The Principled Solution to Police Brutality

by | Jun 3, 2020

Police may use such coercive methods provided that the suspect turns out to be guilty, and provided that the police are treated as themselves criminal if the suspect is not proven guilty … in all cases, police must be treated in precisely the same way as anyone else … police, in a libertarian society, must take their chances like anyone else; if they commit an act of invasion against someone, that someone had better turn out to deserve it, otherwise they are the criminals. As a corollary, police can never be allowed to commit an invasion that is worse than, or that is more than proportionate to, the crime under investigation.

Murray N. Rothbard, Ethics of Liberty, pp. 82–83

 

The policeman who apprehends a criminal and arrests him, and
the judicial and penal authorities who incarcerate him before trial
and conviction — all should be subject to the universal law. In
short, if they have committed an error and the defendant turns
out to be innocent, then these authorities should be subjected to
the same penalties as anyone else who kidnaps and incarcerates an
innocent man.

Murray N. Rothbard, For a New Liberty, p. 109

 

Governmental police have not only no incentive to be efficient or worry about their “customers’” needs; they also live with the ever present temptation to wield their power of force in a brutal and coercive manner.

Murray N. Rothbard, For a New Liberty, p. 250

1. Voluntarism. Allow people to opt out of funding police departments- no PD or LEO has the right to collect money by force, like all citizens they must hereby only get what they can voluntarily (advertising, crowdfunding, contracts, Go Fund Me, fundraisers, subscriptions, lotteries, etc)

2. Equality. Hold police officers to the same standard you would any other person or group of persons. They have the right to investigate, defend the innocent, use force to stop aggressors, etc- however these are rights everyone else has, the job of the officer would be to SPECIALIZE in how to keep the peace and stop people from being defrauded or aggressed against.

Part 1 – Private Policing Isn’t a Fantasy: https://mises.org/wire/private-policing-isnt-fantasy

Part 2 – Police Choice: http://libertarianpapers.org/deangelis-police-choice/

Part 3 – Book of Fallacies https://www.amazon.com/How-Win-Every-Argument-Abuse/dp/147252912X

Part 4: My interview with Jason Brennan: https://youtu.be/Ei_3GYGOVyU

 

This video on Minds.com: https://www.minds.com/media/1114633896594739200

on BitChute: https://www.bitchute.com/video/5ugXseaRhMYt/

LBRY: https://lbry.tv/@KeithKnightDontTreadOnAnyone:b/The-Principled-SOlution-LBRY:c

Archive: https://archive.org/details/the-principled-solution-to-police-brutality

 

About Keith Knight

Keith Knight is Managing Editor at the Libertarian Institute, host of the Don't Tread on Anyone podcast and editor of The Voluntaryist Handbook: A Collection of Essays, Excerpts, and Quotes.

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