{"id":1441,"date":"2011-11-12T16:17:56","date_gmt":"2011-11-12T20:17:56","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.peoplevstate.com\/?p=1441"},"modified":"2011-11-13T13:25:39","modified_gmt":"2011-11-13T17:25:39","slug":"if-there-are-anarchists-if-there-are-weapons-if-there-is-an-intention-to-engage-in-violence-and-confrontation-that-obviously-raises-our-concerns","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.peoplevstate.com\/?p=1441","title":{"rendered":"“If there are anarchists, if there are weapons, if there is an intention to engage in violence and confrontation, that obviously raises our concerns,”"},"content":{"rendered":"

Portland police Lt. Robert King said.<\/a><\/p>\n

The official demonization of “anarchists” by State propagandizers continues on apace, in this instance by an agent of an “agency”-without-principals<\/strong> which intends to violently<\/em> evict Occupy protesters from Portland parks this weekend. Meanwhile, a real-life “anarch” (leader of leaderlessness), Wendy McElroy<\/a>, explores, at the Daily Anarchist<\/a>, what an anarchist system of justice might look like, and in reply to a comment on her post writes<\/a>:<\/p>\n

At some point, you have to do a comparative assessment and choose the system that does it best rather than does it \u2018right\u2019\u2026because there is no right. That\u2019s 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 \u2018right\u2019. My ideal \u201cjust system\u201d is 90% prevention so that you don\u2019t 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.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I contributed the following comments (slightly edited) to the discussion in the comments section on Wendy’s post<\/a>:<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve recently been thinking that anarchic justice should depend on \u201cconsensus\u201d rather than \u201cconsent,\u201d 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 \u201cconsent\u201d 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 \u201cwrongful death\u201d 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\u2019s \u201cward republics\u201d and to confederation along the lines of the Great Law of Peace of the Iroquois Confederacy, which operated by consensus.<\/p>\n

. . .<\/p>\n

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 \u201cgovernment\u201d derives its just powers from the \u201cconsent of the governed,\u201d but instead of speaking of the \u201cconsent of the governed\u201d I\u2019d speak of the \u201cconsensus of the self-governing.\u201d If 95%+ of the people in a community agree that it is just to use force to prevent or punish murder that\u2019s a pretty good indication that force is in fact justified to prevent or punish murder, and it\u2019s pretty clear that in any event murder isn\u2019t 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\u2019s 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 \u201cimmoral.\u201d<\/p>\n

. . .<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

. . .<\/p>\n

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\u2019m of the opinion that in an anarchic society \u201cnational defense\u201d (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.<\/p>\n

Our Enemy, the State, by Albert Jay Nock, whom I personally regard as my number one libertarian muse, is shot through with Georgism.<\/p>\n

. . .<\/p>\n

The Hasnas article on \u201cThe Depoliticization of Law\u201d is also directly on point: http:\/\/papers.ssrn.com\/sol3\/papers.cfm?abstract_id=987829<\/a><\/p>\n

. . .<\/p>\n

Consensus, as I conceive it, is close to or identical with the very essence of anarchism, and of the \u201clibertarian framework.\u201d In the realm of collective action it whittles the use of force down to what Nietzsche called the \u201csong of the necessary,\u201d in the same diatribe in which he called the State the \u201ccoldest of all cold monsters.\u201d Unless \u201cwe\u201d all agree violence is necessary and justified, \u201cwe\u201d don\u2019t use violence.<\/p>\n

. . .<\/p>\n

I think Justice is most appropriately defined not positively but negatively, as \u201cthe absence of crime.\u201d All the things we do to try to fight or deter or somehow provide \u201csatisfaction\u201d for crime are then seen to be \u201cjustice\u201d only in a secondary and derivative sense. The criminal defense attorney serves Justice more directly than the prosecutor.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

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 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[112,104,111,119,117,116,113,118],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1441","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-albert-jay-nock","category-cops","category-friedrich-nietzsche","category-henry-george","category-iroquois","category-john-hasnas","category-thomas-jefferson","category-wendy-mcelroy"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.peoplevstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1441","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.peoplevstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.peoplevstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.peoplevstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.peoplevstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1441"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.peoplevstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1441\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1449,"href":"https:\/\/www.peoplevstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1441\/revisions\/1449"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.peoplevstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1441"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.peoplevstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1441"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.peoplevstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1441"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}