I had the privilege of chatting with Joe Carter and John Schwenkler on their respective takes (linked to by their names) on the arrest of Henry Louis Gates Jr., the state and role of policing in America, and its corresponding relationship to communities everywhere. It goes without saying that both Joe and John are sharp guys, so the conversation was pretty engaging (my bad joke at the end not withstanding).
Check out the audio after the jump.
Comments on the discussion are, as always, welcomed and encouraged.
London conference venues 
Will Truman 
Patrick Cahalan 
Cornelius 
wardsmith 
Tod Kelly 
Tom Van Dyke 
Murali 
Borat: “I do a picture, only small, of the Tishnik Masacre. Where many Uzbeks…crushed!”
Kindly Gray Hippie: “How did you feel when you drew this?”
Borat: “Very proud!”.
KGH: “I’m just listening with sadness…a little sadness for your people…?”
Borat: “Yes…no, it is not sad. It is us who do the kill!”
When in doubt,
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Joe made a lot of good points that I really liked. My favorite though is best summarized by this quote from his First Things post:
“For example, philosophically perceptive, right-leaning libertarians (as opposed to liberalartarians or leave-me-alone libertines) are a subclass comprised almost exclusively of white, middle-to-upper class, educated males aged twenty to fifty. Sociologically speaking, they are a demographic that is unlikely to have extensive experience with public disorder. It is understandable why they would be dismissive of such concerns when other interests, such as the rights of the individual, are involved.”
I haven’t heard the libertarian philosphy explained that way, but it makes a lot of sense to me given that every libertarian I have ever met in person fits that stereotype very neatly. His remark in the broadcast that it’s ironic that libertarians fear the state more than crime is again very accurate and I think a reflection of the safe life they lead.
There is an old saying that liberals are just conservatives who have never been mugged. Maybe libertarians fit that description as well.
A conservative is a liberal who has been mugged.
A liberal is a conservative who has been arrested.
JB, dude, that’s a good one!
That formula is older than me, Bob. It’s probably older than you.
(Which is not to say that I endorse or agree with the formula. I was merely offering it up in response to Mike’s allusion to it.)
Actually, I’ve lived through an attempted carjacking (in Baltimore, no less), and had various property stolen from me before. Stereotypes don’t seem to work so well when confronted with reality.
Indeed. As I noted in the podcast, I’ve been mugged twice, have had my car broken into, and had an ex-roommate pistol-whipped on the front doorstep a few months after I moved out. Plus I’ve thrown some parties that pretty much define “public disorder”.
Right, because folks in the inner city just love the kind of policing tactics that libertarians object to.
John,
Few people in the inner cities, the kinds that have serious suspicions of the police, would self-identify as liberals. To the contrary, few are engaged in that sort of political discussion at all. They’re too busy just trying to survive. Yes, they might pull the lever every 4 years for the Democratic candidate and yes, they may rely on liberal-created social programs, but to suggest that they have anything in common with a true liberal is a reach.
Do you really think that people in the inner cities are totally ok with police tactics as they currently exist? Because, love him or hate him (and I fall into the “hate” category), Al Sharpton was able to develop a large following for a reason.
When I used to smoke a lot of pot I wasn’t a big fan of drug laws. Take the folks in those urban areas out of that life and it’s amazing how quickly their perceptions change. My neighborhood is 50% black. These are a lot of people who came from dense urban areas and moved to the suburbs. They get along with the police fine now. But they also aren’t doing the kinds of things that attracted police attention before and they will tell you that. At neighborhood meetings I have heard them scold other blacks who are new to the neighborhood and still have a chip on their shoulder.
I never said they would. (Though I’m not at all sure that I’d agree with your characterization, either.) My point, which I also made in the podcast, was just that “tough on crime” policies are supported much more strongly by white, middle-to-upper-class conservatives, while the people who face the worst sort of crime tend to view the police with precisely the kind of hostility that Joe was attributing to libertarians’ supposedly sheltered lives. If there’s evidence for a significant correlation between exposure to crime and social unrest and support for heavy-handed police tactics, I’d love to see it.
My understanding of crime investigations in inner cities is that when a serious crime is committed (murder, assault, rape) the people there are more than happy to cooperate with the police. They want to see the person caught. Where there is a lack of cooperation is mostly with drug inestigations, which is where a lot of the friction lies. So I would say the distrust of the police is somewhat selective.
What you describe seems not to be the case here in Kansas City. Alvin Brooks, a former black cop, now a community activist, is often on local TV admonishing the public to be more cooperative with the police when they are investigating major crime, murder, rape. Apparently inner-city residents are very reluctant to snitch, even when they can do so anonymously on a tip line. Just what I see locally.
Scott, an excellent conservation.
