By : Across
the West, instances of abuse of authority by domestic police forces are
becoming more prevalent. Two weeks ago, two police officers in my
hometown accosted my brother as he walked back to his car after
purchasing a six pack of beer. The officers, who thought my brother was
up to no good because he parked a few blocks from a bar, questioned him
for a full half hour. All the while, they found it necessary to remind
him repeatedly that “he was in trouble” and that the situation was
“serious.” After my brother asked numerous times what he had done and
if he was under arrest, the two officers finally let him go. Though he
was never charged with a crime, it was implied that he wasn’t free to
leave. During the back-and-forth, one officer claimed that he and his
fellow officers kept the town safe through such tactics like assuming
everyone is a criminal. The sad part is, the officer likely believed
his own story.
Situations of police arrogance and abuse like this are now
commonplace in many Western countries and especially the United States.
After a decade of civil liberties systematically being slaughtered and
the rights of foreigners being stripped away in the name of “fighting
terrorism,” even the most egregious acts of crushing natural rights
hardly draw any outcry from the greater public.
Just last week on
August 16, 2012, former Marine Brandon Raub was forcibly taken from his home in Chesterfield Country, Virginia and is currently being held
against his will in a psychiatric hospital. His alleged crime he has
yet to be charged for? Questioning the federal government’s true motive
in all its dealings on his private Facebook page. Despite having no
criminal record and no history of mental health illness, Raub was
effectively kidnapped from his home in a coordinated effort by FBI
officials, Secret Service agents, and local police. The pickup hardly
differs from the Gestapo tactics used in communist Russia to suppress
political dissent. The arresting officials claim that Raub was not
under arrest despite the fact that he was in shackled handcuffs and was
not free to return home. FBI spokeswoman Dee Rybiski assured
the Associated Press that many of Raub’s writing were “threatening” and
that they had received “complaints” over the violent rhetoric. But
according to The New American, nowhere in Raub’s writing was violent revolution ever suggested. Thankfully, a judge recently ordered the release of Raub as there was no legal basis to hold him involuntarily.
While the Brandon Raub affair is horrendous, arrest and detainment of
political dissent is nothing new to the United States. From John
Adams’ signing of the Alien and Sedition Act to Abraham Lincoln
suspending Habeas Corpus and imprisoning political opponents
and those who spoke out against the Civil War, freedom of speech and
peaceful protest have never been regarded as sacrosanct. Should law
enforcement feel the need to keep someone against their will, there is
little to stand in their way. And this behavior is not unique to the
United States.
In Canada, the home of “peace, order, and good government,” the
people’s faith in the goodness of monopolized authority is being
challenged. Last spring after many provincial governments threatened
tuition hikes, university students took to the streets in protest.
Police brutality ended up showing its ugly head
as riot police arrested as many as 85 protestors. These students, who
naively saw themselves as entitled to a college education paid for by
pilfered funds, were served a taste of what government really looks
like. To quote H.L. Mencken, the students believed in the sanctity of
democracy and got it “good and hard” as they witnessed the truth that
government amounts to no more than a riot shield, a billy club, and the
trigger of a gun. In Europe, austerity measures have evoked similar
objection as many nonviolent protests have been upended
by police crackdowns. Though the anti-austerity crowd generally wants
their perspective governments to shower them with entitlement benefits,
their childlike desire of something for nothing is not deserving of a
tax-funded bludgeoning.
As the state grows in size and scope of authority so must its
enforcement apparatus. The forced taking and distributing of wealth is
not a trait found in a peaceful society. With every ratcheting up of
government intervention into civil life comes growth in the police
state. The perpetual War on Terror has only exacerbated this trend as
many Americans have shamefully allowed for their inner-most private moments
to be violated in the name of feeling safe. Likewise, prominent
governments the world over have bowed down to America hegemony and the
sheer arrogance through which a policy of extra-judicial murder and the silencing of criticism is conducted. As LRC columnist and author Fred Reed explains:
People speak of the onrush of the police
state. I think that many do not understand how fast it comes, or how
thorough it will be.
The political framework falls rapidly
into place. Few or no safeguards exist, and probably few are possible. A
growing authoritarianism rapidly erodes what protections we had. The
courts allow random searches of passengers of trains and subways
without probable cause. Warrantless tapping of personal communications
is rampant, or done with secret warrants from a secret federal judge.
TSA has Viper squads that stop cars at random for searches. In many
places it is against the law to video the police, who everywhere become
more militarized and less accountable. For practical purposes, citizens
have no recourse.
It’s quite easy to understand why law enforcement, as a vital
enforcement arm of government, uses its authority so recklessly and with
little impunity. The state, as anarcho-capitalist philosopher
Hans-Herman Hoppe defines it, acts as “the final arbiter and judge in
every case of interpersonal conflict.” Whatever issue a citizen has
with an enforcer of government law, it must be heard and dealt with by
another state official; thereby making bias inevitable. Should a judge
declare whatever claim you make against the police as void, the process
comes to an end. There is no appeal to a competing authority. Law,
instead of being concrete and based on moral principles, is bent and
formed to fit whatever the enforcers in the state deem necessary.
Instead of protecting person and property, law enforcement seeks to
protect itself and the power it has accumulated. In other words,
“protect and serve” does not apply to society but rather to their
employer known as the state.
Questioning of monopolized, violent, and easily corruptible authority
is not a radical stance by any means. Believing that society is
incapable of functioning without living under a gun is not only a
radical view but also one that hides a hatred of humanity. It is a view
based on the ideal that only might makes right and that peace and
liberty are impossible conditions for man to prosper in.
The state’s monopoly on violence ultimately acts as a hindrance to
social cooperation and rising living standards. It is regressive in the
sense that monopolies have no incentive to meet the needs of
consumers. Government law enforcement is legalized force shielded by
the threat of even more force. There is little accountability or
repercussion for police brutality except in some extreme cases. If a
victim is unable to illicit support from a media establishment
intoxicated with its position as the government’s court reporter,
misdeeds go unpunished. Perpetrators are then more emboldened to commit
the same, and even worse, acts in the future.
In the end, law enforcement in its current form should not be looked
to as a friend of peace but merely as another branch of the state’s
institutionalized thuggery. There is little justice to be had if one
group of individuals operates outside the rule of proper and moral law.
Freedom comes not from a badge and gun but of a recognition that man
has an absolute right to not be coerced against his wishes. Anything
else amounts to repression of body and spirit with social degeneration
as the final outcome.
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