"Unnecessary laws are but traps for money." - Thomas Hobbes.
I have been of the opinion for many years that the police mostly exist to steal your money. Traffic tickets, for example. There is no evidence whatsoever they contribute to safety.
Everyone knows about speed traps.
I used to live in Illinois. There was a "city" there called National City. It consisted of nothing but trailers. I doubt there were 100 people. The "police" ran a speed trap that got international attention.
The state of Illinois closed the city down and bulldozed it. It no longer exists. Now it's just a field. Such "police" should go to prison.
If I hit someone's car and damage it, I owe them. That's why I have insurance. I don't owe the government, and the police, prosecutor and judges. If they say I do, they are liars and thieves.
If you got rid of all police (detectives are okay) and armed all the people, crime would drop 90%.
Law is not created. It is discovered, like the laws of physics.
I strongly advise you to buy the book above, by Richard Maybury, It is one of those essential books that I unreservedly recommend.
It's about the difference between made-up law and discovered law.
Those old "Wanted: Dead or Alive" posters? If a person damaged someone, and would not make restitution, they were declared an "outlaw" - they were outside the law. You could kill them to get the bounty, or even enslave them for profit.
Here's an example. Let's say you have some drunken illegal immigrant who totals someone's brand-new $25,000 car. If they have no insurance, and won't pay, he is declared and outlaw - you can kill him for the bounty, or capture him and sell him into slavery - say an prison that uses his labor to pay back the $25,000 to the injured party, $20,000 to the bounty hunter, then has to continue as an imprisoned slave until he pays back his room and board at the prison, then some more time until the place makes a profit off of him. Say he end up serving life - all because he didn't pay what he owned to the person whose car he destroyed.
Or perhaps it would just be easier and more profitable up chop him up and sell his organs. How much would that be? A hundred grand?
How many people would not carry insurance, or try to run and either end up dead or a life-long slave?
Instead these days they end up with three or four drunken-driving convictions, and often don't end up in prison until they kill someone - perhaps a child.
And if the bounty hunter got the wrong person? Then he was a outlaw. By the way, how often does anything happen to the police who kill an innocent person? Wouldn't it be justice if such "police" were declared outlaws?
Which system is better?
The following article is from the Dollar Violante and written by Jeff Berwick.
"It all started over a month ago, right here in Acapulco, Mexico, when I commented to a good friend, 'Have you noticed how much better traffic has been lately?'
"He responded, 'Yes, traffic flow has been so much better... it's because the Transit Police went on strike.'.
"It turned out that was the case. The Transit Police in Acapulco had went on strike and all of a sudden many local residents were noticing how much better traffic, which can get to gridlock levels during peak holiday periods, had become.
"Weeks went on and you could tell that almost everybody had become aware of the lack of transit police and no one was adhering to red lights if there wasn't any oncoming traffic. The majority of people began treating red lights like a 'yield' sign. They'd slow down, check that no cars were coming, and if there weren't, they'd just roll through the red light instead of sitting there for a minute or two, as traffic backed up behind them.
"But, it got even better. The municipal police also then went on strike... and no one noticed.
"I mentioned to my friend how much everything has been so much better in Acapulco for the last few months and said people just seem happier and I assumed it was just because traffic was flowing so much better. He then said, 'Actually, the municipal police are on strike now too... so people are probably just a lot happier in general because there isn't really anyone around to bother them.'
"And then it got even better, this week, when the Mexican military decided to take away all the guns from the municipal police - who are still on strike!
"Now, the transit and municipal police, faced with a very happy public and having been disarmed are protesting for the government to let them come back to 'work'! The public in general is apathetic to it all with the vast majority of people not caring too much if they ever come back to work or not!
"Has there been any noticeable increase of violent crime in the meantime? No, not at all. While the main tourist areas of Acapulco are almost always completely peaceful there has been no change that I can see on the street other than people seem a bit happier than usual.
ANARCHAPULCO
"This is just one of many reasons why I love Acapulco. Even when the police are working most of them are playing cards or drinking beer. The transit police do try to extort people for money from time to time (usually around $10) if they catch them breaking some arbitrary law like going through a red light but even that is quite rare. People here just don't put up with the police and certainly don't expect them to protect them. People down in southern Mexico protect themselves.