Here is a local story quoting Mr. Brooks on the snitch problem here in KC.
http://www.kmbc.com/news/18396920/detail.html?rss=kc1&psp=news
When Mike says that few people in inner cities would self-identify as liberals, he’s engaging in rhetoric. Perhaps few would, but their policy positions are overwhelmingly liberal. Every bit of large scale political polling for decades has revealed this. People from urban areas support liberal policies, including in terms of policing, at rates far, far higher than their suburban and rural counterparts. Indeed, as Noah Millman has ably described, American conservatism simply does not have a meaningful presence in urban politics. (There are some powerful disadvantages to this, by the way.)
And, indeed, many, many inner city people who don’t commit crimes have a great fear of the police. The reasons are complicated, and in part they are simply of a piece with many other Americans who are similarly law-abiding and similarly afraid of police. But look, don’t take my word for it. Go down to an inner city and canvas around. Ask people who, like myself, have done a lot of community and political organizing in inner cities. You will find a deep antipathy to the police. Again, the reasons are complicated, and the situation is unfortunate in many directions. But the idea that people who have the misfortune of having been victims of crimes are less likely to support liberal causes simply is not true. Black people are statistically much more likely to be the victims of crimes than white people, both violent and otherwise, and yet black Americans vote for liberal politicians with a consistency and unanimity that is perhaps unique in American politics.
Anyway, the point with “mugged liberal” rhetoric has always and only been to ridicule, not to make an actual point. Personally? I have been mugged, I have had my car broken into many times, I have had my home burglarized. I have also, incidentally, been in a number of real fights with people who you might colloquially call “street toughs,” largely due to the vagaries of my biography, and have at times genuinely felt afraid for my life. And I have, after consideration and with great deliberation, continued to support polices limiting the police and their privileges. Because believe it or not, not everyone must value exactly what Mike from the Big Stick values. And not everyone who has been the repeated victim of serious crime lives in fear.
One aspect of American politics that simply does not change is that people believe that freedom involves no tradeoffs. Freedom, real freedom, has always involved sacrifices. The right to free expression entails the loss of a right to not be offended. And rights of the accused– without which none of our other rights have any meaning, by the way– and privacy rights ensure giving up a little bit of security. That, in a nutshell, is the very definition of the American choice, liberty over safety. But it really is a choice. You really do have to sacrifice something. Totalitarian societies, adequately funded and resourced, have remarkably low street crime. The also have a remarkable lack of human rights, personal autonomy and democratic governance. That’s the deal. People like Mike would like for you to believe that you can both be free and have a police state with no limits on the discretionary power of police. You can’t. He’s free to prefer the latter, of course. But I refuse to play ball with the narrative that says that I am only capable of preferring the former so long as I have never been the victim of a violent crime; that isn’t true, was never true, and if your vision of law and order require it to be true you are engaging in empty sophistry.
General support for liberal policies in inner-cities is much more contributable to an over-dependence on social programs, rather than a preference for liberal policing ideas.
As for the incredibly inaccurate statement that ‘People like Mike would like for you to believe that you can both be free and have a police state with no limits on the discretionary power of police.’ I would ask you to back that statement up. Please show me the statement I made where I said there should be no limits on police power.
I’m curious Freddie…do you believe that we should never sacrafice freedom for safety/security? I think the problem is that you see freedom as being a much broader thing than it really is.
Mike:
“General support for liberal policies in inner-cities is much more contributable to an over-dependence on social programs, rather than a preference for liberal policing ideas.”
This really needs to be backed up. There is just way too much evidence that people in inner cities have a deep antipathy, as Freddie puts it, towards the police to simply make the blanket statement that this is untrue.
Additionally, you’ve made pretty clear in your past comments that you think people have a duty to show absolute deference to the police and that the only time that the police may be questioned is after the fact, via some form or another of lawsuit (to which, as I’ve pointed out, there are huge institutional hurdles – qualified immunity doctrines, costs of suit, lack of access to attorneys, etc.). To me, this is a complete lack of meaningful limits on the discretionary power of police.
If your answer is “internal affairs!” then I’d recommend taking a look at this:
http://publiusendures.blogspot.com/2008/05/disturbing-admission-by-camden-nj.html
So then Mark your contention is that liberal policies are generally less cop-friendly and therefore a (major?) reason why Democrats get so much support from inner-cities?
No, my contention is that there is a deep antipathy towards the police in the inner cities, period. Whether or not this is why certain Democrats do well in the inner cities is really not relevant for purposes of this discussion, although it’s certainly a part of the reason. And it’s not a function of labeling something as “cop-friendly,” but one of actually giving voice to the people who live in these communities.
