Maybe they're not so crazy.

Anarcho-libertarians, ie; folks who believe that there should be no government at all, have some pretty naïve ideas.  They don't believe in borders, and they think everyone would just live their lives in a state of liberty without trying to impress their will on others.




Now, all of human history has proven that these ideas are bullshit.  Borders are necessary because different cultures exist, and they are not equal, and many of them are actively hostile to personal freedom.  And there's always going to be one group of assholes or another who want to seize power, and a lot more who will gladly join them to get their own piece of the plunder.  Anarchy is like communism:  great in theory, but when put into practice, it gets run over by the 40-ton truck of human nature.




However, not all their ideas are without merit.  When asked how society would function without government-run police services, they respond that private security firms would be all the policing a community would require.  Maybe they're onto something...

The rationale behind qualified immunity is the belief that absent such protection competent and talented people wouldn’t enlist as peace officers. In practice, however, qualified immunity merely emboldens incompetent and vicious police officers.  

“Police should be subject to exactly the same laws and liabilities that the rest of us face,” contends Brown. “If we don’t have perfect reciprocity, then police should be held to a higher standard of accountability than the rest of the citizenry. If they commit criminal acts that result in injury or death, police should do double the time that a `civilian’ would face, because they’re supposed to be professionals.” 

As private sector professionals, Brown observes, “we have double accountability – first to our clients who pay us, and then to the criminal justice system and civil courts if we do something wrong. And because the police usually see us as competitors, they are very eager to come after us if we screw up. But in all the years we’ve been working, we’ve had no deaths or injuries – either to our clients or to our own people – no criminal charges, and no lawsuits.”

Now, granted, this solution may have problems of its own.  But it's certainly looking like a better alternative than what we currently have.  The article opens with this question:

|"How would things be different," muses Dale Brown of the Detroit-based Threat Management Center, "if police officers were given financial rewards and commendations for resolving dangerous situations peacefully, rather than for using force in situations where it’s neither justified nor effective?"

Good point.  A better question is, why isn't this happening now, and how did Officer Friendly become Sergeant Slaughter?


Food for thought.