Sorry you got mugged. But you’re thwacking a straw man you call “libertarian” just when your traditional public police failed, as they consistently do. Arguing from a failure of imagination and incorrect definition doesn’t suit you. Community, even communal, policing is perfectly libertarian.
Sorry you got mugged. But you’re thwacking a straw man you call “libertarian” just when your traditional public police failed, as they consistently do. Arguing from a failure of imagination and incorrect definition doesn’t suit you. Community, even communal, policing is perfectly libertarian.
If I were to characterize the *average* libertarian on crime it would go like this:
1) All crime is due to drug laws and if drugs were legalized there would be zero crime.
2) Cops and the government are a way bigger threat to liberty than criminals, and this we should side in the interests of the accused and civil liberties to the absolute maximum amount. So current levels of support for accused rights or more.
I think the perspective of Arnold is that both those premises are flawed. Drug laws aren't the sole or even in many cases the main cause of crime. And a case could easily be made that post warren court rights for the accused, let alone current blue city non-policing norms, are an ineffective balances of the rights of the accused versus public safety.
"1) All crime is due to drug laws and if drugs were legalized there would be zero crime.”
This is certainly a straw man. I can’t imagine any person smart enough to be libertarian saying such a dumb thing, much less the average libertarian. On what do you base this characterization?
One would think someone of his intellect would criticize Steel Man, not Average Man. Reading his work on crime and drugs, I also don't see him weighing multiple factors dispassionately, but rather letting one article, opinion, or event tweak his three internal Platonic axes. Often that one article, opinion, or event doubles as a one-dimensional way to confirm the resulting new priors. Here's an example: https://arnoldkling.substack.com/p/marijuana-reconsidered
Negative effect of legalization detected! Reduce the freedom dial! Increase the civilization dial!
Average Man defines the "movement" and its marginal impact on public policy.
In the case of crime policy, I would say the average man I noted above isn't even far off from the average think tank libertarian, at least historically.
In the interest of respectful dialogue, I would say, strike the sentence, “But you’re confused.” Or improve it include a modifier, like so: “But you’re confused about [fill in the blank].”
"Community, even communal, policing is perfectly libertarian.”
This. The good professor once or twice before has perplexed me with his interpretations of libertarianism. Collective action is not anti-libertarian - only forced action.
Professor Kling, a long-time libertarian, points out that he was mugged, and takes the opportunity to reflect about whether libertarianism is workable as it relates to public safety. Maybe neighborhood watches can assist, maybe private security can’t.
Hypothetical libertarianism emerges from the woodwork to say, of course it’s logically consistent with libertarianism to have communal policing. Huh?
If you’re just saying it’s consistent with the logic of libertarian philosophy, great! although that didn’t seem to be the point of the post.
If you want to argue it’s a workable approach for organizing society as a realistic matter, by all means, but good luck!
Personally, I think you’ll quickly be mugged by reality if you try to reduce communal trust to the merely transactional and find the arm’s-length price for the willingness to put one’s life on the line for another.
“Personally, I think you’ll quickly be mugged by reality if you try to reduce communal trust to the merely transactional….” Thank you for reinforcing my point. No libertarian worth his/her salt reduces communal trust to the merely transactional. Instead, they’ll reduce matters to the voluntary — where feasible — such that all manner of experiments get unleashed until community members land on configurations that are more effective than traditional territorial monopolies. Public police, while generally brave first responders, operate in an incentive system that consistently fails on net. And clearly it failed in this case. Your thought, such as it is, is that we have to do things that fail over and over lest we be “mugged by reality.” Yet he was quite literally mugged. The whole country is suffering from our clinging to the status quo. Crime keeps going up. Why wouldn’t enduring a crime cause one to reflect a bit more on the inadequacies of the status quo—namely standard public policing? That’s all I’m asking.
My thought wasn’t that we have to do things that fail over and over, just that when someone points out practical challenges to a libertarian utopia, it’s typical to see standard libertarian mantras trotted back out like unleashing thousands of communal experiments.
It’s sort of like the equivalent of the communist response when someone says communism didn’t work out so well in Russia, Vietnam, China, etc. Yeah, but those communists weren’t worth their salt…
Perhaps the fundamental answer is that aside from a handful of intelligent, motivated individuals like yourself, most of us are not capable or willing to live in such a voluntary society.
