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Police free zones – do they always have to end this way? “One dead and one wounded in shooting in Seattle police-free zone”, the Guardian reported an hour or so ago.
Let me say at once that I know nothing about the circumstances of this killing, other than that it occurred and that young men should not die by violence at nineteen.
But almost regardless of the circumstances, a lot of people are going to be saying, “I told you so” to the leftist protestors who formed CHAZ, the so-called Capitol Hill Autonomous Zone.
They might also say it to us. “Hey, you ‘libertarians’ or ‘anarcho-capitalists’ or whatever you call yourselves, this is what you want, isn’t it? No state, no cops, citizens with their own guns making their own rules?”
How would you answer?
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Some young men should absolutely die by violence at nineteen.
And yes, it always ends this way. Someone is going to be in charge, and if you don’t organise to stop him, it will be the biggest, meanest man in the valley.
It’s really very simple: if someone is going to do violence to you, the police will be there…eventually. To write the report. Possibly arrest the perp. You will still be dead or injured, possibly your loved ones.
There is no substitute for having your own gun at the ready. And we are in need of them more than ever.
May I recommend the Mossberg 88 loaded with 12 “shorties” of buckshot. Or if you’re a kind person, use birdshot. But only the first two rounds, then in case the target is big enough or stupid enough to still be threatening, the next 10 rounds are buckshot.
Less than half the cost of a typical mobile phone!
FWIW, I live in Eastern Washington, a 3 hr drive from CHAZ. My daughter lives 2 miles from it!
I am not an anarcho-capitalist, so not a question I need to answer 😉
I’d say, “I’m sure that’s what you think I want. Certainly it’s what you’ve arranged. How do you like it?”
I would say that libertarianism and anarcho-anything are not synonymous. While libertarians tend to be attracted to anarchy, if we really though that anarchy was workable – we’d be anarchists and not libertarians. As such, libertarians, while open to alternatives to public police, aren’t about getting rid of the police. We are about maximizing personal liberty and maintaining a strong controlling hand over those public institutions we call, as a collective, government. Especially those organs we allow the privilege of wielding violence on our behalf.
A huge reason the police are a problem is not because they’re cops. Its not because the cops are racists. Its because the cops are given extreme deference to their decisions in the field – and that has led to a culture of ‘fuck it, I can do what I want’. And so they do. They shoot people because they can get away with it. They’re violent because we’ve allowed them to take a ‘us vs them’ mentality and arm up. They’re a problem because we use them to solve every ‘problem’ from ‘the neighbors are too loud’ to ‘that dude is threatening to kill himself’ to ‘those people are doing something I don’t think they should be allowed to do’ (which is basically the definition of vice laws).
The problem with the police is *us*, not the police. The police are just what we’ve wanted them to become.
So, let’s change the incentives. Let’s take back control. Because we’re never going to get rid of the need for rrough men standing ready to do violence on our behalf – no matter what name you pin on them.
One dead one wounded in a major US city, par for the course?
Quite surprised to see that from the Guardian though not that they describe violent drugged up thugs as ‘protesters’ or that that the latter part of the article is a declaration of their wokeness.
As a former anarcho-capitalist (now reformed as a minarchist), I’ve got to say that it is pretty much this problem that you end up having to solve straight away.
The prerequisites for a state to exist in any form are that you need to be able to determine the boundaries of your state, protect those boundaries and ensure that the use of force within those boundaries is determined by the community-at-large (ideally by direct democracy) in the form of the rules that will apply.
Fundamentals like the right to bare arms, castle doctrine, stand-your-ground should be a given, but when your state becomes larger than a village you then have to contend with the possibility of how you deal with threats (both external and domestic), which then become questions of the practicalities of how you deal with larger rogue elements from bandits to armies (i.e. threats that cannot be dealt with by a person or household).
Sure, depending upon the democracy installed this might lead to the formation of a paid police force and paid army, but then you’ve laid the seeds for ever growing government in the future. FOR THIS REASON IT SHOULD BE AVOIDED!!
A more libertarian approach is to keep matters on a purely voluntary basis with a NAP based common law only, administration by a rotating magistracy composed from the demos, a night watch whose only role is to arrest offenders and bring them before the magistracy or (if they are unable to apprehend), revert to a communal “Hue and Cry”.