I’m confused Mark. I thought your remark that I am under-estimating anti-police sentiments was meant to refute my contention that inner-city folks vote Democrat based on social programs and not policing policies. Now you are saying that it has nothing to do with being cop-friendly or not.
To also reply to your earlier point, the reason I believe people should show a deference to the police during an investigation is because to do otherwise is pointless. I find it inconceivable that any officer is going to either change their mind about arresting someone or sulk off into the night under the heat of a verbal assault. So the civillian isn’t serving their own cause. Additionally there is the very real notion that if behavior like Prof. Gates exhibited became the norm, as I think some of my fellow commentors might hope for, the most probable outcome is that police work will be affected in a negative way. And since I think the police in general do far more good than bad, I have no desire to see their work impeded.
My belief is that in a civil society there is a time and a place for everything. Airing greivances with the police during an investigation is not appropriate. If it is your contention that civillian review panels, IA units, etc are not enough, then augment the system, don’t throw it out in favor of verbal assaults any time an officer tried to do their job.
Look, is there a deep antipathy towards the police in inner cities or not? If there is, shouldn’t the next question be whether this antipathy is warranted, and what can the police do to correct this antipathy?
As I’ve pointed out in previous threads, becoming agitated when the police do something improper is: 1. a natural human response that can’t be “educated” out of anyone, and 2. a sign of desperation when the person believes nothing else will help; yeah, maybe it won’t stop the arrest, but maybe it will also mean that the police will think twice about arresting somebody the next time, or maybe it will call enough attention to you that you’ll get out of jail quicker, etc., etc. The problem I have with your arguments is that you keep downplaying the costs of spending even one night in jail, as if people owe the police absolute deference and should just accept their fate without question. And I am not in the least advocating throwing out the system; I’m advocating the preservation of the system as it’s supposed to be – the notion that people should not have the right to air grievvances with the police during an investigation is, in fact, the far more radical notion that goes flatly against what is supposed to be the law and the status quo. That police are able to prohibit the airing of such grievances is, in fact, exactly what our system is supposed to prohibit. Again, I’ve got ample Supreme Court precedent to back me up on this. As such, it is you who are advocating the real systemic change.
Additionally, I really would ask that you take a look at the link I provided above. It provides a rather stunning admission about how seriously IA departments take their jobs- there, is, shall we say, something of a conflict of interest.
Of course there is resentment towards the police in inner-cities. There is also resentment towards the DEA in Eastern Kentucky and resentment towards the Border Patrol in Mexico. But it still remains a chicken and egg scenario. You say the cops have to start playing nice and then people will like them, I say the cops can’t play nice given the crime rate in these areas. So yes, people in inner cities don’t like cops. Ask any cop who has patrolled those areas for more than a couple of months how they feel about the people that live there. They see incredibly bad things on a daily basis and yet we still expect them to do 90% of the heavy lifting when it comes to better community relations. I don’t find that to be fair.
Mark, if I come into a court room and start screaming at a judge, what is most likely going to happen? Or what if I storm my congressmen’s office and start screaming at him? And is their response justified or not?
The cops need to be cognizant that they are fallible and possess an awful lot of power. They need to be cognizant that they serve the communities they patrol first and foremost and that if those communities distrust them, then they have a big problem. The police are not an occupying force and are not supposed to be as such and need to be very sensitive to the wants and needs of the communities in which they serve. And this is the fundamental problem – the police too often really do view themselves as an occupying force rather than as part of the community, motto of “to serve and protect the community” notwithstanding.
If someone from that community is agitated with a police officer, the response is not to arrest that individual,which will only exacerbate existing distrust (thus making the police officer’s job harder to do in the long run) but to try and figure out why the individual is agitated at the police officer in the first place. When the community that the police officer is supposed to serve pretty clearly has a problem with the enforcement of law x, such that enforcement of law x ensures greater disorder, the police officer needs to be aware of this and understand it. That’s not to say he should stop enforcing law x, just that he should make it a lower priority than enforcing law y, which the community is concerned about.
As for your examples – there’s a rather large difference between yelling at a judge in that judge’s courtroom and yelling at a police officer from your own front porch.
Talk to some cops who work in the really bad parts of any city and ask them how it compares to the time some of them spent as an occupying force in other countries. I’ve got one friend who served in Iraq and served in the inner city here. His comment was that at least there he had a better idea of who was likely to shoot him and the rules of engagement gave him more protection. The truth of the matter (and maybe we’re dancing around this point) is that there are some REALLY bad places in this country and they are inhabited by some REALLY bad people. maybe the bad people are only 1 out 10 but the neighborhoods are at their mercy. The police in those areas ARE more akin to an occupying force than a police dept. But in the other 99% of the city, community relations with the police tend to be prety good and pretty peaceful.