Forgive me, but please think about what you're saying. First, "when someone points out practical challenges to a libertarian utopia" they are arguing from a position of crowding out in which there are few to no opportunities to experiment in the manner I'm describing. There is literally a monopoly that is enforced. Now, it's NOT at all like communist responses, because all of those experiments were tried, whereas entrepreneurs, social entrepreneurs, and civic innovators are simply not given opportunities to experiment locally. This is a pragmatic point, not an idealistic one. Finally, "most of us are not capable or willing to live in such a voluntary society" is a contradiction in terms. If you were willing to do it, it would be voluntary. What you're saying is *I'm not willing to overcome my failure of imagination or my status quo bias and question the value of status quo systems in ANY jurisdiction in my country, so I will continue to lend my support to the systems that are failing, or double down on the empty promise of political reforms.* All that means is that you're continuing to worship *democracy* -- the illusion of choice -- all controlled by people more powerful than you. Thank you for your honesty, though. You'd rather have faith in suits and jackboots than creative people working together locally to solve problems.
I’ll set aside that you basically repeated the communist complaint that entrepreneurs and civic innovators haven’t been given a real chance yet, because government monopoly.
As to the second point, it’s not a contradiction in terms. You can’t have a voluntary society if it is comprised of three libertarian dudes worshiping Ayn Rand. You need critical mass. You can’t or won’t get it if the common organizing principle is just the quid pro quo or you-do-you-and-I-do-me.
I’ll set aside that you basically repeated the communist complaint that public policing hasn’t been given a real chance yet, because capitalist utopians.
"As to the second point, it’s not a contradiction in terms." Uh huh. "You can’t have a voluntary society if it is comprised of [sic, composed of] three libertarian dudes worshiping Ayn Rand." Ayn Rand was not a libertarian and was committed to government police monopolies. If you're going to ascribe views to me or anyone else, you'd better know your stuff.
"You need critical mass. You can’t or won’t get it if the common organizing principle is just the quid pro quo or you-do-you-and-I-do-me." Think about this long and hard. Read my original criticism. And kindly stop ascribing views to me and others I've never held. You're getting lost and it shows.
Sorry you got mugged. But you’re thwacking a straw man you call “libertarian” just when your traditional public police failed, as they consistently do. Arguing from a failure of imagination and incorrect definition doesn’t suit you. Community, even communal, policing is perfectly libertarian.
If I were to characterize the *average* libertarian on crime it would go like this:
1) All crime is due to drug laws and if drugs were legalized there would be zero crime.
2) Cops and the government are a way bigger threat to liberty than criminals, and this we should side in the interests of the accused and civil liberties to the absolute maximum amount. So current levels of support for accused rights or more.
I think the perspective of Arnold is that both those premises are flawed. Drug laws aren't the sole or even in many cases the main cause of crime. And a case could easily be made that post warren court rights for the accused, let alone current blue city non-policing norms, are an ineffective balances of the rights of the accused versus public safety.
"1) All crime is due to drug laws and if drugs were legalized there would be zero crime.”
This is certainly a straw man. I can’t imagine any person smart enough to be libertarian saying such a dumb thing, much less the average libertarian. On what do you base this characterization?
One would think someone of his intellect would criticize Steel Man, not Average Man. Reading his work on crime and drugs, I also don't see him weighing multiple factors dispassionately, but rather letting one article, opinion, or event tweak his three internal Platonic axes. Often that one article, opinion, or event doubles as a one-dimensional way to confirm the resulting new priors. Here's an example: https://arnoldkling.substack.com/p/marijuana-reconsidered
Negative effect of legalization detected! Reduce the freedom dial! Increase the civilization dial!
Average Man defines the "movement" and its marginal impact on public policy.
In the case of crime policy, I would say the average man I noted above isn't even far off from the average think tank libertarian, at least historically.
I can’t argue with that assessment, sadly. There is no one more unimaginative than the average libertarian think-tanker.
In the interest of respectful dialogue, I would say, strike the sentence, “But you’re confused.” Or improve it include a modifier, like so: “But you’re confused about [fill in the blank].”
Fair.
Manly response. I appreciate that.
Arnold is a hero of mine. He deserves the best even if I disagree. So thank you, sir.
Same.
"Community, even communal, policing is perfectly libertarian.”
This. The good professor once or twice before has perplexed me with his interpretations of libertarianism. Collective action is not anti-libertarian - only forced action.
