FEE: Is America a Police State?
James Herrigan and Anthony Davies ask an important question, one asked many times before, yet in their case it seems to be rhetorical. They note an instance of gratuitous brutality committed against an elderly couple by violent men who happened to get hired as cops. All over hibiscus, which a busybody insurance agent mistook for marijuana. Yes, if police can do this level of damage and face no consequences, then we are living in a Police State. If all of us are exposed to this level of wanton violence at the hands of law enforcement, with little to no professional repercussions felt by law enforcement after the fact, then it reinforces that behavior, and seems to prove that we are indeed living in a Police State. When even body camera footage of clear-cut murder isn’t enough to convict a cop, or when a department’s decision to terminate an officer for abuse can be overridden by the cop union, then the answer is yes. The solution is more civilian oversight, abolition of police unions in their entirety, and immediate termination of the offending officer, while also barring them from ever wearing a badge again. The public’s safety is at stake, after all.
Ed: To the several hundred daily visitors to this blog, many new, welcome and thank you for the page views. This is more or less a “news aggregation” blog, from the point of view of a single person. It will always be so. Not to say that I have an eye for editing, but what I do have is a perspective on current events that could be labeled “libertarian”. I am for liberty, in the sense that Mises, Rothbard, Hayek, Rand, Spencer, Nock, and many, many others meant it. I am for a voluntary society, in the sense that I wish to see the legalization of every single voluntary act between consenting adults. Not merely because a strict defense of voluntary interaction affords respect and dignity to each individual, but because of the endless prosperity that emerges from a society that treats each individual as an end unto themselves. Every societal ill of our time stems from a restriction of one or more voluntary interactions, or, a violation of the liberty and dignity of a group of people. The crises of our time, therefore, could be easily solved by banishing these myriad artificial restrictions, and allowing the resulting flood of social power to correct the mistakes of the world’s states. Barring a stroke, dementia, the loss of my fingers, or death, this is the perspective that this blog will operate from for the duration.
