109 Comments

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.

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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.

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"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?

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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!

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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.

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I can’t argue with that assessment, sadly. There is no one more unimaginative than the average libertarian think-tanker.

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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].”

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Fair.

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Manly response. I appreciate that.

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Arnold is a hero of mine. He deserves the best even if I disagree. So thank you, sir.

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Same.

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"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.

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I don't buy this. Non-unanimous collective action is (not always but presumptively) anti-libertarian.

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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.

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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.

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“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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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I'm sorry to hear you got robbed. Like the policeman, I am glad to hear you are ok, FWIW.

"Let’s drop the libertarian pretense, and call the force that provides safety for its constituents a government."

My impression is that libertarianism traditionally endorses policing as a core governmental function, distinguishing it from anarchism. So I don't think the lessons here are really for libertarianism. My uninformed suspicion would be that the governmental authorities around Wheaton are totally comfortable with government, but maybe have neglected the basics.

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founding

I have no insights. I am just sorry to hear you were mugged.

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I've never been a victim of direct physical crime, though I've had my property stolen and destroyed when I wasn't there many many times.

Like a lot of people this owes partially to the fact that I consciously avoid high risk areas and activities, which is itself a cost of crime. One way I judge the crime level of a city is whether its downtown looks like a place of general law and order or not.

People I know that have been the victim of direct physical crime have found it very troubling, even when they are not hurt. Home break-ins in particular seem quite traumatic.

Libertarians seem stuck in the view that the criminal justice system is like The Shawshank Redemption.

P.S. From what I've read about gun ownership it reduces the safety of the gun owner but enhances the safety of the gun owners community (criminals are reluctant to operate in areas with high gun ownership rates, but actual gun ownership leads to accidents and confrontations).

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Very glad you're all right.

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Very sorry to hear about your mugging.

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First of all, I am very sorry; the psychological cost of being mugged is always very high. Hard to think on anything else for a while. And of course, government is un-avoidable. But libertarian ideas are extremely useful to build better governments…

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I will save the philosophizing for another time. Sorry to hear that that happened to you. Glad to hear you're okay, though.

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Get a pistol, .38 caliber snub nosed automatic, learn how to diassemble and clean and to safely handle. Get a concealed weapon's permit. Go to a gun range for situational training. Talk to others, as you have, but about self defense. This progressive county you live in Maryland is useless. They're going to pretend that this was the first time this ATM was hit or that they couldn't patrol all ATM's? Was the assailant Black? Think about going to the bank during a weekday to make checks payable to cash for cash. I don't know why people use ATM's? Develop situational awareness. Had you had a weapon that you were competent with you could have waited until the assailant started running away and then left him a calling card. For some reason I think of a jingle from a war novel long ago(Leon Uris? ), "This is my rifle, this is my gun(penis). One is for fighting , the other is for fun."

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I was mugged in my youth, in Berkeley. The assailants were black, from Oakland. I also lived in an affluent enclave of Montgomery County MD for decades, before moving to my current location. In both cases, you have affluent areas surrounded by or in close proximity to non-affluent areas. Would-be assailants are attracted to where the money is, and the DC metro system affords them easy and cheap access to affluent areas. Post George Floyd, police protection is practically nonexistent, because what cop in their right mind would want to risk ending up in prison for life as a result of a criminal dying during an arrest? Same goes for citizens engaging in self-defense, as others have noted on this comment chain.

Montgomery County is one of the highest-taxed places in the country. I moved to a place with much lower property taxes, and no state income tax. My thinking was that, even if police protection was no better, at least I didn't have to pay through the nose for public services I'm not going to get. The demographics here are also different, and that was part of my calculus. I also like to pay cash for groceries and local services, and the closest bank branch to me has had a private security guard posted in front where the ATM machines are since last year. So far, I have no regrets about moving away from MontCo, even though the place to where I moved is not nearly as convenient for shopping and walkability, and has other downsides. In a way, I'm kind of grateful for having been mugged early in my life, because the resulting situational awareness has served me well throughout my life.

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This is where libertarian-conservative responses become hydra-headed. Because this tack - the individual initiative to procure a gun and learn how to use it - is another legitimate response from a right wing pov, and not appealing to the community for collective action in restoring law and order.

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Citizens of Wheaton and MoCo Maryland need to watch the film "Who shot Liberty Valance"

Liberty Valance (Lee Marvin) is a frontier thug who steals, assaults and kills as it suits him. Stoddard (Jimmy Stewart) is the young city slicker lawyer who comes out west to start his career. Doniphon (John Wayne) is a frontiersmen who knows the law in the frontier is enforced by the point of the gun.

Stoddard is morally indignant that Valance be brought to justice. No one supports this because they know once Valance is out of jail - if he even went to jail - he will seek revenge. Doniphon is not afraid of Valance because he has a gun and is willing to use it .

