Comments Elsewhere

Constant,

1. I don’t believe in a “the ideal law of a perfect libertarian minarchy.” I regard that as an internally contradictory description.

2. I don’t know what the comparative virtues or vices of modern liberals and American conservatives have to do with anything in Randall’s remarks, or your response, or my complaint about your response.

Randall didn’t make a comparative claim; he stated that most conservatives are “law and order types” in some objectionable sense. You then complained that “law and order types” “covers too much,” “is too vague,” “has been made flabby,” and covers “a great majority” of American conservatives, but not for any reason that libertarians should find objectionable.

I think that the category you made up to respond to Randall, “genuine law and order types” (as opposed to “cop worshipers”) either (a) is still limited to a set of views that libertarians, as such, ought to find objectionable (and which, by the way, are immediately relevant to the case discussed in the article above); or else (b) has nothing in particular to do with what either Randall meant by identifying most American conservatives as “law and order types,” or what American conservatives usually mean when they identify themselves as “law and order types.” In either case it’s not an adequate response to Randall’s comments.

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.

The first seven incidents I linked to were reported in the last month alone. That may tell you something about frequency. They were not systematically sought out by me; they are merely the cases that I happened to be aware of just off the top of my head. If you would care to do a bit of your own research, you could find many more.

For example, we have yet another isolated incident, in Waite Park, Minnesota.

And another isolated incident in Golden Valley, Minnesota.

And yet another isolated incident, in Pennsylvania.

Here’s another isolated incident in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

Memphis, Tennessee.

Chattanooga, Tennessee.

Atlanta, GA.

Hattiesburg, MS.

Baltimore, MD.

San Jose, CA.

Providence, RI.

Puerto Rico.

Paterson, NJ.

Buffalo, NY.

Mount Kisko, NY and New York City, NY.

Chicago, IL.

Chicago, IL. Again.

And yet another isolated incident, in Chicago. Along the way, this story notes:

Between 2002 and 2004, for example, more than 10,000 complaints — many of them involving brutality and assault — were filed against Chicago police officers.

Here’s several more cases, and several recorded on video, if you like.

Now, neither Randall nor I made any claim about whether violence by police (or by government-hired rent-a-cops, as in the Palmdale case) is “epidemic.” He said only that it was systemic, and I implied that these cases are not appropriately described as “isolated incidents.” (Which comes to the same thing.) Something may be systemic without being “epidemic,” since the latter has to do with how often something happens, whereas the former has to do with what caused it, when it did happen. But the fact that every one of these articles came out just in the last month, and every one of them I found with a causal search on Google News, may, again, tell you something about how frequent this sort of thing is.

Finally, as for the “good cops” out there, if I’ve hurt their fee-fees by saying something unfair or unbalanced, well, I for one am sorry. But comparing hurt fee-fees to lynch mobs and race riots strikes me as a bit hyperbolic.

And conflating a harsh attitude towards those who have chosen to take on a particular State-privileged profession, even if that attitude is somehow unfair, with bigotry against a race of people, also strikes me as a bit confused.

cookie: History, in case you failed to read the other posts( which clearly you didnt read) We dont know what happened to start the arrest. Did she assault him, tell him to go pack sand?

If she did tell him to go pack sand, or “assaulted” him when the meathead tried to grab her, then she’s my fucking hero.

It takes a lot of courage to stand up to a domineering bully who is bellowing senseless orders at you and trying to use both his physical advantage over you and his official position to intimidate you into complying. Standing up to someone like that, when he has a good 100 or 150lbs on you, is very brave. She had every right to tell him off and, for that matter, every right to defend herself against his attempts to physically grab her.

The meathead security guard pictured above told the city cops that he felt “threatened” by the young woman, so he slammed her down and broke her wrist in order to regain control.

I mean, that’s understandable, right? I mean, he’s only got, what, 100, 150 pounds on the fifteen year old girl?

It sure seems as though there are a lot of these “isolated incidents” going around lately….

I’m a bit surprised you don’t mention Primitivists and other “Green Anarchy” hangers-on. Any thoughts? I for one would certainly hang out with even the worst anarcho-syndicalists long before the back-to-the-paleolithic crowd.

1. END CREDIT CARD USURY: Beginning in the 1980s – as part of the Reagan counter-revolution – interest rate controls began disappearing in this country. Rates that generally were below ten percent would rise as much as three times.

Let’s suppose that I don’t have enough money to cover my present expenses, for whatever reason, and the only place where I can get the money is from a lender who is going to charge me 30%. Let’s say that I think about this and decide that, all things considered, I’m better off paying the 30% premium than defaulting on my current bills (and possibly getting evicted, having my utilities shut off, or whatever). So I call up the lender and choose to sign a contract opening the line of credit at 30%.

What business is it of the government’s, exactly, whether or not I choose to do this? Where would anyone in the government get the knowledge, the virtue, or the right to butt in and override my considered decision by telling me that I can’t take out loans at that interest rate?

And what exactly do you expect me to do if I need money and I can neither scratch together what I need on my own, nor can find anyone willing to lend to me at the artificially low rates that the government has imposed upon above-ground lenders?

It’s a strange sort of populism that would deliberately set out to deprive working folks of resources for getting by in tough circumstances.

