This past weekend, two NY City police officers, one asian and one latino, were murdered in what appears to be a premeditated and unprovoked act of payback for the deaths of two black men in two unrelated incidents in two different cities. The firestorm of tension, protests and opinions that came out of the latter deaths reached a new level with the execution-style murders of the police officers, with fingers of blame being pointed all over the place. Swept up, tossed about and (as always) misunderstood/misconstrued in this maelstrom is the libertarian’s view of police in our society.
Libertarians have been at the fore of the rising tide of concern about the militarization of police, and have consistently stood in opposition to activities and policies that infringe upon and violate the rights of citizens. We’ve been decrying the massive increase in the frequency of SWAT-style no-knock raids, the distribution of military and military-grade hardware and equipment to civilian police forces, policies like “stop and frisk,” and the increased “otherness” in relations between the protectors and the protected. We take issue when the blue wall of silence rises up to defend individual police officers from the consequences of bad acts. We don’t automatically default to taking a cop’s side when a confrontation goes wrong.
All this has led some to believe that libertarians are anti-cop, that we start from a position hostile to police officers, and that we therefore side with the anti-cop protesters (and possibly those who urge violence against police). The last is ludicrous, of course – libertarianism is rooted in the non-aggression principle, but as to the rest of it – it’s understandable that, in a society that’s increasingly about binary polarization (if you’re not with us, you must be with them), people who don’t automatically stand with the cops are presumed to stand against the cops.
Consider, though, what it is libertarians want from police. We want them to do their root job, which is to protect citizens and citizens’ rights (as codified and enumerated in the Constitution and the other laws of the land) from those who would infringe upon them. Part of that job is respecting and holding sacred those rights. When those rights are treated as an impediment to the job rather than its mission, the job isn’t being done properly or faithfully. It’s not an easy job. It comes with risks, it sometimes requires instant decisions under incredible pressure and peril, and it often engenders active hostility from those who are served by it. Despite all that, it’s fair to say that it is the norm for the job to be done well and properly, and that unjust incidents don’t seem to happen that often.
What is alarming, though, is that unjust incidents seem to be happing more often than they used to. Therein I do not only include obviously questionable ones like the death of Eric Garner, but also unnecessary SWAT raids, dog shootings, unjustified stop-and-frisks and other detentions of citizens, and so on. There’s a whole lot of distrust of police out there, and it’s not getting better. The proper response should be to consider why this is, but the prevailing response is, too often, blind or reflexive choosing of sides. Some declare themselves pro-cop, others anti-cop. Self-interested politicians and community leaders feed this divisiveness for their own ends and their own aggrandizement, making things even worse and possibly setting the stage for criminals and the mentally deranged to think that they have received word from on high to commit violence against police.
As is too often the case, libertarians and their positions get lost in the shuffle. When we decry militarization, or when we point out that Eric Garner died stupidly and needlessly, we’re accused of being anti-cop. When we denounce criminals for committing violent crimes or point the finger of blame directly at Ismaaiyl Brinsley, we’re accused of being pro-cop. When we point out that the root causes for so much that’s going wrong stem from big nanny government, we are met with blank stares or accusations of sophistry. Yet the last is what we should be addressing. Militarization and the bellicose mindset it engenders isn’t policy set by the cops on the street. SWAT raids aren’t authorized by beat cops. Cigarette taxes so high that they create a black market aren’t imposed by the NYPD. The drug war that has created the criminal underclass police combat every day wasn’t initiated by police departments. Stop-and-frisk policies aren’t decided by the guys in the patrol cars.
All the things that alter the relationship between police and citizens come from the guys at the top, and it is the guys at the top with whom libertarians properly take issue. I don’t stand in automatic opposition to an individual in the uniform trying to do a difficult job to the best of his ability. Quite the opposite – I respect him and all that he has to deal with. But, I don’t grant an individual a free pass should he do a bad thing. Individuals are and should be treated as individuals. We should neither blame all of a criminal’s peers (demographic, socioeconomic, geographic, ethnic, religious, etc) for his bad acts, nor exonerate him because of who his peers are. Likewise, we shouldn’t absolve bad acts by a cop because he’s a cop, nor should we defame all cops because one acted wrongly.
Positions of principle and rationality don’t play well when people’s emotions are up, but they are often the positions that provide the best responses and answers. They are what guide us to addressing and possibly correcting the problems that induced emotional responses, and reducing the likelihood of future incidents of the same sort. Liberty is the bedrock of our society, and the defense of liberty is the first role of government. Police are a vital part of that defense and a critical part of our society. Those who we’ve elected and appointed to provide that defense need to be reminded what it is they’re defending. It is there, at the top, that the problems between police and citizens can and must be addressed.
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