Law n’ Order

Guest Post by Eric Peters

Perhaps the greatest weakness conservatives have is their belief that you can have authoritarianism and liberty at the same time. One example of this intellectual disarray is the typical conservative’s support for the War on Drugs – which is in fact a war on liberty. The conservative does not see that if he supports the arrest/prosecution and punishment of people who smoke pot he also supports the arrest/prosecution and punishment of people who drink alcohol. That it has snot happened yet does not mean it can’t – much less that it won’t.

The authoritarian principle is the same.

Conservatives have a tendency to venerate authority – cops and even more so the military – even though both work for the government and the conservative says he is leery of government.

That is a hard circle to square.

The latest example of this is the general conservative outpouring of support for Trump’s deployment of the military on the streets of Washington, DC. and – with Chicago next, apparently. It is understandable why conservatives – and people, generally, support this. The streets of DC are dangerous for people who aren’t criminals, in part because people who are not criminals have been disarmed and so cannot realistically defend themselves against the criminals, who are well-aware that their victims are likely defenseless. It is interesting to point out here that in areas where non-criminals have the right to defend themselves against criminals, there is less crime. No national guard needed.

Criminals in places such as DC also tend to go unpunished or are punished gently, if they are caught. That means the government has failed to do its most basic job; i.e., to keep criminals in check. It is difficult for the government to do that, of course, because the government is itself a criminal enterprise, an ugly truth that most conservatives want to pretend isn’t so. Instead of demanding that the government do its job, the people demand more government (to keep them safe – as opposed to insisting upon their right to keep themselves safe).

Now they are getting it, in its most distilled iteration – military force.

Yes, crime is way down in DC. Of course. But at what cost? An alarming precedent has been set. People are getting used to and even liking the presence of soldiers on street. That was once something seen only in police states. Just as only criminals in prison were subject to being “locked down” once upon a time. Americans are now used to being treated like criminals by a criminal government that has asserted its power to “lock them down” – which most of them have accepted with the docile servility of life-term serving con who wants to remain in god graces with the guards.

We have had civilian police who like to pretend they are in the military; e.g., four-star police generals and so on. But they are in fact civilians just like us and at least in principle bound by the same laws as we are.

The military operates according to a different set of rules. The job of the military is to kill and destroy, not to police. Soldiers are trained to think of those they are sent to kill as enemies. As threats, in other words. They are a fine tool for subduing the population of city; the problem is everyone is subdued. Not just the criminals.

Of course, Americans are already used to being ordered around by cops as if they were “enemy combatants.” There is no longer much difference between the civilian cop who pulls you over for some pedantic, made-up “offense” (such as “speeding”) and the soldaten now patrolling the streets of DC. Both look like they’re ready to go to war and in a way that’s just exactly what they’re doing.