[Doniphon has just faced down Valance in the diner]

Tom Doniphon: "Well, now; I wonder what scared 'em off?"

Dutton Peabody: [poking fun at Stoddard for his idealism] "You know what scared 'em - the spectacle of law and order here, risin' up out of the gravy and the mashed potatoes"

Stoddard realizes the only fix is for him to stand up to Valance. And Stoddard does this because his idealism isn't just words but actions to back up his words.

MoCo residents need more Stoddard's and Doniphons. But they run off the Doniphons and, well, without a Doniphon, the Stoddards only have words and criminals know words will never hurt them.

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Feb 14
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There have been a number of prominent cases of people using firearms or physical force to defend themselves and others in circumstances that would have been considered indisputably justified in almost every jurisdiction only a few decades ago, but who nevertheless were prosecuted or made to go through various kinds of hell by the decision-makers in the local criminal justice system.

The message is clear: "Self-defense is no longer a natural right but effectively illegal here, don't even think about it, especially if your identity is outranked by the assailant's identity, and take your lumps, and mind your business if someone else is taking the lumps, or else, your own government will crush you like a bug."

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True. It appears to me that progressives view theft as a means of economic redistribution. As long as no one gets hurt they feel the thief gets what he/she deserves and the victim is just paying a penance that society owes.

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(I am not a lawyer, this is not legal advice)

There are legal defense funds for people who are involved in use-of-force situations. I highly recommend anyone who expects they may have to use force in self-defense join one of these groups. I would also recommend Andrew Branca's book "The Law of Self Defense".

There are also some practical things you can do to decrease your risk of legal issues. The first of which is to *use your voice*. You want to do two things when someone presents a threat:

1) make it crystal clear that they intend to harm you. If you say "stop following me!" loud and clear and they continue to follow you, then their likely intent is to hurt you.

2) Draw attention to the situation. Even if you don't have the ability to stop them physically, drawing attention to the situation changes the risk/reward calculus.

There are definitely some high profile cases in which prosecutors have tried (with varying levels of success) to overturn centuries of precedent of common law regarding self-defense, but the reality is that most legitimate uses of force in self-defense never go to trial. I know several people who have defended themselves many times while never going to trial, despite living in very blue cities in very blue states.

Simply put, prosecutors will only charge you if either there is a good chance you are guilty of an actual crime, or if it is a high-profile case and they will face political backlash if they don't bring charges.

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Just as there is "risk homeostasis" for when psychology intersects safety regulation, there is "prosecution homeostatis" for when criminal justice intersects with political imperative. Anything people do that might be temporarily legally effective to decrease their chance of prosecution will cause the system that wants to prosecute them to react and adjust the rules so that those steps no longer work. Like a legal arbitrage opportunity, once exploited, it can't be used again.

In general the institution of district attorney prosecutors in the US is in a state of utter degeneracy, in large part because prosecutors have license to abuse their discretion both in letting violent felons skate and subjecting their political enemies to hellish, selective prosecution and then seeking obscenely unjust and excessive sentences for petty infractions. Until these avenues of rampant abuse are somehow brought under control, no advice is good advice.

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I agree with your diagnosis, but not your prognosis.

Not that prosecutors aren't going to try to do all that you say, but rather that they are still limited in time and money, and many were clearly chosen for reasons other than pure competence.

It is simply not inevitable that they will be *able* to restore "prosecution homeostasis" even if they wanted to.

Now, it is still best to fix the abuse at its root (or move to a saner jurisdiction) but being hard to convict is still a rational strategy. Not just individually either - being hard to convict robs these prosecutors of power. The more that people see these prosecutors defeated in court, the less they will fear them.

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Defeating a malicious prosection in court is a Pyrrhic victory, because you're still out the cost of your lawyer, and the prosecutor gets paid and doesn't go to prison. There is no substitute for changing that.

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Defending yourself and your property was much more of an option when this was true for all prosecutors. Nowadays most prosecutors in large cities are the Soros type, malicious allies of thugs who eagerly prosecute people they know perfectly well have done no wrong, such as George Zimmerman and Kyle Rittenhouse. Outrages like those will continue until someone punishes those malicious prosecutors.

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Rittenhouse is a great example of how, even when you have bad lawyers and a malicious prosecution, it is still hard to get a conviction against someone who lawfully defended themselves.

Rittenhouse was a poster boy for lawful self-defense, and the jury clearly saw that.

But don't get caught up in the streetlight effect. Lawful self-defense occurs all the time in this country without it ever becoming national news or even going to court.

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Also a good way to start to get of theives. Such thinking helps perpetuate robbery. Time for you and others to start to change the legal system

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In many places like Montgomery County, the same system which pleads helplessness when it comes to finding a robber will spare no expense to locate, arrest, and throw the book at anyone who even threatens a robber. The press likes to reward conservative critics of other conservatives with "strange new respect". Likewise, our era's indolent Keystone Cops will suddenly display "strange now adept" competence and vigor when going after the right kind of suspect.