I don't buy this. Non-unanimous collective action is (not always but presumptively) anti-libertarian.
How so? Your claim, in other words, is that voluntary action is anti-libertarian if there's more than one volunteer. Sorry, but egregiously wrong.
Professor Kling, a long-time libertarian, points out that he was mugged, and takes the opportunity to reflect about whether libertarianism is workable as it relates to public safety. Maybe neighborhood watches can assist, maybe private security can’t.
Hypothetical libertarianism emerges from the woodwork to say, of course it’s logically consistent with libertarianism to have communal policing. Huh?
If you’re just saying it’s consistent with the logic of libertarian philosophy, great! although that didn’t seem to be the point of the post.
If you want to argue it’s a workable approach for organizing society as a realistic matter, by all means, but good luck!
Personally, I think you’ll quickly be mugged by reality if you try to reduce communal trust to the merely transactional and find the arm’s-length price for the willingness to put one’s life on the line for another.
“Personally, I think you’ll quickly be mugged by reality if you try to reduce communal trust to the merely transactional….” Thank you for reinforcing my point. No libertarian worth his/her salt reduces communal trust to the merely transactional. Instead, they’ll reduce matters to the voluntary — where feasible — such that all manner of experiments get unleashed until community members land on configurations that are more effective than traditional territorial monopolies. Public police, while generally brave first responders, operate in an incentive system that consistently fails on net. And clearly it failed in this case. Your thought, such as it is, is that we have to do things that fail over and over lest we be “mugged by reality.” Yet he was quite literally mugged. The whole country is suffering from our clinging to the status quo. Crime keeps going up. Why wouldn’t enduring a crime cause one to reflect a bit more on the inadequacies of the status quo—namely standard public policing? That’s all I’m asking.
My thought wasn’t that we have to do things that fail over and over, just that when someone points out practical challenges to a libertarian utopia, it’s typical to see standard libertarian mantras trotted back out like unleashing thousands of communal experiments.
It’s sort of like the equivalent of the communist response when someone says communism didn’t work out so well in Russia, Vietnam, China, etc. Yeah, but those communists weren’t worth their salt…
Perhaps the fundamental answer is that aside from a handful of intelligent, motivated individuals like yourself, most of us are not capable or willing to live in such a voluntary society.
Forgive me, but please think about what you're saying. First, "when someone points out practical challenges to a libertarian utopia" they are arguing from a position of crowding out in which there are few to no opportunities to experiment in the manner I'm describing. There is literally a monopoly that is enforced. Now, it's NOT at all like communist responses, because all of those experiments were tried, whereas entrepreneurs, social entrepreneurs, and civic innovators are simply not given opportunities to experiment locally. This is a pragmatic point, not an idealistic one. Finally, "most of us are not capable or willing to live in such a voluntary society" is a contradiction in terms. If you were willing to do it, it would be voluntary. What you're saying is *I'm not willing to overcome my failure of imagination or my status quo bias and question the value of status quo systems in ANY jurisdiction in my country, so I will continue to lend my support to the systems that are failing, or double down on the empty promise of political reforms.* All that means is that you're continuing to worship *democracy* -- the illusion of choice -- all controlled by people more powerful than you. Thank you for your honesty, though. You'd rather have faith in suits and jackboots than creative people working together locally to solve problems.
I’ll set aside that you basically repeated the communist complaint that entrepreneurs and civic innovators haven’t been given a real chance yet, because government monopoly.
As to the second point, it’s not a contradiction in terms. You can’t have a voluntary society if it is comprised of three libertarian dudes worshiping Ayn Rand. You need critical mass. You can’t or won’t get it if the common organizing principle is just the quid pro quo or you-do-you-and-I-do-me.
I’ll set aside that you basically repeated the communist complaint that public policing hasn’t been given a real chance yet, because capitalist utopians.
"As to the second point, it’s not a contradiction in terms." Uh huh. "You can’t have a voluntary society if it is comprised of [sic, composed of] three libertarian dudes worshiping Ayn Rand." Ayn Rand was not a libertarian and was committed to government police monopolies. If you're going to ascribe views to me or anyone else, you'd better know your stuff.
"You need critical mass. You can’t or won’t get it if the common organizing principle is just the quid pro quo or you-do-you-and-I-do-me." Think about this long and hard. Read my original criticism. And kindly stop ascribing views to me and others I've never held. You're getting lost and it shows.