For larger threats, having the ability for the magistracy (on behalf of and answerable to the demos) to raise a posse comitatus to deal with more serious threats or in the case of insurrection call the militia to arms.
All of this has existed previously and is relatively straight-forward to establish, but the fundamental is that it must be established. The rules must be setup and agreed by the demos with any changes, similarly confirmed by the demos.
Sure, you can call it a Constitution or a Charter, but fundamentally it is an agreed set of rules that those within the state agree to live by and be bound to. If you don’t want to abide by those rules, argue for change or bugger off elsewhere.
The problem with CHAZ is that it has rapidly descended from anarchy into tyranny, simply because they have not established a framework by which they could live with personal autonomy, deal with crime or prevent the rise of tyranny.
In addition, the CHAZ did not arise spontaneously from the residents of the district wishing to declare independence and shake off the shackles of the state, but by invasion of an external force of agitators against the wishes (of at least some) of the residents.
I’d say “Chicago has had 99 people shot and 18 killed since the 14th of June. Congrats, Seattle!”
(Plus, I think the shooting was by some rando white guy who drove up to the barricades in his big pickup and shot two black guys. Not sure the rest of us get any bragging rights out of this one.)
Now work out how many shootings / killings per 1KM square (roughly the size of the CHAZ) and things probably don’t compare so well.
How would I answer?
Surround the “free” zone with armed troops on a 24/7/365 basis and shoot dead anyone trying to leave. Like the East German border guards, give them a bonus for each one they manage to kill. Don’t forget to install grilles in the sewers to prevent them escaping that way. Nothing (food, water electricity, medical supplies etc.) in or out.
The problem will solve itself in a few weeks and will serve as an example to anyone else contemplating the same stupidity.
Q:
A: Yes.
(At least for anything short of a Randian utopia, which isn’t feasible anyways.)
Unlike Communism, it’s never been tried…
If the CHAZ only contained the anarchists then I would be tempted to agree. Republikflucht being a terrible offence and all, but the problem here is that the anarchists have seized control of 6 blocks of the city in which they are not residents but invaders (regardless of the support or otherwise of those prior residents of the area).
Maybe the city authorities should do the job they are bloody well paid for…?
A random thought:
When the mayor allows rioters to take over and maybe destroy a chunk of private property, and makes no move to boot them out because of socio-political factors, isn’t that a classic case of eminent domain?
At the very least, didn’t the Kelo case transform this into a case of eminent domain?
If I owned property within CHAZ/CHAOS/Whatever, the takings lawsuit for just compensation would already be filed.
I suspect that the bill for the exciting experiment in Seattle will be substantial, mostly because of the dereliction of duty of the elected officials and police.
Like Herpes, CHAZ is a gift that keeps on giving. I expect it to keep doing so long after order has been restored in the occupied zone.
But the market will always win. Most of the damage is going to be insured – homeowners, commercial property and CGL policies usually cover riot and insurrection damages. But property insurance premiums in Seattle are going to become awesome and staggering, first to make up for the loss and second because it won’t be considered a safe place to insure.
And that will be one more factor to set into motion the business exodus.
Well, in the first place, it depends on whether you’re an anarchocapitalist or a constitutionalist. I’ve been a constitutionalist for a while now.
But in the second place, as I understand anarchocapitalism, it doesn’t advocate doing away with police; it advocates having their services organized and funded in a different way. Anyone who wants details ought to take a look at David Friedman’s The Machinery of Freedom, a classic presentation on the subject.
I wouldn’t need to answer either. It’s a good example of what’s wrong with libertarianism – they tolerate the ancap crowd, and ancaps have no philosophical answer to the question of the initiation of force.
Given that we’ve got one dead and one seriously injured in CHAZ/CHOP this evening the question of a “philosophical answer to the question of the initiation of force.” seems to have been firmly answered in the affirmative.
The ancaps have no problem with the initiation of force.
“The problem with CHAZ is that it has rapidly descended from anarchy into tyranny”
There’s a difference?
“The ancaps have no problem with the initiation of force.”
