Comments Elsewhere

Constant: “Law and order type” covers too much and is too vague. If we take the ideas embedded in the words absolutely seriously, then I am a law and order type and so are you. Are you for indiscriminate mass murder? Are you for rampant burglary? No? You’re actually against murder? Really??? Against murder??? Then you are a law and order type.

Suppose I, like you, am willing to take a stand against murder and burglary, but I also believe the following propositions:

1. The overwhelming majority of existing laws are unjust (e.g. drug laws, tax laws, immigration laws, sex laws, etc.).
2. Each and every one of us has an unconditional right to break those laws that are unjust
3. Each and every police officer has a perfect duty to refuse to enforce those laws that are unjust
4. The prima facie right to enforce just laws is conditional on the level of force used not exceeding limits imposed by a principle of proportionality.
5. Each and every one of us has a prima facie right to evade or forcibly resist any police efforts to enforce an unjust law, or to enforce even a just law with disproportionate force, using any level of force up to the limits imposed by a principle of proportionality. In any case where one is at risk of imprisonment, these limits are very high.
6. A person’s status as a police officer does not affect considerations of proportionality: morally, they are due no special deference and they enjoy no special prerogatives in the use of force.

Would this make me a “genuine law and order type” under your definition? If so, I think your definition has nothing in particular to do with what the overwhelming majority of people actually mean when they identify themselves as “law and order types,” even when those people are not specifically what you call “cop worshipers.” I would suggest that pretty much any self-identified conservative “law and order type” (i.e. the folks Randall was referring to) would deny at least propositions 2, 3, 5, and 6, and probably also 1. And their reasons for denying 2, 3, 5, and 6 would be precisely that they are for “law and order,” not for breaking laws, refusing orders, and resisting cops. Indeed, an alarming number of libertarians (especially minarchists, but even sometimes well-behaved anarchists, such as Randy Barnett) would be willing to deny at least some of 2, 3, 5, and 6, even though they clearly agree with me on 1.

Of course, “law” and “order” are both contested concepts. There is a (Spoonerite) sense of “law” and a (Proudhonian) sense of “order” in which I’d argue that justice and freedom not only are consistent with, but indeed both require and are required by, something that you could call “law and order.” But the question is what purpose this kind of linguistic revision would serve, in context. It’s certainly not what most self-identified “law and order types” mean by “law” or “order” or “law and order.” What they mean is that they believe in certain fetishized practices with respect to law and order, and probably that they believe in adhering to those fetishized practices even at the cost of doing injustice or violating freedom. And if that’s what “law and order” effectively means in most people’s mouths, then “law and order” can go to hell. I would rather identify myself according to the values that I actually hold to be unconditional and fundamental, e.g. freedom, justice, self-ownership, individual rights, etc.