"And, even in the rare case that a certain band of young criminals have been terrorizing a neighborhood and stealing from stores it is almost always the cartels who come in to find the perpetrators... even sometimes setting up a checkpoint in the area when on the look-out for someone who has been causing problems in the community. And when the cartels find the abuser justice is usually swift... that person is never seen again.
"It's almost anarchy and that's why I spend so much time here. It is by far the most anarchic big city in North America and life is so enjoyable. There are no closing times for bars and restaurants, no legislated and enforced laws on smoking or drinking, no speed limits that are enforced... and currently nothing is enforced and the city is tranquil and eminently enjoyable.
"For this reason we'll soon be officially announcing Anarchapulco. It will be a freedom conference and festival held right on the beach. We've already opened up early bird pre-registrations and the amount of interest has been incredible. You can check out the site at Anarchapulco.com to see just a small part of what we've already got lined up. And, we'll be announcing new speakers and artists nearly weekly (sign up to receive updates at Anarchapulco.com or like the Anarchapulco Facebook page to be kept up to date).
"Who knows, perhaps by February 27th, when the conference begins, there will still be no traffic or municipal police and you'll get an opportunity to see what a town without government police looks like and how it functions.
"Here's a hint: It's eminently better!
Either light that Molotov cocktail or drink it, Bob.
ReplyDeleteYou are confusing the symptoms with the disease. America is being destroyed by the judiciary and the lawyers. The cops are small potatoes compared to them.
Art Carden at Econlog in a a post on the use of force had this very excellent description of the tendency of people to want government to interfere:
ReplyDeleteWhen we're saying "the government should intervene," we're saying "an organization with guns should threaten to lock people in cages if they don't comply with its dictates."
It is made even worse here because - unlike Mexico where the police are paid peanuts and make it up in bribes - the police here make big bucks these days. Especially the senior ones. Municipalities are going bankrupt because of them. In our mid-size city, the top brass pull in easily over a quarter of a million each year. And we'll be paying their three digit pensions for decades to come after they retire in their mid-fifties.
ReplyDeleteThis goes double for interpersonal relations. Women and weak men often play little passive-aggressive games, then run to The Authorities when they get called or confronted on their bullshit. Suddenly they're an Aggrieved Victim who Needs Police Protection from the guy they've been harassing, baiting, and bullying for months. So they get their paid 'protection' and social problems get worse.
ReplyDeleteIt was basically over for men in the U.S. after they took the guns off our hips and put barbed wire everywhere (including around the mancages they built for us). Back in the day, there was very little badmouthing, whiteknighting, or passive-aggressive manipulating. Why? Because the instant result just might be getting your lying mouth shot off.
I was camping in the Priest Wilderness some years back, and went to town a few hours for supplies. When I got back, there were two lowlife redneck thugs in my camp, along with their skank companion. The busy little bees already had manufactured a bunch of weapons from nearby down-fall -- sharpened knives and spears of wood, lying all around camp.
They'd trashed some of my stuff and replaced it with their own... I guess figuring when the sucker got back to camp, he'd just run away. Or something.
First thing I took from the rig was the twelve gauge, which I used to help explain that the camp was already occupied, while unloading the supplies and setting up camp again. They got out fast and didn't take their new weapons with them. lol
They didn't have anything clever to say, either.
When some people asked me about the incident a week later, I said what needed to be done was to string the three of them up at the entrance to the access road to camp, and wave in the vultures -- as a howdy to their relatives (many of whom doubtless lived in the backwoods nearby) and as a general warning. They asked why I was such an extremist and I asked them what would have happened if some grocery clerk from the city, with two or three little kids in tow, had been the objects of affection of those three, during a weekend outing? Or, what if it had been THEMSELVES who'd run up against those three, alone in the wilderness? How 'nicely' would that have turned out?
They didn't have any answer to that. Yet, amazingly, they still considered my reaction extreme and wrong. I considered them over-protected and delusional.
Cheers.