I don’t think that’s valid. The people in the Autonomous Zone are not anarchocapitalists and have nothing in common with them. I don’t consider anarchocapitalism workable, but that seems like a straw man argument against it.
Okay, so I can accept that they aren’t what they claim to be. What are they then? Smurfs?
Very much so. I interact with people, tons of people, without any top-down control and direction. We experience anarchy all the time – its when the government steps in to ‘order’ things that we notice it – through its absence.
Having a government at one level doesn’t mean anarchy is crowded out anymore than having capitalist firms means that socialist ones must be outlawed.
The Democrats are behind CHAZ. The shithole is a creation of Marxist scum. It has nothing to do with any sort of free market. Lets hope the bikers break the Redscum as promised on 4th July.
In order to have democracy, you have to have a consensus that respects votes. The losers of an election need to accept the loss, and the winners need to accept that they might lose the next election. Vote fraud needs to be kept down to a dull roar, and government power needs to be limited so that it’s possible to run political campaigns. In addition, the laws have to be passed by elected legislators, rather than being decreed by executives or unelected bureaucrats, in order for the democracy to be meaningful. What we’re seeing now in the US is democracy failure, where these conditions are, more and more, failing to be met. So one answer to the OP question is another question: “Democracies – Do they always have to end this way?”
Likewise, in order to have anarchocapitalism, certain conditions need to be met. The chief one is that there needs to be a consensus in favor of the right to practice capitalism, and that’s something pointedly missing in the various “Autonomous Zones.”
The Autonomous Zones were an attempt to practice socialist-style anarchy, and us anarchocapitalists are among the first to say “That doesn’t work; that breaks down almost instantly into violence and tyranny.”
Well they were pretty spot on about that one. Going back to CHAZ/CHOP – They’ve established a form of “social anarchism” then? (or at least something closely to it)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_anarchism
“Okay, so I can accept that they aren’t what they claim to be. What are they then? Smurfs?”
Since when are they even claiming to be anarchocapitalists? From the accounts I’ve seen of their statements, they appear to be vulgar Marxists who loathe any form of capitalism. If they even ever heard the word “anarchocapitalism” I expect they would denounce it.
@GregWA: “It’s really very simple: if someone is going to do violence to you, the police will be there…eventually. To write the report. Possibly arrest the perp. You will still be dead or injured, possibly your loved ones. ”
True. But this is where the “great misunderstanding” lies. Preventing this is actually not the task of the police or of criminal law, as it is impossible. The task is preventing the next crime of the same perp by either killing him or putting him away. This is a misunderstanding, also often brought up by “leftists”: “See, the police counldn’t prevent that, so what is it good for?” (Not taking into account, that the police also sometimes prevents or stops crimes while they are done) . It’s good for preventing the NEXT crime. Whose victim might be you.
One could see thia analogous to the people who research aircraft accidents. No good to the people on board, but finding the weak hinge on the freight door saves the next ones…
I also want to say that, from an evolutionary perspective, dying by violence at ages like 19 is precisely what young men (or a certain percentage of them) are meant to be doing. Violent and risk-taking behavior are more prevalent in that sex and in the age range where they haven’t yet formed stable relationships with women than in any others; that’s so persistently true that it has to be an effective evolutionary strategy. Or at least to have been one at some time in the past.
I guess that whole “Civilisation” thing was just a mistake then? Also when you say “a certain percentage of them”, you mean “The 13%”? 😯 😛
Likewise. There is nothing contradictory about believing in personal liberty and the rule of law.
Perry and Longrider beat me to it. I have no problem with the existence of police.
BTW, and merely for the sake of pedantry, CHAZ have changed their name to CHOP. In that spirit, here’s a few other names they could have gone with:
Veganzuela
The Soyviet Union
Soymalia
“I guess that whole “Civilisation” thing was just a mistake then? Also when you say “a certain percentage of them”, you mean “The 13%”?”
I’ve no idea what “the 13%” refers to.
I think it’s a happy thing that civilization has lessened the amount of violence. But on one hand, civilized societies still need military defense, against less civilized societies and sometimes against other civilized societies, and there’s a long tradition of that being provided by young men. And on the other hand, civilized societies need to be defended against crime, particularly violent crime, which is also largely committed by young men, and effective defense against violent crime may require the use of deadly force.
