Liberty, We Have A Problem

There is a problem festering within the liberty movement. This problem is one that I’ve sensed for some time, but has become much more clear to me due to some recent, tragic events.Last week, a young couple named Jerad and Amanda Miller murdered two police officers in Las Vegas, as well as another man who later tried to stop their rampage. The two reportedly shouted “This is the start of a revolution!” before opening fire. The majority of people who heard about this event were shocked and appalled, as any rational minded person with a soul would be. There were some, however, who had a different take on the event.“The good news is, two cops are dead”, lamented anarchist asshole (his words, not mine) Christopher Cantwell. You see, Cantwell feels that since police are enforcers of the law, and since in our society, the vast majority of laws are rights-infringing (or “aggression”, as Cantwell simplistically refers to it), that therefore any violence inflicted upon a police officer by a citizen is justified as “self-defense.”In order to not be accused of mischaracterizing Cantwell’s position, I will allow him to explain it in his own words. (The words are his, the emphasis is mine.)

People say the officers were “simply eating lunch” and so this was a clear cut case of murder. I could not disagree more. Those officers were merely taking a short break from the aggressions all police commit day in, and day out. Immediately after they got done with their break, they would inevitably have returned to their regular duties of harassing and extorting motorists, and kidnapping people for possessing plants. They paid for their food, with money that was taken from people under the threats of violence that are taxation, and fines. While it’s a lot easier to draw the connection in something like the Justin Bourque incident, the fact remains that all police are aggressors. There is no such thing as a good cop.It is by definition, impossible to murder an aggressor. It is an act of defensive, retaliatory, or preventive force, not aggression, to do violence to people who have no doubt harmed peaceful people, and will no doubt continue to harm peaceful people. Every free man, woman, and child has every moral and ethical right to use violence to put a stop to such threats, and the world is a better place without these two police officers victimizing the public.

