{"id":1126,"date":"2014-08-24T14:20:30","date_gmt":"2014-08-24T18:20:30","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/?p=1126"},"modified":"2014-08-24T14:20:30","modified_gmt":"2014-08-24T18:20:30","slug":"libertarianism-and-the-militarization-of-the-police","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2014\/08\/libertarianism-and-the-militarization-of-the-police.html","title":{"rendered":"Libertarianism and “The Militarization” of the Police"},"content":{"rendered":"

A line that has become all too common in some libertarian circles is that the key problem, or even a <\/em>problem, in Ferguson, Missouri is a problem facing the rest of the nation.<\/p>\n

This problem is what these libertarians have taken to calling \u201cthe militarization\u201d of the police.<\/p>\n

The charge that police forces have become \u201cmilitarized\u201d is almost as perplexing as the charge\u2014also increasingly common among these same libertarians\u2014that \u201cracism\u201d is alive and well among America\u2019s police officers and white Americans generally.<\/p>\n

And this, I believe, is because the term \u201cmilitarization,\u201d in this context<\/em>, is about as meaningless as that of \u201cracism.\u201d<\/p>\n

For starters, above all people, it is the libertarian who defends the right of the average, law-abiding citizen to own firearms.\u00a0 Furthermore, the libertarian thinks that, in principle (even if not always necessarily in fact), the average, law-abiding citizen has a right to own whatever kind or kinds of firearms that he chooses\u2014regardless of whether his neighbors think that he \u201cneeds\u201d them or not.<\/p>\n

So, if there is nothing objectionable about the hairdresser next door owning a bazooka or an M16, then why is it objectionable for the police\u2014the police<\/em> who exist solely for the purpose of shielding civilization from barbarism\u2014to own and, if need be, use <\/em>bazookas and M16\u2019s?<\/p>\n

Surely, it can\u2019t be the mere presence <\/em>of such weaponry in the hands of uniformed police officers that has the libertarian howling about \u201cmilitarization.\u201d\u00a0 If so, then the libertarian sounds eerily similar to his leftist counterpart who can\u2019t resist personifying inanimate objects like guns and SUV\u2019s.<\/p>\n

Maybe what\u2019s got the libertarian\u2019s goat is the fact that, as the law currently stands, police are permitted to possess weaponry that are forbidden to citizens: the latter should <\/em>be permitted to own, say, machine guns, but they are not.<\/p>\n

Now, if it is this<\/em> that has the libertarian apoplectic, then he is in desperate need of new terms in which to cast his position, for it isn\u2019t \u201cthe militarization\u201d of the police at all to which he objects.\u00a0 He is unhappy that citizens aren\u2019t also <\/em>allowed to be \u201cmilitarized.\u201d<\/p>\n

It is as sensible for the libertarian to go on about \u201cthe militarization\u201d of the police because it is illegal for citizens to bear comparable arms as it is sensible to become outraged over the practice<\/em> of rewarding and punishing because, sometimes, individuals don\u2019t deserve the rewards and punishments that they receive.<\/p>\n

It is the distribution <\/em>of benefits\u2014in this case, arms\u2014<\/em>to which our laws lead, and not<\/em> the benefits<\/em> themselves, to which the libertarian objects.<\/p>\n

Another consideration regarding the libertarian\u2019s position against \u201cthe militarization\u201d of the police is that it requires the drawing of precisely the sorts of arbitrary <\/em>lines when it comes to distinguishing permissible from impermissible weaponry for police that the libertarian abhors when the discussion shifts to, say, the topic of drug legalization.<\/p>\n

Since (as I too believe) the most significant argument for drug legalization adduced by the libertarian centers in an affirmation of the liberty of the individual (adult) to engage in self-destructive conduct, he rightly regards as capricious the decision to, say, legalize marijuana for recreational purposes while criminalizing other, \u201charder\u201d drugs.\u00a0 Similarly, if the police can be said to be \u201cmilitarized\u201d when officers are armed with, say, \u201crocket launchers,\u201d then on what grounds can we deny that police are \u201cmilitarized\u201d when officers are armed with hand guns?<\/p>\n

Were police \u201cmilitarized\u201d when, back during the Prohibition era, officers were armed with machine guns while combating Al Capone and his goons? If the libertarian answers this question in the negative, then we must inquire into the basis for his determination that police are non-<\/em>militarized when packing machine gun heat but \u201cmilitarized\u201d when armed with more <\/em>than this<\/em>.<\/p>\n

However, there is one final critique of the libertarian\u2019s position, and, from his standpoint,<\/em> it is by far and away the most important reason for why he should relinquish talk of police \u201cmilitarization.\u201d<\/p>\n

England, for instance, is a place that is even more socialist and multi-cultural obsessed than the contemporary United States.\u00a0 For this reason, it is more of a genuinely militarized<\/em> society than is America.\u00a0 That police in England are forbidden from carrying firearms changes this not one iota.<\/p>\n

