My Quick Take on Ferguson
from the editor:
Ferguson is tearing this country apart.
At issue are two problems, as I see it.
1. The real problem is with the culture!
The obvious festering race debate that is bubbling underneath the surface. The rising tide of previously silent people have been held down by those whose whips read “political correctness.” Serious debate is impeded by the social justice point system of minority favored status obligations. If there’s no basic understanding of individualism over collectivism, then the race debate will continue unabated from now until forever. Human beings are so genetically similar that it is almost laughable to even ponder our differences, other than perhaps for purposes of biological health.
Success and opportunity are available to you in this country. I’ve seen (and been) poor people make something out of nothing. It doesn’t matter the color of your skin. It’s what’s on the inside that counts, and how you express it into the world, positively or negatively. As humans, we should be able to overcome our previous differences as a whole. We should give up on our fear of “the other” (at least unless any non-human species have a hostile intervention of the close encounter kind).
Race should not be an issue. It’s only another thing to divide us further. Like flags.
2. A culture of police violence created by an unjust system.
“The law perverted! And the police powers of the state perverted along with it!” -Bastiat The Law
Let’s not discuss the numbers for now. Statistics prove that you don’t care. Let’s discuss something. Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ve seen the videos of police officers engaging in what I will kindly call “controversial” behavior. As someone who may or may not consider themselves a person of law and order, do you believe that it’s possible to always 100% perfectly uphold law and order?
No, of course you don’t. No one is perfect.
Nevertheless, a perfect standard is what we must set for our officials, elected and non-elected. It is none other than the standard we would demand for ourselves if we privately purchased the means of self defense, instead of being forced to pay for it through taxation.
We must do this to ensure that there is always a balance of power. A check and a balance. The rights of We the People will not be safeguarded by a warrior class of philosopher cops, who are the only authorized gun users, and who are skilled in self defense. Every single lesson of the American Revolution is intertwined with the self-reliance of individual patriots acting in their own self interests. That is the goal, if we are to be a free society.
Agents of the police are public servants who are given the authority to initiate force and secure arrests. If we wish to minimize their role in our lives, I’m sure that we all can agree that we would love to need less police, then we must act. We must reform our criminal justice system. We must end the war on drugs. We must stop prosecuting non-violent offenders, and we must rein in the power of our wildly expanded police force of infinitely expanding authority. Criminal terrorism should not be the bogeyman that gets us to give up our freedoms. The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.
Americans should be free to arm and defend themselves when necessary. More individual self reliance breeds a stronger stock. Waiting for the government to save you from real criminals is not always a survivable strategy. The goal is to be a more peaceful society, a more peaceful society should need less police.
Charles Krauthammer said once that libertarianism wasn’t a governing philosophy. He was right. It’s a self governing philosophy.
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