As for the scenario I mentioned, I’m not talking about yelling from a front porch. The point is that we all admit that in most situations (work, a courtroom, the grocery store, etc) it’s not appropriate to scream at someone because you’re ticked off and removal of that person is okay. If you can’t scream at a judge in a courtroom, when quite frankly he has much more power than a cop, then why is it okay to scream at a cop in the middle of an investigation?
I don’t think that anyone has argued that it’s “okay” to yell at a cop.
I think they’ve merely argued that it’s not arrestable.
I would think you would find it not only okay but applause-worthy Jaybird.
Nope. Jaybird’s right – just about everyone here has said that it’s not “okay,” just wrong to make arrestable and also understandable.
I was sort of expecting the ‘I am a libertarian and I was a victim of crime’ comment from somone. But stereotypes are exactly what fueled the Gates case. All those examples you gave of cases that justified yelling at cops were based on stereotyping. Cop A was a jerk, so that justifies me yelling at Cop B, C & D at any point in the future.
When we start justifying poor behavior based on stereotypical views of the police, stereotyping the people doing the justifying seems just as honest an exercise in my book.
White people are the most predictable people of all, I find.
Hey look! A BMW!!! ahahahahaha
Hey! I’d like a latte vente half caf skim! HAHAHAHAHAHA
I agree:
http://stuffwhitepeoplelike.com/
John: Indeed. As I noted in the podcast, I’ve been mugged twice, have had my car broken into, and had an ex-roommate pistol-whipped on the front doorstep a few months after I moved out.
After our talk I thought about your comment. I should have clarified that I don’t think that libertarians are never are affected by crime and disorder. But I would add a caveat to that. For example, you mentioned our friend Peter Suderman who lives in DC. Like many of the libertarians I was referring to, Peter has a choice about where he can live. In Peter’s case he chooses to be in an area where crime and disorder are higher.
If he and Megan tire of the crime they can always move. They don’t have to rely on the police since they can rely on U-Haul. Most people who are trapped in bad neighborhoods, however, don’t have such mobility. For them, living in a seedy neighborhood (or city) isn’t a lifestyle choice.
To piggyback off of what Joe is saying, I think we’re discussing two different things. The stereotypical white, middle-class libertarian is not only insulated to a greater degree from crime, but also they are free from the accusation of them committing a crime themselves, because they usually respect the law insofar as they don’t break it. In urban areas there is both the threat of crime being perpetrated on someone as well as them being accused of a crime themselves (rightly or wrongly). The ultimate point is that crime is in the very fabric of these communities. It’s a part of daily life. When a libertarian gets mugged because they wandered into a bad area after dark on a vacation to Washington DC, it’s not the same thing as someone who has to live with it daily.
But that’s exactly the point, Mike – when there is a threat of being falsely accused of a crime or harassed by the police, your willingness to trust the police is going to go down substantially.
Look, fear is a natural defensive response to perceived threats. The problem is that oftimes this natural defensive response gets perceived as being offensive or aggressive in nature. In the inner cities, fear of the police is quite real, just as police fear of the people they patrol is also perhaps quite real. The difference is that the police are in a position where they can be trained to have less fear of the people they patrol – indeed, I would posit that it is very much in their job description to learn to do precisely that, since it is the people who pay their salaries.
It is a downward spiral; but it is a downward spiral that it is well within the power of the police to stop.
Nothing you’re saying explains the distrust of law enforcement by white, middle-class, suburban dwelling libertarians.
What are the interactions that white, middle-class, suburban people in general likely to have with the police?
If they are lucky, only stuff like speeding tickets.
If they are unlucky, they will talk to cops after a break-in, or mugging, or some other crime happens to them.
This results in a wacky dynamic where white, middle-class, suburban people are never in a situation where they are pleased to see a police officer. Maybe (MAYBE) they live next door to one… but, if they don’t, they will never be pleased to see a cop… unless they just had something spectacularly crappy happen to them.
It’s a bad dynamic that re-enforces an us/them kinda thing.
I’m not sure how a cop coming to your house after a robbery creates a bad dynamic between civillians and the police unless it’s some sort of weird blame-transferral thing. I would think the police presence in that situation would be somewhat appreciated.
I first decided decisively that Anarchism could never be for me after our car got stolen by someone who broke into our house. Our first response was to phone the police.
Having lived in places where the cops just didn’t show up after being called, I came to the conclusion that “anarchism” isn’t necessarily something that gets chosen.