I still just don’t get the demand for declaring a “Third Wave” in the first place. Not just because of my worries about the women who are targeted when this is done, but because, at a basic level, the effort is premature. The “First Wave,” as conventionally dated, doesn’t refer to a single generation of women; it refers to 72 years or so of organized feminist activity and thought, carried on by three generations of women who had lots of internal differences and some pitched battles over tactics, organization, goals, class, race, sexuality, ideology, etc. Those conflicts often took the form of intergenerational conflicts between the older leaders and young upcoming activists; sometimes they led to sharp breaks in organizational structures or to big swerves in the direction and character of activism.

Whenever the “Third Wave” language gets brought out I always just wonder why we can’t at least put a good 72 years of work into the Second Wave before we declare a new one.

So I should stress I’m noting that certain “libertarian” positions are deeply anti-libertarian …

Block is wrong about contracts for selling yourself into slavery. But his position is unusual amongst libertarians, or “libertarians,” or whatever you care to call them. Murray Rothbard, who is a paradigmatic anarcho-capitalist if anyone is, explicitly rejected the position. Roderick Long, who is not an anarcho-capitalist but sometimes deigns to speak or work with people who do identify as anarcho-capitalists, also explicitly rejects the position. Describing Block’s position on this point as representative of “‘libertarian’ positions” is misleading, at best. In any case, I don’t see what any of this has to do with the ideas expressed by Long (not by Walter Block) in the interview.

I’m not actually talking about Long’s position, beyond indicating that left-“libertarianism” (i.e., the leftwing of right-wing Libertarianism) seems to have far too much capitalist baggage to be really that libertarian.

As far as I can see, the only evidence you’ve presented of how much or how little “capitalist baggage” Long’s position has, is that Long mentions Block at some point, in order to highlight some of his differences from Block, and Block has some rotten ideas. How in the world this would tell you anything about how much “capitalist baggage” left-libertarianism (as understood by Long) does or does not have, I don’t know. Of course, if you don’t want to talk about Long’s ideas, but would rather talk about something else (e.g. whether or not Walter Block should be considered “libertarian”) there’s no reason why you shouldn’t, but then why have the conversation in a section supposedly devoted to replies to an article about Long’s ideas?

Maybe if they realised that “anarcho”-capitalism has very little worth keeping, then maybe they will stop sticking pictures of Murray Rothbard next to Proudhon and rediscover the genuine individualist anarchist tradition. Wishful thinking, maybe, but some of them do seem to be recognising the issues at hand — which is encouraging.

Oh, and I would agree with the comments on free markets tending to increase inequalities rather than reduce them. That the capitalist class uses the state to increase its position and power does not automatically mean that a free market would not produce such inequalities to some degree.

“The genuine individualist anarchist tradition” squarely disagrees with you on this point. Here, for example, is Benjamin Tucker:

When Warren and Proudhon, in prosecuting their search for justice to labor, came face to face with the obstacle of class monopolies, they saw that these monopolies rested upon Authority, and concluded that the thing to be done was, not to strengthen this Authority and thus make monopoly universal, but to utterly uproot Authority and give full sway to the opposite principle, Liberty, by making competition, the antithesis of monopoly, universal. They saw in competition the great leveler of prices to the labor cost of production. In this they agreed with the political economists. They query then naturally presented itself why all prices do not fall to labor cost; where there is any room for incomes acquired otherwise than by labor; in a word, why the usurer, the receiver of interest, rent, and profit, exists. The answer was found in the present one-sidedness of competition. It was discovered that capital had so manipulated legislation that unlimited competition is allowed in supplying productive labor, thus keeping wages down to the starvation point, or as near it as practicable; that a great deal of competition is allowed in supplying distributive labor, or the labor of the mercantile classes, thus keeping, not the prices of goods, but the merchants’ actual profits on them down to a point somewhat approximating equitable wages for the merchants’ work; but that almost no competition at all is allowed in supplying capital, upon the aid of which both productive and distributive labor are dependent for their power of achievement, thus keeping the rate of interest on money and of house-rent and ground-rent at as high a point as the necessities of the people will bear.

…

For these and other reasons Proudhon and Warren found themselves unable to sanction any such plan as the seizure of capital by society. But, though opposed to socializing the ownership of capital, they aimed nevertheless to socialize its effects by making its use beneficial to all instead of a means of impoverishing the many to enrich the few. And when the light burst in upon them, they saw that this could be done by subjecting capital to the natural law of competition, thus bringing the price of its own use down to cost,—that is, to nothing beyond the expenses incidental to handling and transferring it. So they raised the banner of Absolute Free Trade; free trade at home, as well as with foreign countries; the logical carrying out of the Manchester doctrine; laissez faire the universal rule. Under this banner they began their fight upon monopolies, whether the all-inclusive monopoly of the State Socialists, or the various class monopolies that now prevail.

Of course, just because Tucker and the other individualists believed something doesn’t necessarily mean that what they believed is true. Maybe you are right and “the genuine individualist anarchist tradition” is wrong about this. But if you are going to be deigning to consider “the genuine individualist anarchist tradition” as a legitimate and valuable part of anarchist history, then perhaps you ought to show some recognition that the views expressed by market anarchists such as Long, at least on this particular point, are much closer to the views expressed by the individualists than your own views are.