Drivers Narrowly Escape Death from Cops

A family claims that while waiting to pass through a DWI checkpoint in south eastern North Carolina, officers began indiscriminately firing into one of the vehicles. Jared Cleerdin described the scene, saying that “every cop turned around and started unloading like super trigger happy […] everybody was just blasting this car to pieces. It was absolutely terrifying.”

He went on to say that “it was way beyond reckless […] these are professional people, professional officers, and they’re training, they’re highly trained and they’re not supposed to do stuff like that.”

According to the original report from WECT, the sheriff’s office would not comment on the incident, or provide any information as to why officers suddenly opened fire. All reporters could gather was that seven officers in total had placed on administrative leave.

The comment section of the report (at least this morning) was a typical mixture of sycophantic police-worship and disgust for the reckless behavior. Here’s one of the former variety:

No reports of other vehicles being hit by stray bullets. No reports of bystanders or passerbys (sic) being hit by stray bullets. I would say that these trained officers performed as they were trained to perform. What may look random to the untrained can very well be precisioned (sic) and calculated by those who are trained. People can make all the comments they wants out these officers being reckless but they can’t escape these two facts that rebuke such remarks.

If we are to believe that each of these officers acted in a manner consistent with the above description, shouldn’t we expect to hear that from the police departments involved? If this wanton disregard for human life is indeed the appropriate way in which to handle this sort of thing, wouldn’t the police spokesmen be heralding the officers as heroes? The refusal to comment on the incident seems to raise doubts over this claim.

Furthermore, the use of lethal force is meant only to be used in the event that an innocent life is at risk. In which case, taking the life of a suspect is said to be justified. If indeed someone’s life was in danger, and the police employees used “precision,” how did the two targets manage to survive the fusillade? Considering that “officer safety” is the watchword of public relations officers and police unions across the country, we ought to be hearing all about the grave danger these two individuals posed to the officers.

Silence from the government’s police force appears to speak volumes in this situation.

Two Means to the Same Ends

The editorial board of The Kansas City Star published a piece today condemning recent moves in the house and senate to increase corporate welfare in farm bills. Overall, the editorial isn’t half bad. It makes good points about the moral hazard and distortion in the agricultural and insurance industries as a result from such intervention.

There is one misconception, however, regarding the relationship of food stamps and farm bailouts. The board writes: “The crazy-glue bill has for decades bonded farm aid and food stamps. Other than they both involve food, the two have little to do with each other.”

They do concede the obvious: that urban representatives and rural congressmen each benefit from the farm bills, which transfer other people’s money to their constituents. There is however another, less obvious connection; in reality the programs are intimately linked.

Food stamps buy products that come mostly from industrial farms. Every swipe of an EBT card is an indirect transfer from taxpayers to big ag; welfare recipients are merely one of the intermediaries between the two. Arguing against farm aid while promoting increases in food stamps is like decrying bank bailouts while giving billions of dollars to depositors at the country’s largest banks. One is more roundabout than the other, but the money makes its way to the same place in the end.

It’s Okay, He Has a Badge

Without a doubt, anyone who suddenly dispatched a litter of kittens with a pistol in a residential neighborhood would be charged with a number of crimes. Of course, if someone employed by the government’s police force does this it’s fine, because he has a badge.

What’s the Matter with (Mission) Kansas?: Part 2

A review by The Kansas City Star of area police departments revealed that Mission is the number one for traffic tickets in the metropolitan area. This is hardly surprising, since driving through the town’s main thoroughfare is not unlike commuting in a third world country, considering how bad the road conditions are. Adding a heightened risk of highway robbery only makes the experience all the more authentic.

The study showed that last year, police in Mission issued two tickets per hour, twenty four hours a day, for a total of more than 16,000. Considering the town’s main road is only 1.5 miles, and the total area is just over two and half square miles, this number dwarf’s all neighboring communities.

Local coverage has been surprisingly hostile toward the city of Mission, as commentators haven’t been shy about questioning the methods of the city’s police and political elite. In an effort to defend the practice, the mayor told reporters that one fourth of all police stops result in only a warning. Of course it’s not really encouraging that instead of pulling over more than 16,000 drivers, they’re actually harassing more than 20,000 motorists a year.

At least one caller into local radio made the tired, illogical argument that “if you haven’t broken the law, you have nothing to worry about.” This is not an argument, though, since it merely begs the question of whether the law is legitimate in the first place.

In all questions related to crime, there first must be a victim. If there is no victim, then it follows no crime has been committed. Failing to signal, having a broken license plate light, and even speeding cannot be rightly described as crimes if there is no victim.

There’s a trend in Mission; see also this post from a couple years ago.

‘Privatize’ Doesn’t Always Mean ‘Free Market’

Michael Lind’s embarrassing challenge to libertarians at Salon the other day was filled with a great many errors, too many to list here. He offered non sequiturs, straw men, and confused simple definitions; Tom Woods and Robert Murphy each addressed these problems. There’s one point I want to make regarding this pedestrian article of Lind’s, since it’s a fairly common misconception, even among many who consider themselves libertarian.

There is a tendency to conflate “privatization” with “free market.” Libertarians do this, thanks in large part to the influence of Milton Friedman. There is even more confusion on the part of non-libertarians. In a free market all services are privately operated, i.e., privatized. However, privatization doesn’t always mean the free market provides the services.

Here’s an example: shoes are, for the most part, provided by the market. The shoe industry is virtually privatized. But consider private prisons. First, they’re granted government contracts. They operate using taxpayer funds. The terms are set by state regulators. The cells are filled with inmates convicted of breaking government laws by the government’s criminal justice system. This is not a free market system.

Nor is it libertarian. The whole apparatus described above is one egregious violation of the non-aggression principle. It involves theft, coercion, and violence.

Writes Lind:

When you ask libertarians if they can point to a libertarian country, you are likely to get a baffled look, followed, in a few moments, by something like this reply: While there is no purely libertarian country, there are countries which have pursued policies of which libertarians would approve: Chile, with its experiment in privatized Social Security, for example, and Sweden, a big-government nation which, however, gives a role to vouchers in schooling.

Indeed I would approve of privatizing social security. Which is to say, I am in favor of retirement savings being handled privately, and by the free market. But Chile’s model does not fit this description. Wikipedia explains that the country’s pension system was inspired by Friedman and that:

The establishment and the operation of the private pension funds are regulated by law. For e.g. any pension fund must deposit minimum reserves. The types of investments that are permitted are defined by law. The compliance of the private pension funds are supervised by a government regulator….

The fact that private funds are established means nothing when the whole process is controlled by the Chilean State, and participation is mandatory.

School vouchers are another non-free market program that’s no more libertarian. Parents are given the false choice of government-approved schools and it’s all paid for with expropriated funds. Allowing parents to use the money at any school, or for homeschooling or unschooling would be better, but taxpayers would still be forced to pay for the education of someone else’s children. Again, not libertarian.

Some services may be more efficiently provided by private firms, and there can be lower costs and better quality. But when a government grants monopoly powers to a single firm, or even a few forms, describing it as free market would be incorrect. At best, those who advocate such reforms may be seen as efficiency experts for the state, and not libertarian, as Murray Rothbard noted.