As a libertarian, minarchist, I believe the state has a legitimate role in providing police protection. If we concentrated more on valid responsibilities of government rather than running up debt for everything else under the sun, we could have professional police who are trained and screened properly so that there are much fewer incidences of police brutality and abuse of power. You have to be delusional to not accept that there is a wide-spread problem with police abuse of power, over-stressed police, incompetent police and racist police. There are also many, many professional police officers who do a great job under dangerous circumstances. To say we need to pay them more, train them better and screen them better is not very controversial, and has nothing to do with being a libertarian or conservative — I grew up in poverty in one of the most crime-ridden areas on the southside of Savannah, blocks from Cabbage Town, a notorious white ghetto in the 60s and 70s — so the description of libertarians doesn’t fit me either — The many, many incidences where I experienced crime, sadly to say from both sides, as witness and as participant, with police involvement, I found the police performance very inconsistent — from getting beat-up and tear-gassed undeservedly to being treated with respect and professionalism — the problem is with the inconsistency.
Here in London someone was beaten to death by the police at a peaceful protest recently, another person lost her unborn child after a thorough beating as well. I think that it is the “Order” part of “Law & Order” that I have most problem with, all considered. Disorder is often necessary, having truncheoned thugs stamping it out is not helpful.
I meant the southside of Atlanta — i live in Savannah, now.
“Nothing you’re saying explains the distrust of law enforcement by white, middle-class, suburban dwelling libertarians.”
People are more than their past experiences — we all have the ability to conceptualize and reason based on knowledge. If a libertarian has done research and found many incidences of police mishavior, so that it suggests a widespread problem, then the libertarian, or anyone, can make a judgement based on that knowledge. And, I think “distrust” is wrong word — it’s more like knowing that police abuse of power is a problem and being vigilant in protecting civil liberties. Is there something wrong with that?
Another dynamic touched on is the whole police relationship to Prohibition 2.0.
I would say that the majority of folks out there are under the impression that marijuana possession up to a certain amount is “mostly harmless” and busting someone for an amount up to that amount is like busting people for having a case of beer.
The response of something like “well, they should vote to move marijuana off of schedule I if not make it legal outright!” makes me wonder about all of the “medicinal marijuana” laws that *HAVE* been passed… and yet the cops are busting people as if marijuana were a schedule I drug being abused.
To my knowledge, there has not been a state referendum making medicinal marijuana legal that has failed. Anyone have numbers on this? I honestly think that every single one put on a ballot has passed… additionally, there have been a number of referendums (referendae?) that have passed that said “marijuana is still illegal, but should be the lowest priority of law enforcement… after investigating cold cases and such”.
And yet… drug busts continue in earnest. Charles Lynch is an exceptionally googleable name for this topic.
Police are, effectively, enforcing laws that the citizens do not want enforced and, when given the option to vote to make the law more lenient the people have done so… and the police are seen to not care what the citizens think (see http://www.denverpost.com/headlines/ci_7324642 for a great example of this).
It’s enforcement of law without the consent of the governed.
There are words for that that tend to get me accused of hyperbole.
I think the police take their guidance from the Mayor/Governor since those are the people that hire the head pigs top cops. The legislature and lead political figures are the ones who have to tell the cops to back off.
I don’t like the speed limit being 65 on the freeway and I bet most people agree with me. Yet when I get a speeding ticket somehow it doesn’t make me dislike the police. So long as the laws are on the books, blaming the police for enforcing those laws is (once again) placing blame in the wrong place.
If I were given an option to vote on a referendum to change the speed limit to 75 and the referendum passed and the cops said “nope, we’re keeping it at 65 in order to make everything safe for The Children because The Children die when they go 66 mph” and they give speeding tickets to folks in earnest, I’d say that there is a “consent of the governed” problem.
Even if the law continues to say 65 after the referendum.
A referendum doesn’t change the law. The police enforce the laws. Legislatures have to change laws. Leaders can also tell their cops to chill on some things or go balls out to enforce it. In either case, referendum are nice but the laws needs to be changed and political leadership needs to send messages to minimize pot arrests or whatever.
And when the law does not reflect the will of the people…
But I repeat myself.
By “referendum”, I assume you mean a non-blinding plebiscite of some sort, where The People expresses an opinion, but said opinion carries no legal weight.
I’m not sure where such referenda exist in the US, other than cases where a local or state government will express dissatisfaction with some Federal law or policy they don’t like–in which case only a fraction of the Federal government’s constituency has spoken.
In states where the people have the power of initiative and/or referendum; the results of such votes ARE the law. If voters in Oregon wanted to do away with the state’s speed limit, they could; so far, they haven’t.
Turning the question around: What if a referendum (non-binding, to continue your example), rather than calling for the abolishment of the speed limit, instead demanded that it be lowered to 35MPH, even on freeways? (Most autos achieve peak fuel efficiency at or around that speed, so I’m told). Would you also insist the will of the people be obeyed?
