[ExI] what the hell was i thinking?

Adrian Tymes atymes at gmail.com
Thu Mar 14 18:05:19 UTC 2019


On Thu, Mar 14, 2019 at 10:46 AM Dan TheBookMan <danust2012 at gmail.com> wrote:
> The best way to strictly control power is to reduce it where it can’t be abolished outright. In the case of police, including the national police (the FBI), abolition seems the pragmatic course: they’re far too difficult to control, actually create more crime than they resolve, and seem a dangerous tool in the hands of bad policy.

"Seem" is subjective, but the other two claims there are trivially disprovable.

If they were far too difficult to control, then why do they follow and
enforce laws they don't directly, openly create?  Congress is not the
FBI, and the two have been at odds much more than would be the case if
Congress did not control the FBI's budget (and through it, much of the
FBI).

As to creating more crime than they resolve, there are many reports -
most from the Department of Justice and other places related to the
FBI, but some not from anything under the FBI's arguable control -
showing how much crime the FBI resolves, and by all accounts it is a
substantial amount.  What tally is there of how much crime the FBI
causes?  It is a small enough number that there are few reports on
this.

> See:
>
> https://c4ss.org/content/30727

Its central claim is at the end:

> So what would we do with all the psychopaths and violent criminals? We wouldn’t give them a platform insulated from market competition that allows them to threaten, arrest, spy on, torture, aggress against, and control other people. Namely, we wouldn’t give them a police force.

The article basically claims that "all the psychopaths and violent
criminals" are, in fact, the police.  This is blatantly false on its
face.  It is a lie, probably out of delusion rather than intentional
malicious deception, but incorrect nonetheless.

It also calls for market-based police, ignoring the fact that violence
is not subject to market whims, but instead to the effectiveness of
violence.  If my thugs can beat up your thugs, it doesn't matter that
your thugs are cheaper and kinder.  Because you chose not to do
business with my thugs, my thugs murder your thugs and take everything
you have with impunity, until you either surrender to ("do business
with") my thugs or die.  (In a sense, this is kind of what happened
with most governments ever, but a specific parallel can be seen
between the American government and the pre-US Americans who chose not
to subscribe to the US's system of governance.)  This is why a
monopoly on violence is necessary: to curtail the number of thugs that
people must defend themselves against.  (And then the police need to
be reformed so citizens do not perceive a need to defend themselves
against the police.  Resources spent on defense, are generally
resources not spent on enriching people, and thus wasted resources
from certain points of view.)



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