1) CHOP/CHAZ are not any kind of capitalists. Nor are they truly anarcho – they are performing street theatre as allies-cum-infiltrators of a big-state party, whose local representatives help them instead of shutting them down, as they so easily could.
2) In London in the 1700s and earlier, there was a lot less available to the public in the way of state policing. Hue and cry, “Stop! Thief!” and suchlike were how crimes were pursued.
We have a sort-of knowledge of these rules from watching old cowboy movies. In the days when “an honest man was the only law for 500 miles” (‘The Virginian’, Owen Wister), legal procedures that, by then, were largely superseded by state police in the UK could be the only practicable means of action in the US.
You can also get a hint from Shakespearean comedy.
3) In 1700s London, the pursuit of petty crime relied far more on the public and a motivated victim or victim’s friend – a robbed shopkeeper, a burgled old lady, a beaten-up victim or whatever. (One side-effect clear in the Old Bailey records was that ‘victimless’ crimes, though on the statute books, were much more seldom pursued.) Of course, you can make a perfectly good case that this part-time amateur police were not very good at it, even though the Justices and Constables they called in were better than Shallow And Dogberry. What things would have looked like if these humble people had had more say in making the laws, not just the ability to use the state’s slightness to enforce mainly those they personally cared about, is hard to tell.
4) There is a similar issue between a state’s people and its army throughout the ages. (Of course, the army mostly was also the police. In 1700s London, a riot left few options between “close the shutters” and “call for the troops”.) You can have a militia, which is politically safer to the public (or rather, less dangerous) but may fare poorly against any regulars they meet, or you can have a regular army which, like a professional police force, can become an interest group separate from those it should protect.
5) I am no kind of anarcho-libertarian (and indeed am moderate in my libertarianism, knowing that moderation is stronger and lasts longer than extremism). I think government is medicine, not food. You eat when you are hungry. You only take medicine when you have good reason to think you are ill, not hypochondriac, and to think that the medicine is a cure, not snake oil.
The reason for the creation of the Police was because the Army has only one tactic. Threaten people with killing them and if they don’t immediately do as you say, kill them. That was essentially what happened at Peterloo in 1819 and the consequences shook Britain. It was the gap between the limited capabilities of the magistrates and local law enforcement and calling in the army that what emerged as Peeler’s was trying to solve, effective, public controlled law enforcement that could deal with problems small and large without leaving bodies on the streets.
Bobby:
Since you are a lawyer (iirc) i defer to you on this.
But what if the decision to stand down had come from the Chief of Police, or a decision not to prosecute from the District Attorney? Do they have this sort of discretionary power?
BTW i am surprised that there is no mention here of Fristaden Christiania. Established 1971, has not yet ended this way, or any other way. Although it probably has never been entirely ‘police free’.
Note that the Christianites are not squatting on private property.
That that’s an enormous, possibly wilful, misunderstanding of what anarchism/libertarianism means.
Also, do they really think they’re the first person to do that “gotcha”, they really believe that without police crime will increase? That we haven’t considered that?
For a hundred and eighty odd years, we’ve never considered what a police force might look like under libertarian/anarchism? That no-one’s ever asked?
It looks like Captain Sam Vimes and the Night Watch.
There. Question answered and done and dusted.
Move on.
Perry:
Longrider:
But please note that one can be an anarcho-capitalist, and still believe in the rule of law.
David D. Friedman considers Viking Iceland the nearest approximation to his view of market anarchism; and it has been said (in the preface to a saga in my collection) that, at a time when Europe was ruled by men, Iceland was ruled by laws. (Though neither statement is entirely accurate.)
And then there is the famous line in Njal’s Saga: In the Law this land shall prosper, outside the Law it shall go to ruin. (Quoting from memory.)
William H. Stoddard:
I suppose that i myself am best described as a constitutionalist, or perhaps a classical republican. But let me be clear about what that means to me.
A constitutionalist, for me, is someone who accepts that there is always going to be an unequal distribution of power in any society; and that even an equal distribution of power would be a problem (if feasible, which it isn’t) if the power of the collective over individuals is large.