If the will of the people is to violate rights, the will of the people ought not be followed and the law not be enforced.
If the will of the people is that rights be observed and the law does not reflect that and law enforcement follows the law… well, there’s a disconnect.
Law is, even at its absolute best, little more than codification of what people do anyway.
At its worst, it’s tyranny.
So what you are arguing for, it sounds like, is not democracy but libertarianism. Which is fine.
But then why bring “the people” into it? If things like Prohibition or speed limits are held to be violation of basic rights (and no court has ever held such a thing), why should a referendum by The People matter?
Either a question is within the power of the people (directly or via representation) to decide, or it isn’t.
Other than alcohol prohibition, I have a hard time thinking of any issues where The People (meaning a majority, or at least a majority of those who can be bothered to care) wanted greater freedom that the law provided, and were not able to claim said freedom by getting the law altered. Prohibition was an unusual case in that the difficulty of Constitutional amendment made its repeal more onerous–but it usually seems to be the opposite that occurs: The People want to oppress some minority or abolish some perceived vice, and those nasty activist courts tell ‘em sorry, that’s unconstitutional. The lack of initiative power is frequently an obstacle (requiring that legislators be convinced of the people’s will, or replaced), but such obstacles don’t last forever.
The main issue is when you have multiple layers of government, as in our federal system, and the higher layer passes laws which are unpopular in many of the subordinate jurisdictions. Marijuana is an example here; with state policy frequently conflicting with federal.
Kelo vs. New London might also fit.
I don’t know if Heller was ever able to buy his gun (if he were not, that could be another one).
And the electorate in numerous jurisdictions have responded to Kelo by passing laws restricting the use of eminent domain.
So if the majority of the people want the speed limit to be 85 and the legislature leaves it at 65, your contention is that the police should stop giving out speeding tickets in order to do the will of the people?
My contention, at that point, is that government without the consent of the governed is tyranny.
“Help Help, I’m being oppressed. Come see the violence inherent in the system.”
So doesn’t then every government,at every level, is a tyrannny. Or is that the “point”?
I guess it depends on the consent of the governed, doesn’t it?
What consent is necessary? A majority of whoever votes? A majority of some quorum? A supermajority? Unanimous consent of the electorate?
I would suspect that it requires more than that which is signalled by a lack of revolution.
“Lack of revolution” is a pretty low hurdle to cross.
So long as we can demonstrate that government without consent of the governed can be demonstrated absent violence, I’m good.
Like, let’s look at, tah-dah, gay marriage.
Let’s say that I, a totally heterosexual guy married to a totally heterosexual gal, petition my government to ban gay marriage.
They do so.
Now (so-and-so) cannot get married.
In the case of gay marriage, who is being governed? I would posit that I am not. This is a law that does not come close to applying to me. I’m straight. I’m married to a chick. This is a law that will never, ever affect me.
(so-and-so)? This is a law that governs him. It does not govern me.
Since he opposes it, it’s government without the consent of the governed.
And telling him to get a law passed seems…
Well it seems to miss the point, doesn’t it?
I don’t think the police can over-ride the will of a legislature and I would be curious to hear an example of them doing so. If a referendum is made law, then they have an obligation to enfore that law and not the old one.
Maybe they can, maybe they can’t.
But if there were a referendum in the middle of prohibition regarding busting people for possession of small beer and the police said that they didn’t care about the referendum and that the law is the law… well, we’d have a problem with police enforcing laws that the people did not vote on and when asked their opinion, they said “lighten up”.
Of course, I’m one of the people who sees the legislature and does not see representation of The People at all… and so when laws are or are not passed, I don’t really see involvement of The People.
But it is The People who get arrested and told that if they don’t like it, they should pass a law to do something or other. Or get it passed.
…well, we’d have a problem with police enforcing laws that the people did not vote on…
Lawmakers are elected. Universal legislation by referendum is insanity.
And when lawmakers don’t represent their people, and when gerrymandering makes 95% of all seats “safe” seats, I’d say that there’s a disconnect.
Perhaps this wouldn’t be a problem if we had a government that tended to do stuff like “respect the Xth Amendment” but…
Lots of people expressed dissatisfaction with Prohibition–so much so that it was eventually repealed. And of course, there were numerous “wet” areas that opposed it from the get-go. I’m certainly not about to defend Prohibition.
But I’m not aware of any hypothetical “referenda” of this sort. What if the people in some small Mississippi town passed a referendum expressing the opinion that laws against lynching were improper; or holding that tavern owners have a constitutional right to post “whites only” signs on their front door–should enforcement of applicable state and/or Federal law be suspended therein?
I posted a link to an article about a ballot initiative that passed and the police said that they weren’t going to do anything differently.
If that’s not a referendum, I don’t know what would be.