When a state\u2014a \u201cnation-state,\u201d a \u201csociety\u201d\u2014is imagined to be, not a \u201ccivil association,\u201d as the philosopher Michael Oakeshott describes what we\u2019re inclined to call a \u201cfree society,\u201d but an \u201centerprise association\u201d\u2014an organization animated by a grandiose vision toward the realization of which all members are coerced to contribute\u2014there is, necessarily, militarization.<\/p>\n

But the militarization is not to be found in the actual presence or possession by government of weaponry of one sort or another.\u00a0 The militarization consists in two inseparable facts: (1) the society defines itself, or is defined by its self-styled representatives, in terms of some lofty goal or ideal\u2014Equality, Virtue, Human Rights, Multi-Culturalism, Piety, Social Justice, Security, etc.; (2) the government<\/em> is assigned, or assigns to itself, the role of \u201cleader,\u201d i.e. the role of \u201cleading\u201d (compelling<\/em>) citizens toward the fulfillment of the ideal.<\/p>\n

It is the existence of laws of a certain type, accompanied by the self-conception of a people that permits these kinds of laws to arise\u2014not<\/em> the apparatus in place to enforce<\/em> those laws\u2014that differentiates a militarized society from a non-militarized one.<\/p>\n

A society with no military<\/em> and police armed with sticks and stones can be more militarized than one with a standing military and cops armed to the teeth.<\/p>\n

To be sure, America is, to an alarming degree, a militarized society.\u00a0 But this is the point: America <\/em>is militarized.\u00a0 To speak of its police forces<\/em> as being militarized totally misses the mark. It\u2019s like a person who\u2019s dying of lung cancer complaining that it is his lungs, <\/em>not himself, <\/em>that\u2019s sick.\u00a0 Yet even this analogy fails to capture the crux of the difficulty with this reasoning. More illustrative is the case of a cancer patient who identifies the chemo-therapy<\/em> with which he\u2019s treating his sickness with the sickness itself.<\/p>\n

Moreover, complaining about \u201cthe militarization\u201d of the police actually trivializes the real militarization, the marshalling of citizens\u2019 resources in time and treasure, blood, sweat, and tears, for purposes of \u201cNational Greatness,\u201d \u201cEquality,\u201d etc, in which our government has been engaged for a long, long time.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A line that has become all too common in some libertarian circles is that the key problem, or even a problem, in Ferguson, Missouri is a problem facing the rest of the nation. This problem is what these libertarians have taken to calling \u201cthe militarization\u201d of the police. The charge that police forces have become…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":399,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1126","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nLibertarianism and "The Militarization" of the Police<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2014\/08\/libertarianism-and-the-militarization-of-the-police.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Libertarianism and "The Militarization" of the Police\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A line that has become all too common in some libertarian circles is that the key problem, or even a problem, in Ferguson, Missouri is a problem facing the rest of the nation. This problem is what these libertarians have taken to calling \u201cthe militarization\u201d of the police. The charge that police forces have become…\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2014\/08\/libertarianism-and-the-militarization-of-the-police.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"At the Intersection of Faith and Culture\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2014-08-24T18:20:30+00:00\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Jack Kerwick\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Libertarianism and \"The Militarization\" of the Police","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2014\/08\/libertarianism-and-the-militarization-of-the-police.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Libertarianism and \"The Militarization\" of the Police","og_description":"A line that has become all too common in some libertarian circles is that the key problem, or even a problem, in Ferguson, Missouri is a problem facing the rest of the nation. This problem is what these libertarians have taken to calling \u201cthe militarization\u201d of the police. The charge that police forces have become…","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2014\/08\/libertarianism-and-the-militarization-of-the-police.html","og_site_name":"At the Intersection of Faith and Culture","article_published_time":"2014-08-24T18:20:30+00:00","author":"Jack Kerwick","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2014\/08\/libertarianism-and-the-militarization-of-the-police.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2014\/08\/libertarianism-and-the-militarization-of-the-police.html","name":"Libertarianism and \"The Militarization\" of the Police","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/#website"},"datePublished":"2014-08-24T18:20:30+00:00","dateModified":"2014-08-24T18:20:30+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/#\/schema\/person\/6832222998cc14717ded1849531201c5"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2014\/08\/libertarianism-and-the-militarization-of-the-police.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2014\/08\/libertarianism-and-the-militarization-of-the-police.html"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/2014\/08\/libertarianism-and-the-militarization-of-the-police.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Libertarianism and “The Militarization” of the Police"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/","name":"At the Intersection of Faith and Culture","description":"Beliefnet Voices - Jack Kerwick","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/#\/schema\/person\/6832222998cc14717ded1849531201c5","name":"Jack Kerwick","description":"I have a Ph.D. in philosophy from Temple University, a master's degree in philosophy from Baylor University, and a bachelor's degree in philosophy and religious studies from Wingate University. I teach philosophy at several colleges in the New Jersey and Pennsylvania areas.","sameAs":["http:\/\/www.jackkerwick.com"],"url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/author\/jkerwick"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1126","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/399"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1126"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1126\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1127,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1126\/revisions\/1127"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1126"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1126"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/attheintersectionoffaithandculture\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1126"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}