Set Our Children Free

Scott Wagner, a councilman with the city of Kansas City, Missouri, has proposed the imposition of a daytime curfew. Extending from just after school begins, to shortly prior to classes being dismissed, students between the ages of 7 and 16 would be subject to the new restrictions. From the report by KCTV 5, such persons found “in a public area without an adult present would be taken into police custody.”

According to the story, Councilman Wagner believes it is “important that [children] not be at risk to either commit a crime or be a victim of a crime.” In this guy’s head it’s apparently ok to arrest children ex ante, because it’s possible they might commit a crime, and that being kidnapped by a police officer, in violation of the 4^th amendment, isn’t itself a crime.

At least one school official, a principal from Ruskin High School, favors the proposed ordinance, saying it would help curb truancy. And that’s where the issue lies. The fact that it may be necessary to have the police round up kids and haul them off to school in order to ensure attendance is a harsh indictment of the government school system.

Forcing a child to attend a government program is a gross enough violation of one’s rights, but establishing curfews and enforcing them with an armed police force is worse still. It’s clear that children see little to no value in attending school anyway, otherwise it’s reasonable to assume they wouldn’t be skipping class. Rather than forcing them to attend or face arrest, thereby placing blame on the student or parents, the government schools ought to be held responsible for their poor attendance rates.

As it stands, parents have little to no control, and students have even less, when it comes to determining the subjects taught, the methods used, or the environment in which “learning” takes place. But despite these facts, it is invariably the parents who are expected to motivate their children to participate in the system. When failing grades are an issue, as they were when the Kansas City School District lost its accreditation last year, many pointed to the parents, saying they needed to push their kids to do better.

Under the proposal, children picked up by the police would either be taken home or to a school. In the event no adult were available, the kids would be “held in a secure area.” Parents would then have to pick-up the child. There is to be no penalty for the first offense, but subsequent violations will result in $100 fines imposed on the parent. Where this money ultimately goes is never specified.

If any of it finds its way into the police departments or schools, or if simply having a child delivered to a school results in any monetary payment to the school, then a conflict of interest exists. Amendments to the Mondale Act of 1974 require the federal government to pay state Child Protective Service (CPS) agencies for every child removed from parents. As Rick Fisk has written, these laws “have essentially put a bounty on the heads of all of our children.” Just like civil asset forfeiture provides a perverse incentive for police departments to seize private property, police and school officials could stand to profit from similar programs.

It’s absolutely ridiculous for the government to systematically undermine the authority of the parents in the education process, while simultaneously holding them responsible for the outcomes. Even more absurd is piling on more legislation in an attempt to solve failures the government itself created to begin with. Children should be set free from the state’s control and parents should once again have responsibility to care for them.

Man Attacked, Charged With Assault

This video is making its rounds on Facebook, which features the brutal assault of an elderly man suffering from dementia. The victim, who was unarmed, had been in a dispute over payments from a third party when the first assailant attacked him, unprovoked. Within mere moments a second armed attacker joined the fray and discharged a taser in the victim’s face. NB, violent content.

Despite the sociopathic behavior displayed by these “lawmen” never fear, dear citizen, they are simply bad apples. They’re outliers not reflective of the vast majority of policemen. Rest assured that the majority of policemen are upstanding exemplars of morality, and only have the best interests in mind for the people whom they are sworn to serve and protect. Why, one need only perform a quick YouTube search of “police brutality,” or some other related search term, to discover that very few videos exist.

Never mind that these policemen are paid with money coercively extracted from the citizenry. Much of the revenue collected by police forces is stolen outright, under official sanction through civil asset forfeiture laws, which provide legal cover to officers who engage in highway robbery.

Never mind that the original purpose of government police forces was to serve and protect the political class from the commoners, not defend the rights and property of the people, as we’re often told. As Wendy McElroy shows in To Serve and Protect – The State, English common law is the basis for the U.S. legal system, and many of the practices in England have been adopted here, even after the initial founding. England began establishing socialized police forces beginning in occupied Ireland before instituting them in London, in order to establish social control. She also notes that citizens aren’t guaranteed protection for themselves and their property anyway, as determined by the U.S. Supreme Court in Castle Rock v. Gonzales.

Never mind that official police doctrine places the safety of officers above all others. Never mind that policemen, many of whom are recent war veterans, are trained to view the people in their communities not as peaceful neighbors, but as hostile bands of civilians. Rather than being taught to respect the people, as they should be, police officers have been conditioned to treat citizens with suspicion.

The times when police act in benevolence or otherwise provide aid to individuals should be considered exceptions to the rule, rather than the norm, in light of what they’re being taught. As William Norman Grigg writes, police resource officers have been told “…you can no longer afford to think of yourselves as peace officers…. You must think of yourself [sic] as soldiers in a war because we’re going to ask you to act like soldiers.” If this is how officers in schools are to behave amidst unarmed children, how might they view adults?

There is little recourse in cases such as the one above. Except in extremely rare cases, police violence, even that resulting in death, is excused by “official investigations.” At best the offending officer is kept off the streets during the inquiry and thus cannot menace other peaceful individuals; albeit he is given a taxpayer funded vacation during such a time.

So often it’s found that the officer followed “proper procedures,” and therefore acted in accordance with the law. That the procedures themselves are unjust or encourage excessive force is hardly given a thought.

In a free market these cops would undoubtedly be fired post haste. That and they would be subject not only to lawsuits from the victim, but quite possibly from the firm who had hired them for such grotesque behavior. Businesses in general tend to frown upon the actions of their employees that bring about negative publicity by assaulting clients or potential customers.

Do We Need The Police?

This semester I’m back in a Spanish class and often we discuss the culture of one Hispanic country or another. The professor has lived in Costa Rica and frequently tells us about her time there. The subject of law enforcement came up recently and she mentioned that police are much less active in many Latin American countries.

In general, she said, there are fewer police and they have a much smaller presence in the lives of the citizens. For instance, people don’t rely much on the police for personal protection. Nor is their property protected like here in the U.S. Instead, the people assume responsibility for protecting themselves.

It’s common practice to pay a kid to sit and watch your car while you go shopping or dine at a restaurant. Neighbors are relied upon to watch your home during vacations, and most are willing to help in the event of an in-home emergency. Typically the folks on one street will all pitch in to pay someone to act as a night watchman. Also, residents are usually very careful to lock their homes and guard their things closely.

Police corruption is notorious, but this is all to the good. Now, corrupt police aren’t necessarily good, although certain ones can be, but that people know they’re dirty is important. Americans have been taught to venerate the police. You’re considered a heretic if you dare question the hallowed institution of “first responders.” But they should be questioned.

William Grigg’s archive at LewRockwell.com is rife with examples of abusive and corrupt law enforcement. Also, he regularly indicts the legal system which provides cover for police misconduct. CATO has produced a map cataloging botched paramilitary raids in the U.S., which often happen as a result of shoddy detective work and skewed incentives for the officers.

Apologists for the police are always quick to say these are “rogue cops” or just isolated cases. The vast majority, they declare, are upstanding selfless servants to the public good. Considering the volume of cases though, there are an awful lot of “bad apples” in this basket.

And while it’s possible that most are decent human beings, they nevertheless operate in a corrupt system, one fundamentally based on theft. The incentive structure rewards plunder and punishes those with integrity. As a rule, such organizations tend to attract the morally deficient.  

I have no personal experience in this part of the world, and the information was from her stay in the 1970s, so it’s possible that it’s no longer an entirely accurate description. It does however line up with what I’ve read about this region and my experiences in the Middle East. Regardless, it demonstrates in theory, how a voluntary society might solve the problem of security. We don’t need the police.