In the article the police say pot busts are already a low priority and they usually only arrest a user when pot is found during a search in another crime. The guy who said they wouldn’t do anything differently was a sgt. who said they weren’t going to stop making arrests, not that they were going to make it a high priority.
http://saferdenver.saferchoice.org/Blog-and-Press/?p=138
Here’s another.
“Panelist Mason Tvert, who led the campaign to pass both measures, has cited police statistics indicating that adult misdemeanor marijuana arrests have gone up since the first initiative passed. Police made 1,059 such arrests in 2005, then 1,347 in 2006 and 1,587 in 2007.”
The problem is essentially the “separation of powers” problem. Possession of <1oz may now be legal according to city code; but I suspect it still illegal under Colorado law (we'll ignore the feds for now). Under the current system, voters in a local jurisdiction (or city councils or other legislative bodies) DON'T get to suspend laws imposed from on high which they don't like. I strongly suspect that if Denver police actually did refuse to arrest people for minor pot infractions, even when a violation was apparent, and this was discovered to be a matter of official policy, it wouldn't be long before someone opposed to marijuana legalization found a court to issue a write of mandamus, ORDERING the city police to enforce the laws on the books.
What did you think of the cops in Chicago last year, deciding that they would no longer assist in evictions except under specific circumstances, even though doing so is a part of their official duties?
“What did you think of the cops in Chicago last year, deciding that they would no longer assist in evictions except under specific circumstances, even though doing so is a part of their official duties?”
Well, from my recollection, they were refusing to evict people who had been paying their rent on time but the banks wanted them out of the residences because they wanted to sell them… and since the residents were not in breach of contract, I’m applauding the police in this case.
Though I’m surprised, you’d think that this would have been an opportunity for them to use SWAT.
It’s sort of weird to be talking about the primacy of “the law” anyway.
If people have fundamental rights and “the law” does not respect them, then it is unjust to enforce “the law”.
Look at, for example, Loving v. Virginia. Were the police right to enforce the law or were they wrong to do so? Who cares if 90% of your neighbors don’t want mixed couples living in their state? Who cares if a law is passed saying such? Who cares if it makes it to the state supreme court and the state supreme court upholds it?
What made the law wrong has *NOTHING* to do with it being overturned by the SCotUS.
By the The People, do you mean the homogenous entirety of American’s who all believe the same things? No law or regulation is supported by every person. This is America everybody thinks one of their fundamental rights is being trampled be The Man.
This country would be an ungovernable, anarchistic mess if every one didn’t follow every rule, law or regulation they didn’t like……………hmmmm……….never mind.
People were drinking beer during prohibition too.
Were people, therefore, ungovernable?
No, not from the movies I have seen. What’s the point? There will always be people who disagree with or don’t like some laws, that doesn’t equate with tyranny.
If we could all just get together and smoke a big blunt this would all be clear. Scott could munch on some elitist fancy pants food and we could have some burgers.
“There will always be people who disagree with or don’t like some laws, that doesn’t equate with tyranny.”
Well, when the law is applied haphazardly by police who argue that they have the right to arrest you for yelling on your own front porch (you can beat the rap, but you can’t beat the ride, after all), I’d say that… yeah. We’re approaching anarcho-tyranny.
When anyone, anywhere, is probably guilty of something and only officer/prosecutor discretion is keeping them out of prison?
What would you call that?
Or would you argue that a case couldn’t be made against you by a sufficiently interested prosecutor in this day and age?
I’d say that was a stupid cop.
I think we are talking past each other. I think we probably agree on drug legislation and that the cops have been given a bit to much power. My point, assuming I have one, is that living in a free society does not mean we all get to agree on every law. There are bound to be things we don’t agree with, but that does not equate with tyranny. If the rangers in a park close a trail I want to hike on, does that mean I am oppressed by a tyrannical government? What about if they put up a traffic light at a place I don’t like? Those are trivial examples but the point holds.
“Anarcho-tyranny” ?????
Anarcho-tyranny is a term for (among other things) when the state can arbitrarily imprison anyone at any time (as opposed to, say, rule of law).
I’m under the impression that we live in such a state and police/prosecutor restraint is all that prevents it from being worse than it is.
Am I wrong in this?
So is anarcho-tyranny different from tyrano-anarchy? I always though tyrannies arrest whoever they want when ever they want. Tyranny seemed to cover that.
I think our legal system is like most things, more grey then black and white. I’m against the war on drugs and expansion of police powers. But it is easy to deploy the hyperbole and say we are a tyranny. I don’t see it, even though I admit we imprison far to many people.
