I have a new series I would like to present on a PRN, or pro re nata, basis. Pro re nata essentially means “when necessary” and is used in medical prescription writing to mean take “as needed.” My new series will from here forward be referred to as “Faux Libertarian” and call out these fake libertarian takes. The clown will be prominently displayed on a similar PRN basis to identify these stellar takedowns. Let us continue…
You know what is pretty entertaining to me? When ideas are promoted as sharing a certain perspective, that are not, at all, in line with that perspective.
In the wake of yet another police shooting, resulting in the death of Adam Toledo, body camera footage was released which showed that the young man appears to drop the weapon mere seconds before being shot, fatally, by a police officer responding to the scene. The continual promoting of the narrative of police violence is concerning enough, but I’d like to take a step away from that story itself.
Conor Friedersdorf, from The Atlantic, should either clarify to the Flip Side that he is not, in fact, a libertarian, or they just need to remove him from their list of their own accord.
I’ll get right to the point. The author provides an analogy that is not only inaccurate, but doesn’t provide a solution. I’ll break it down for you.
The Flip Side offers several perspectives from the right, and several from the left, and then occasionally allows a semi-libertarian take at the very tail end of the rest. Here is how their alleged “libertarian” decided to tackle the complicated issue of police shootings:
A libertarian’s take…sort of?
“Aviation deaths once looked like an intractable problem. Then the federal government began probing every plane crash with an eye toward preventing future loss of life. Our skies got much safer as a result. A similar approach could reduce police killings. A federal agency should investigate every single killing and significant injury caused by American police officers, who have long killed people at higher rates than cops in many other wealthy democracies…
Seriously? This alleged libertarian couldn’t fathom any reality in which the airlines also didn’t benefit from loss of life of their passengers, or the investments in aircraft that were lost? This alleged libertarian couldn’t conceive of skyrocketing insurance rates or plummeting customer participation as market demands requiring airlines to find safer means of travel? Of all the libertarians available, this had to be the most limp-noodled attempt to provide any alternative to the state solution. Conor looked at the state solutions available and mustered the Milquetoast response of what amounts to “federal encroachment could provide a solution to state problems.”
What kind of garbage is that?
The Flip Side could just ask and I would provide a much more libertarian take than that spineless approach.
He wasn’t done…
“Whenever a plane crash occurs, big or small, headline-grabbing or obscure, a team of experts is dispatched to reconstruct exactly what happened. The aim isn’t to advance a legal process or punish wrongdoers, but to figure out which changes, if any, could prevent it from happening again… What if every police killing triggered that sort of response?…
I don’t know, Conor. It’s almost like no corporation or private business has anything similar to this process in his imagination. The only solution he can think of is a state-sponsored approach. How unique.
The reality is that insurance companies already do this on a regular basis for all sorts of other concerns. A house without fire alarms will pay a higher premium, because they have shown, through multiple investigations, that damage is reduced with homes have fire alarms. The federal government didn’t have to put together an A-list squad of investigators to build the case and find the culprit. Insurance companies were paying for the damage and decided to reward homeowners that implemented safety measures to address the problem.
The same can be said for companies selling electronic products. Underwriters Laboratories is a free market certification broker which essentially acts as a safety confirmation process for light fixtures, outlets, light switches, fans, and other consumer end electronic products that you plug into your walls. The companies that sell electronic products are willing to take Underwriters Laboratories as a stamp of safety approval in the process. There was no state fire code or federal investigation necessary to implement a fix on the potential fire hazards because a third party was willing to put their own name and brand on the line. There is no known retailer willing to carry a product for these purposes that has not been approved by this company.
I’m sure this alleged libertarian has a great parallel to make his point though…
“Current investigations of police killings are neither independent nor broad enough in scope to determine whether many shootings could have been avoided, nor are they oriented around using findings in individual cases to identify patterns that would save lives nationwide. We must either change our approach or continue to allow preventable police killings, costing lives and undermining faith in the criminal-justice system.”
Nope. I was wrong.
This dolt paralleled the alleged correction in flight mishaps associated with government intervention with the lack of accountability in the police sector.
Let me elaborate.
Do you know what exists in every police shooting? A government investigation. Every single one of them involves an investigation and nothing stops the Attorney General from the federal government from seeking more information in a case that they believe is unjust.
The difference is in one simple understanding. Police represent the state, and often enforce federal laws. They are granted immunity because they are not separate from the alleged independent oversight which sets the rules and laws they are required to enforce. To complicate matters, the laws they enforce are set by an agency which holds a monopoly on violence.
To make this apply to airlines, we would have to first make air travel the only allowed form of travel. Then we would have to let the airlines determine the allowable risk, and then the rates at which we are able to assume the risk.
If the airlines were actually the same as law enforcement, most of us would never travel at all. We can’t afford to do that in reality. Without even minimal travel, we would all starve.
Not only does the state monopoly on violence serve as a devastating critique of the state’s popularity, it also renders any pseudo-oversight provided by the government a moot point. The government is the body with a monopoly on violence. The only way to provider a state oversight even sort of independent, would be to privatize all policing.
Good luck.
More problematic to me, however, is that Conor gets to consider himself a libertarian. This pseudo-libertarian perspective offered from an almost purely statist solution is vomit inducing garbage.
The solution to police violence is removal of state authority. That’s it. Walmart has no incentive to kill customers. They have a lot of incentive to reduce theft while limiting harm to customers. Private security firms would do a much better job, and in the event they made a mistake, competitors would be waiting to replace them and gain that awesome contract of protecting major retailers.
Private solutions exist and any self-acclaimed libertarian arguing for a more centralized state solution needs to change their party affiliation. It’s pathetic.
Do you want actual free market solutions and actual resistance to the state? Good. I treat the government like my children. The answer is always “no” until you work me towards a “yes.” The burden and onus is on the government to convince me of their absolute foolproof intervention plan that will have no downside before I will allow it to proceed without objection. If you are a statist, I have a warning. My 3 year old has a better chance of convincing me that he can fly by thinking happy thoughts.
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