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Who said anything about shooting? Simply make the thug aware he will be shot if he persists.

Now listen, I would do exactly what Arnold did. I have no desire to shoot anyone or face the legal consequences of exercising self defense in a progressive locality. But the truth is that making it easy for criminals to succeed invites more criminality.

See my comment about Liberty Valance. I talk like a Stoddard but unlike him I would not commit suicide for my idealism. I would need a Donophon and I don't think many exist.

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>Let’s drop the libertarian pretense, and call the force that provides safety for its constituents a government.

Let’s drop the philosophical confusion, and call the force that provides safety for its customers a defence agency. It is very odd that someone who is both a libertarian and an economist seems unaware of the economic arguments for the greater efficiency of private protection. However, I shall stick to philosophy and hope that some libertarian economists reply.

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The advice that J.J. Bittenbinder gave Chicago in the 1990s still works.

https://youtu.be/OdIPlDAXsqg?t=86

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Yes, Arnold could have taken the $200? $500? And thrown it downwind, while running and shouting upwind. Only a bit less safe, but certainly less safe, and a big increase in discomfort for the mugger. Maybe quite a bit less safe, even quite dangerous.

“He was soon out of sight” isn’t clear if he’s running or just walking briskly away. Society would be better off if it supported victims shouting “Help, call the police. Thief, thief! Help, thief.” With someone else calling the cops and Arnold shouting some 20-30 yards away—knowing the big guy could get angry and beat him up, maybe beat him to death before any cops arrive.

Cops punishing those trying to help makes sure this doesn’t happen. That could change, and should.

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in a proper culture if someone transgresses the norms of the culture they are not protected by that society and become an outlaw whom anyone can punish with immunity.

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Arnold, do you think the movie "Who Shot Liberty Valance" is relevant to your experience? I do. If you are not familiar with the movie I recommend you watch it. Think of the sheriff as your civic leaders who are cowards who refuse to address the criminal element. Think of you as Stoddard who wants law and order but is personally unable to enforce it against the criminal element. And ask yourself, where are the Donophons who, as uncouth as they are, actually support the Stoddards and provide the "guns" needed to thwart the Liberty Valances.

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I too am glad to hear you are OK. I agree with Max that community policing is consistent with libertarianism. But there are free rider problems, as you note. Police frequently assist neighborhoods of households in a neighborhood watch program. The peer pressure might help overcome free riding, but turnover of houses blunts that. With fewer, bigger players, perhaps a smaller group of businesspeople in a district like yours in Wheaton get past the Mancur Olson collective action problem.

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Sorry to hear about the robbery. Handing over the cash and starting a dialogue with your neighbors is the right approach. Glad you’re okay.

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Thieves and muggers appreciate this passivity. They are not afraid of words.

What will make the sidewalks safer is swift negative consequences for those who commit crime. A community where Mr. Klling could turn to his mugger with a gun and ask, "Are you sure you want my money?" would be a safer community than what exists now.

And while I understand exactly why Mr. Kling did what he did, making it so easy for muggers to mug invites more mugging.

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Don't confuse appreciate, which is a courtesy, with a refusal to use force. Known quite a few muggers and home intruder's in my life and, like the movie "Heat" in the bank scene, they will resort to violence if needed and with extreme instantaneous escalation.

Standing up is something you do bullies as you will have repeatitive interactions with them so the cost equation, even for them, is different. Random non targeted violence though, short of kidnapping or restraints, especially if it's impact is of no practical import to you such as theft, just surrender the goods as resistance will generally just escalate and not if you favor short of the rare inexperienced criminal.

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Highly unlikely I’ll ever get robbed around here. I live in the safest neighborhood in the country. Surrounded by Latter-day Saints, Ring cameras and retired cops with safes full of AK-47s. First step is to avoid cities. Live in a red county in a red state. That solves 99% of the problem. Then carry if the risk becomes high. Arnold made the right decision.

Some people need guns though. https://open.substack.com/pub/scottgibb/p/mlk-jr-denied-carry-permit?r=nb3bl&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web

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That has nothing to do with being in a red state and everything to do with living in a neighborhood for semi-retired organized crime members. Unsurprisingly unorganized criminals don't tend to rob organized ones, especially ones known to retaliate and whom have effective carte blanc in the legal system.

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Nice.

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Arnold made the right decision for himself. However his decision made his community less safe. When crime pays you will get more of it.

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Impossible to know because he followed up with emails. He might have done more good than harm.

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Sorry that you were subjected to this injustice but very glad you were unharmed physically. Your column is thoughtful and your policy conclusion IMHO is correct.

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