Making the rounds through libertarian (and other) circles in the wake of the police shooting death of Michael Brown is the notion that the \u201cmilitarization\u201d of local police forces is a huge problem besetting the country.<\/p>\n
Though I self-identify as a conservative, I have a considerable affection for libertarianism.\u00a0 In fact, it is precisely because of this fondness that I am compelled to put out to pasture all of this \u201cmilitarization\u201d talk.<\/p>\n
(1)The mere possession<\/em> of weaponry of a kind on the part of police is no more objectionable\u2014no more a justification for the charge<\/em> of \u201cmilitarization\u201d\u2014than is the mere existence of guns or SUV\u2019s objectionable. <\/strong><\/p>\n For starters, it is unclear as to what libertarians even mean in claiming that the police are \u201cmilitarized.\u201d\u00a0 From what I can gather\u2014sorry, but no self-avowed libertarian writer who I have yet encountered is clear on this\u2014it is the fact that today\u2019s police forces are equipped with weaponry of a technologically sophisticated sort, the sort with which our soldiers are armed when confronting enemies overseas, that warrants the charge of \u201cmilitarization.\u201d<\/p>\n How the mere possession of things <\/em>is a cause of alarm for, of all people, the libertarian, is beyond me.\u00a0 In personifying inanimate objects he comes perilously close to sounding like just those enemies of liberty against whom he\u2019s tirelessly railing, those who would personify guns, wealth, and, say, SUV\u2019s.<\/p>\n Moreover, libertarians are the first to champion the (law-abiding, adult) citizen\u2019s constitutional, even \u201cinalienable,\u201d right<\/em> to bear virtually whatever arms he prefers.\u00a0 How, we must ask, does it turn out to be permissible\u2014not<\/em> \u201cmilitarized\u201d\u2014for the janitor next door to possess a machine gun, but somehow impermissible\u2014\u201cmilitarized\u201d\u2014for the police <\/em>to do the same?<\/p>\n (2) The distribution <\/em>of arms among the police, on the one hand, and the citizenry, on the other, utterly fails to establish that the police, or anyone<\/em>, haven\u2019t a right to arm themselves like Rambo\u2014i.e. it fails to supply a single warrant for the charge of \u201cmilitarization.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n If the libertarian insists that it isn\u2019t the possession by police of weaponry as such to which he objects, but the fact that, as things currently stand, the police have access to these weapons to which other citizens are denied, then it is the distribution <\/em>of this access, and not the access itself, that has him upset.<\/p>\n But if this is the case, then the proper complaint is not, \u201cThe police are \u2018militarized\u2019!\u201d The proper complaint is that, \u201cWe should be allowed to be \u2018militarized\u2019 too,\u201d or something like this.<\/p>\n In other words, the charge of \u201cmilitarization\u201d makes no sense here.\u00a0 \u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n (3) The concept of \u201cmilitarization\u201d encompasses the concepts of collective purpose <\/em>and coercion.<\/em> <\/strong><\/p>\n Government, by definition, has a monopoly on force.\u00a0 <\/em>Yet, theoretically, the libertarian, unlike the anarchist, has no objections to this: the libertarian recognizes the authority of government to both enact and enforce<\/em> laws. \u00a0Since police officers are government agents, the libertarian affirms their authority <\/em>to deploy the power at their disposal to coerce <\/em>citizens into abiding by the laws that police are committed to safeguarding.<\/p>\n So, the sheer fact that police are endowed with the power to coerce prospective and actual violators of the law can\u2019t be something with which the libertarian has a problem, for he has no problem with government per se.<\/p>\n In other words, that police are using force to maintain law and order\u2014precisely what police have always done and what they\u2019ve always been meant to do\u2014can\u2019t be the spring of the libertarian\u2019s howls of \u201cmilitarization.\u201d<\/p>\n Only if government agents\u2014whether police or otherwise\u2014<\/em>are coercing citizens in the service of fulfilling some grand collective purpose <\/em>will the charge of \u201cmilitarization\u201d apply.\u00a0 Coercion, in and of itself, is insufficient to constitute \u201cmilitarization.\u201d<\/p>\n But this, in turn, means that the actual weaponry <\/em>with which the police (or any other agent of the government) are endowed is irrelevant <\/em>to determining whether the police, or any other agent of government, are \u201cmilitarized.\u201d\u00a0 If police were armed only with clubs, but used these clubs in order to insure that citizens were exercising three days a week for the purpose of producing \u201cThe Physically Fit Society,\u201d say, then this <\/em>would indeed show that the police had a \u201cmilitarized\u201d set of mind.\u00a0 Conversely, if the police are armed to the teeth with the stuff of soldiers but used their arms only to insure that the rule of law was preserved, to protect the life, limb, and property of citizens from those\u2014like the rioters in Ferguson\u2014who are intent upon undermining civilization, this would fail <\/em>to establish that they are \u201cmilitarized.\u201d<\/p>\n (4) Police brutality, dereliction of duty, abuse of power and the like are issues that should count for much for all decent people, especially the libertarian.\u00a0 But none of these things are necessarily a function of \u201cmilitarization,\u201d much less equivalent to it. <\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n That there are police officers that abuse their authority and power is not only an empirically verified fact; it is a no-brainer to the lover of liberty who knows, along with Lord Acton, that while \u201cabsolute power tends to corrupt absolutely,\u201d even a limited degree of \u201cpower tends to corrupt.\u201d<\/p>\n But when police do <\/em>violate their oath to serve and protect, then we can and should call out their violations for what they are.\u00a0 Conflating or obscuring issues with bumper-sticker friendly misnomers like \u201cmilitarization\u201d is counterproductive.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Making the rounds through libertarian (and other) circles in the wake of the police shooting death of Michael Brown is the notion that the \u201cmilitarization\u201d of local police forces is a huge problem besetting the country. Though I self-identify as a conservative, I have a considerable affection for libertarianism.\u00a0 In fact, it is precisely because…<\/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-1131","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\n