There are many problems with Cantwell’s view, and while many libertarians have openly denounced his callous call for the murder of police officers and other state agents, the overall attitude can be traced back to an idea that many libertarians cling to.  More so, it’s one I’ve been guilty of holding in the past. But more on that later.This is a complicated issue, and it’s particularly complicated by the fact that much of Cantwell’s initial premise is correct. Police are the enforcers of the law, and in our society, much of the laws are indeed rights-infringing. The War on Drugs alone has created “criminals” out of millions of innocent people who have done nothing more than possess the wrong plant or chemical compound.  It seems like a day doesn’t go by that we don’t hear about another no-knock raid that takes an innocent life, or a random act of police violence against a civilian. All of these rights-infringing police actions and associated headlines spark anger that is absolutely justified, both against the unjust laws and the blatant violent abuse of citizens police often get away with relatively scott-free.To simplistically blame “the police” for the rampant violations of individual rights by government completely fails to recognize the reason why these rights violations occur. It’s true that the police are regularly involved in enforcing “crimes” which would never be considered such in a society where individual rights were respected, such as possessing a marijuana plant.  It’s also true that the police are funded in a manner through which rights are violated, via coercive taxation under the threat of force. But they are not a rogue gang roaming the countryside, plucking the pockets of innocents wherever they see them. They are not demons patrolling the earth randomly seeking death and destruction. They are not the Dementors. They are individual human beings who are employed in the profession of enforcing the law.Now let’s envision a “libertarian society”, if you will, in which people generally understand and respect individual rights. In this society, however it were structured, certain acts such as murder, theft, rape, etc would be considered crimes. There would also be people employed to enforce laws against such acts.  They may be called “police”, or something else, but the fact remains that this profession is one that would exist on some level in even the freest of societies, as would other functions currently performed through the coercive government system such as the postal service, education, air traffic control,  etc.The task of police officers is to enforce the law. Where does the law come from? Does it simply emerge out of the ether? Is it willed into existence by demonic police officers on the fly, to justify their blood lust?Laws are created by politicians. These politicians, as well as the laws they create, are supported by the vast majority of the population. In Libertarian Bubble World it may not seem so, but the fact remains, most people in our society do not have a comprehension of individual rights and do support the overall coercive nature of the government in place. We know this because, if they didn’t, people like myself, my fellow Lions of Liberty, and Christopher Cantwell would have nothing to hop on the Internet and bitch about. If Cantwell wanted libertarians to violently attack the source of their oppression, he would have to advocate not just for the killing of cops, but for the killing of most of his family and neighbors as well.It's true that Cantwell dosen't suggest people actually go out and kill police, but his objections are merely strategic; he has no moral objection to the act whatsoever.A critical element of a free society is due process, the idea that everyone deserves their “day in court” – regardless of how that court is funded – and the opportunity to face their accuser for any crimes committed against them before facing any punishment for their crimes. Cantwell, on the other hand, believes that individuals should have the right to predetermine that anyone wearing a police badge is a criminal, and that the appropriate punishment for their crimes is death.  He thinks anyone should be able to play the role of judge, jury, and executioner.If Christopher Cantwell took up arms and single-handedly murdered (and yes, it is murder) every single police officer in the nation, nothing fundamental would change. The very next day there would be new police officers hired, and most people would forever connect libertarian writers with psychopathic killers.This is already occurring with the killings in Las Vegas. CNN’s Peter Bergen has penned an article connecting the killers to “anti-government extremists”, while Mother Jones posted an article detailing the various liberty-related Facebook pages they had liked and shared posts from. Fair or not, the connection is being made that “liberty” folks = crazy psychopaths. Most libertarians would scoff at this notion, but is there possibly a smidgen of truth to the narrative?One of the videos “liked” by Amanda Miller on Facebook was from outspoken anarchist Larken Rose, someone who has quite a number of followers in the liberty movement. The video is titled “Shooting Cops”, and is a companion to an article by Rose titled “When Should You Shoot a Cop?”Again, not to be accused of mischaracterizing anyone’s views, I encourage you to read his article or view the video yourself before coming to a conclusion. The video below:http://youtu.be/CjDHQ16MyKYLarken defends the concept of violent revolution by quoting American’s “Founding Fathers” such as Washington, Jefferson and Hamilton, before comparing anyone who might disagree with him to Mao, Hitler, and Stalin. That’s quite a Straw Man Roll Call.  While he doesn’t explicitly call for the kind of violence partaken against the police officers in Las Vegas, one can easily see how the attitude that violently attacking your oppressors can lead a young, impressionable mind to combine with some Cantwell logic about the source of his oppression, and partake in such an act.Contrary to what Larken might presume, I am not saying people should not have every right to bear arms nor to defend themselves against rights violations. Individuals have every right to violently repel an attack on their life, even if that attack comes from a representative of their government. I wholeheartedly agree with the motto of Cop Block, which both Cantwell and Rose have been associated with in the past, that “Badges Don’t Grant Extra Rights."I should clarify what I mean in the above paragraph when I say "violently repel an attack". If one gets pulled over for a speeding ticket, for example, while the implication is that yes, eventually violent force could fall upon you for failing to pay that speeding ticket, which one might find "unjust", that doesn't suddenly make it appropriate to murder a police officer for issuing the ticket or enforcing the speeding laws. While in principle violence will be used to enforce the speeding ticket, it is a fruitless exercise to focus on petty issues like "speeding laws." Contrast this with a situation in which a police officer is partaking in a heinous assault of some kind that he would, or should, be prosecuted for. In this case, immediate use of force could be justified. I will admit this is a complex subject that deserves further discussion beyond this article.This however is a far cry from actively campaigning for and approving of random violent acts against government agents not partaking in a crime against oneself. It throws due process out of the window, and instead labels anyone with a badge as worthy of death, as having negative rights. This attitude is amoral, and its one that has become all too common in the liberty movement as I’ve seen it develop over the last five or six years.Further, it makes the world a more dangerous place for not only liberty-minded people, but activists of all kinds as well as everyday civilians. It gives the government an itchy trigger finger, and provides the excuse it needs to further build and utilize an encroaching police state apparatus against it citizens.In no uncertain terms, it leads to less freedom.In the end, it all comes back to the “Hate the State” attitude, and it’s one I have been guilty of promoting in the past. My view of “the State" at the time was as the modern day conception of what "government" is, which has certainly become a vehicle for violating the individual rights of others. But the State is not God. It is not Lord Voldemort. It is simply the manifestation of the bad philosophy held by the majority of the populace. Until that changes, new gods and demons will always emerge to infringe on individual rights.So if you say you want a revolution, don't call for or approve of random acts of violence against agents of “the State.” Instead, work for a society where people understand and respect individual rights. And the demons will go away on their own.http://youtu.be/tH9zG28GQEgReceive access to ALL of our EXCLUSIVE bonus audio content – including “Conspiracy Corner”, “Degenerate Gamblers” and the “League of Liberty Podcast” by joining the Lions of Liberty Pride and supporting us on Patreon!