up many a libertarian in its wake, too, seeing as how they’re often white dudes who defend gun ownership.
So no, no benefit to libertarians there either, to their dismay.
Liberals aren’t bashing cops because they are right about cops being racist because they said so? I’m not “shocked” at this at all. I just think it is stupidity and I also never expected nor required support from them.
I find Civilization vs. Barbarism is the easiest axis to turn to. This neighborhood is easily one of the most “progressive” in the city. Fear sells.
See opposition to a recovery facility (since approved) in upper-class Chicago. https://www.dnainfo.com/chicago/20151013/lakeview/neighbors-reject-rosecrance-lakeview-but-decision-rests-with-zoning-board
To anyone else: Assuming police brutality isnt impossible by definition, what would keep us from having a police brutality problem? Would having one party reflexively supportive of police tend to cause more or less police brutality? Could this be a structural bias type thing and thus demonstrable and falsifiable? Or would it just be some weird internet guy’s personal opinion?
In election season in general and in primaries in particular the middle position (which is sometimes right) is going to get squeezed out of the rah rah team exercise of signaling how stupid you are willing to be for your side.