“If there are anarchists, if there are weapons, if there is an intention to engage in violence and confrontation, that obviously raises our concerns,”
Portland police Lt. Robert King said.
The official demonization of “anarchists” by State propagandizers continues on apace, in this instance by an agent of an “agency”-without-principals which intends to violently evict Occupy protesters from Portland parks this weekend. Meanwhile, a real-life “anarch” (leader of leaderlessness), Wendy McElroy, explores, at the Daily Anarchist, what an anarchist system of justice might look like, and in reply to a comment on her post writes:
At some point, you have to do a comparative assessment and choose the system that does it best rather than does it ‘right’…because there is no right. That’s the horror of violence. It sets the natural order so viciously out of whack that it may not be possible to ever return it to ‘right’. My ideal “just system” is 90% prevention so that you don’t have to deal with raped women, traumatized children, men killed for $10 in their wallets. Imagine a free market law enforcement industry that actually existed to prevent violence, that drew its customer salary from the efficiency with which it managed to prevent violence. What a revolution that would be! Oh Brave New World in which I wish to live.
I contributed the following comments (slightly edited) to the discussion in the comments section on Wendy’s post:
I’ve recently been thinking that anarchic justice should depend on “consensus” rather than “consent,” manifested in a common-law, customary-law kind of system. As John Hasnas has argued, such a system properly understood is free market law. Law is rarely based on consent. The thief caught shoplifting or committing more serious crimes presumably will only rarely “consent” to the consequences imposed by society. It should take a consensus of society to impose any restriction on liberty. Punishments, whether of the restitution or retribution / deterrence / incapacitation variety (and I think the limitations of a restitution-only paradigm are seen in the hypothetical murder of a homeless man with no family or friends to whom restitution for his “wrongful death” might be paid), should likewise be no harsher than a consensus of society approves. Consensus is the social embodiment of the Presumption of Innocence, which is fundamental to a free society. Consensus is only practical in small groups, which points the way to a society of Thomas Jefferson’s “ward republics” and to confederation along the lines of the Great Law of Peace of the Iroquois Confederacy, which operated by consensus.
. . .
It all depends on what the conventions are. Right now the conventions that prevail in society are very unlibertarian. Specifically, these conventions hold the text of a Constitution put together by men long dead for less than noble purposes 200 years ago to be binding on the living, and vulgarly and arbitrarily equate democracy with the will of the majority (even a bare majority of 51%). It seems the goal of libertarianism is precisely to change those conventions. Apparently in contrast to many posters here, I think the so-called Rule of Lenity is a convention at the heart of liberty. So is the Presumption of Innocence. So is the notion that “government” derives its just powers from the “consent of the governed,” but instead of speaking of the “consent of the governed” I’d speak of the “consensus of the self-governing.” If 95%+ of the people in a community agree that it is just to use force to prevent or punish murder that’s a pretty good indication that force is in fact justified to prevent or punish murder, and it’s pretty clear that in any event murder isn’t going to be tolerated by that community. On the other hand, if only 75% agree that it is just to use force to prevent or punish eating magic mushrooms that’s a pretty good indication that force is not justified to prevent or punish eating magic mushrooms, and a society which values consensus and applies societally the same presumption against violence that decent people generally apply as individuals will not use force to prevent or punish eating magic mushrooms, even if, hypothetically, 75% think such force would be justified and 95% think eating magic mushrooms is “immoral.”
. . .
Ideally, the so-called traditional common law, which John Hasnas illuminates as depoliticized law, reflects reason and natural law, and its evolution is likewise guided by reason and natural law. Each case is to be decided on the basis of Justice, informed by how such cases have been decided before.
. . .
I urge all anarchists to give Henry George a second look. Georgism represents a principle by which such claims [to land] may rest not only on force but on justice. I’m of the opinion that in an anarchic society “national defense” (i.e., defense not of a nation but defense from nations) will still be necessary, that such defense will necessarily be defense of a territory by those in the territory, and that Georgism would provide the natural means of funding such defense.
Our Enemy, the State, by Albert Jay Nock, whom I personally regard as my number one libertarian muse, is shot through with Georgism.
. . .
The Hasnas article on “The Depoliticization of Law” is also directly on point: http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=987829
. . .
Consensus, as I conceive it, is close to or identical with the very essence of anarchism, and of the “libertarian framework.” In the realm of collective action it whittles the use of force down to what Nietzsche called the “song of the necessary,” in the same diatribe in which he called the State the “coldest of all cold monsters.” Unless “we” all agree violence is necessary and justified, “we” don’t use violence.
. . .
I think Justice is most appropriately defined not positively but negatively, as “the absence of crime.” All the things we do to try to fight or deter or somehow provide “satisfaction” for crime are then seen to be “justice” only in a secondary and derivative sense. The criminal defense attorney serves Justice more directly than the prosecutor.
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What the Portland Police commissioner calls an “anarchist” is typically a group of young, white males dressed head-to-toe in black, marching down the street shouting obscenities. “Nihilists” would be a more accurate descriptive term. The Portland police have a counter-force, which I seek to avoid as much as the nihilists, dressed head-to-toe in black riot gear that rides into action on the sides of specially constructed vans. The two groups are made for each other, literally.
Law and Justice as I understand these terms take over when an individual’s conscience fails to conform to societal standards and that individual is willing to risk punishment as a consequence of acting on their deviant desires. The justice system exists to protect the conforming members of society from the non-conforming; justice is the act of determining innocence or guilt, and in the case of guilt, the appropriate degree of protection and/or deterrence warranted by the deviant act. The absence of crime would reflect the character of or, less flatteringly, the desire for conformity of, the members of that society.
Thanks for the pointers to Thoreau earlier this week and the inspiration to crack open his collected works after a too-long absence from my life.
1Evidently the Portland police think anarchists are some kind of violent primate. From Willamette Week this morning: “The Occupiers’ plans include a potluck at 6 pm, a concert at 8 pm and then a sit-in at the park. Occupy is planning for a non-violent evening. The police are anticipating anarchists hiding in trees with makeshift weapons.”
But the protesters are still occupying after a crowd of 5,000+ turned out in non-violent support. A crowd that that probably contained more than a few anarchists of the homo sapiens variety.
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