At the same time, as demonstrated by history, there are ways to minimize the power of the ruling class over individuals. The study of such ways is the subject of constitutional theory.
Anarcho-capitalism, where feasible, is one such way; but not necessarily the most convenient way. However, one can incorporate elements of anarcho-capitalism into other forms of constitutional order.
Niall:
Indeed, Westerns are the most popular depictions of anything like anarcho-capitalism. At least, Westerns which do not focus on large-scale conflicts between Indians and the Cavalry.
But in this respect, i must mention the Sagas of Icelanders once again.
The Godfather is also of interest. More the book than the movie, in my opinion. The speech of Don Vito Corleone in chapter XX deserves close study, even if you don’t approve of Don Vito’s methods.
While my sample is small and anecdotal, I believe this is not the case. From what I’ve heard, riot/civil insurrection are explicitly excluded in most business insurance policies.
Probably blacks, which are approximately 13% of the US population.
Are you a reincarnated Anglo-Saxon John ?
Nope. My family is from Ireland via the Isle of Man, so more likely some combination of Celtic / Viking / Scots-Irish ancestry. Anglo-Saxon’s are a bunch of soft Southern shandy drinking poof invaders.
From what understand you have to get a separate rider specifically for civil unrest, it’s expensive, and it only covers damage to the structure. Nobody pays for it.
One of the reasons mayors don’t seem very bothered by mobs looting and burning their cities is the penchant for the federal government to swoop in afterward with buckets of cash in an attempt to pacify the area. I’m sure it’s all conditioned on “need”, too, so it would be downright foolish to insure your business against this eventuality.
Captain Vimes and the Night Watch? If only they had that!
I think what they actually have right now is the dragon…..which they created themselves out of their own vain imaginations.
So very, very appropriate.
This is my answer. Anarcho-capitalist is an oxymoron.
There was a sample of police-free “order” in Chicago recently. Certain neighborhoods were free of “demonstrations”, rioting, looting, and arson.
That’s because the Latin Kings and the Spanish Counts and the Mexican Vice Lords all turned out said “Not on our turf, pendejos.”
Which is to say that “spontaneous order” is very often just a variant of rule by mobs and/or gangs. If there are no police to enforce order, order will be supplied by the strongest and most aggressive private faction.
In good conditions that may be a “vigilance committee” of honest citizens. But it’s just as likely to be the biggest criminal gang or dominant ethnic group.
My experience differs. In the hundreds of commercial property policies I reviewed over the years (mostly from my then-employer, but also from other insurers), property loss from riot and insurrection was covered. It took an exclusionary endorsement form to remove that coverage.
What is NOT standard is business income loss/interruption coverage. That usually requires a special rider, and it’s expensive.
I can foresee this policy (of covering riot damage) changing in our new USA, though. It’ll be interesting watching the big property insurers handle re-ups and new policies in Minneapolis, for instance. There’s an awful lot of money about to be paid out on account of a type of coverage that usually doesn’t boost premiums by much at all, and insurers hate that.
As an addendum to what I typed above – there’s a problem in that many businesses are in rented property. Typically, the landlord buys the property insurance, and so usually ends up covered for riot-damage to his property.
But a money-tight business owner (and premises renter) saves money by buying only what insurance he must have. He can, of course, purchase coverage for inventory replacement and business interruption, but it’s not cheap, and if you have to watch every nickel, that’s one of the first things to go.
I think that’s why we’re hearing from so many business owners (but not premises-owners) that they have no coverage.
No – police free areas do not have to end in violence.
For example, Amish communities are not hotbeds of violent crime.
This area in Seattle collapsed into violence because it was taken over by violent Marxists.
Why are people not mentioning that the people who took over are Marxists.
What is wrong with everyone. Why are you not mentioning the elephant in the room.
The county of Rutland did not use to have a police force – when it was forced to have one (by an Act of Parliament) it established a “police force” of two people (who had nothing much to do) – and that remained the situation to almost within living memory.
But if Rutland had faced a large group of armed MARXISTS turning up – things would have been rather different.
Again what is wrong with everyone? Why are you all scared to type the “M word”.
Do you think that if you type the word “Marxist” they are going to magically appear out of your computer?