In some ways things are slowly getting better. If it was 50 years ago, Gates, assuming he could even be an elite Harvard prof, would have been thrown in jail and convicted. Case closed. Now he is arrested by a bonehead but the charges are dropped. Perfect:: far from it, but an improvement. And of course because of absurd age we live in they are all drinking a crappy beer with the prez while the boneheads in the press live blog it, have 19 cameras watching it and 3-d reconstructions of the event. Can a commemorative plate be far behind?
I don’t think we compare to the USSR or nazi germany ( the gold standards of tyranny) even as flawed as our justice system is.
To throw my own hat in the ring of what has already been a spirited debate (glad to see one really take off against the backdrop of one of our podcast posts), let me just say that I haven’t seen anyone (at least I don’t think) engage what I took to be the most interesting component of the discussion wherein Joe offered that the process of making police officers more a part of the communities they are to “serve and protect” (which I think most everyone can agree would be a good thing) is a two way street that requires as much from the community itself as it does from the officers and policing establishment.
The potential ramifications of that suggestion on our discussion are, I dare say, fairly significant.
I think my response to that point is simply that it asks something that is not really possible. The police have to earn the trust of the people if the people are to trust them again (hence, I suppose, the title of this post). As a philosophical matter, the people owe no duty to the police since the police work for the people in the first place. But the more salient point is that there’s simply no way to “educate” a large group of people so that they don’t do things to annoy the police – in any large enough group of people, none of whom has (or could have) a legal obligation to respect the police, there are going to be people who act in ways that they should not act but that are within the bounds of the law. There are also going to be people who do, in fact, commit acts that fall outside the bounds of the law. How the police respond to those acts, both legal and illegal, will have a lot to do with how citizens view the police. On the other hand, if the police are able to interact with the people in a generally civil, friendly, and respectful manner, then the people with whom they interact will automatically begin to trust them more.
I guess what I’m saying is that Joe’s proposal, at least as you describe it,* requires that communities accept that the police will enforce a sort of collective responsibility for the actions of their neighbors that is just not realistic. Put another way, it insists that people ignore their human emotions because the government says so, whereas the police themselves are the government and are paid to do exactly that.
*I haven’t been able to listen to the audio yet, though I will be rectifying that tonight.
Definitely listen to the audio. Joe does a great deal more justice to his proposal than my short graf does.
My understanding of Joe’s point (and Scott or him can correct me if I’m wrong) is that the police exist as an arm of the community, not the government and since the community is essentially demanding their presence, they have an obligation to at least meet them halfway in better relations.
Ok. I’ve listened to the audio now, and Joe (as one would expect) makes some really good and interesting points. In fact, I think he’s absolutely right about the ideal of the police being part of the community. I guess the problem is that a big part of the problem is that the police seem to have ceased acting as if they were part of the community in many areas. This obviously goes far beyond the Gates case (which was hardly an inner city), but it seems broadly true – I’ve known enough cops who worked the inner cities to understand that all too often they really don’t have a lot of respect for the communities that they patrol (crime-ridden or not). But even if they did think of themselves that way, there is a closely related issue of whether they can reasonably expect that the community will accept them as a representative, which is in many ways a function of having police who are actually part of the community that they patrol, either because they come from that community or because they live in it. This is not, of course, a new idea – cities have placed residency requirements on their police forces for quite some time. On the other hand, I don’t know if it does much good to have “community” defined as the entire city when you’re dealing with a city that is comprised of a host of very diverse communities and also has a tradition of drawing its officers from only one such community. When you combine that with an influx of officers with military backgrounds….suddenly you have a police force that views itself as, in essence, an occupying force rather than as members of the community.
This, to me, is one reason why the Ricci decision was potentially quite damaging, although that’s another topic altogether.
Still, I see what Joe is saying about having a need for communities to have a better idea of what their police do and are supposed to do. This is, no doubt, a cultural issue as he says; but since it’s a cultural issue, it’s not something that is going to change overnight – it’s something that has to be cultivated slowly over time. The problem is that missteps by the police will set this back significantly. Fortunately, the police, because they are smaller in number and because, well, it’s their job, have the ability to change their practices enough that they can allow these sorts of cultural changes to take place. So, I guess, yes, there does need to be cultural change, but a prerequisite for that cultural change is for police to make a real, sustained, and concerted effort not just to pretend as if they’re members of the communities they patrol, but to actually believe that they are.
The officers I know tell me that it’s almost standard practice to never live in your patrol area. No one wants their home or property to be that accesible to the folks they have to arest, ticket, etc from time to time.
I guess it all depends on what your idea of ‘community’ is. Is it a neighborhood, a zipcode or something else. Joe raised a really good point in the podcast which is that NYC has the highest concentration of police officers of any city and it’s still something like 10,000 to 1. Given that reality it still feels like what you’re asking for is window dressing.
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