Mark Steyn links us to a reminder of the nature of government.
Man Shot, Paralyzed Over 31 Unpaid Parking Tickets.
A matter we were discussing at Cassandra's a couple of weeks back: Statists love to pretend that government isn't force, doesn't work through force, and oughtn't to be morally analyzed as force. The first political speech I remember a line from...I mean, I remember hearing it at the time...was Bruce Babbitt addressing a group of schoolkids in the 1988 primaries. I paraphrase: "The Republicans will tell you to be afraid of government. Don't be. Government is us." Or there's the even more repulsive formulation of Barney Frank: "Government is simply the name we give to the things we choose to do together." (Go do 'em to yourself, Barney, thanks very much.)
If the city government wants a tax for parking, or to control where you park...and you don't obey, and pretend the taxes don't apply to you...sooner or later, there's a man with a gun to enforce it. Most of the time we obey and the guns don't come out. But sometimes they do and they're always there. If it oughtn't to be done with guns -- government oughtn't to be doing it at all.
Is it worth pointing a gun to collect city tax and control city parking? I think so...though the traffic cops of Hanoi, if they exist, may not agree[1]. No police force, cars parked wherever urban barbarians want them...this would be less safe yet than having the Pennsylvania State Constables on the prowl. I have a hard time accepting the moral order of the dueling culture, when people pointed guns to enforce simple good manners. (But Grim might talk me around on that one before it's all through.) Wherever we draw that line, though, let's never forget what it really is, and the moral angle of government security, government charity, government culture, or government anything.
[1] Michael Totten's first dispatch from Vietnam is excellent reading and heartwarming, and says some fine things about what humans can do after being crushed by tyranny. You should be reading that instead of me.
Those slaves better pay their tickets or else...
ReplyDeleteI thought about our recent discussions, too, when I read that piece yesterday. I tried to imagine what would make the constable shoot the guy, using the scraps of information available from the reporting. He claimed he feared for his life, and the suggestion was that the parking-ticket scofflaw was trying to run him down on his way out of the driveway. So what was the constable doing, standing behind the car a la Tiananmen Square, assuming the driver would stop? Was the driver really willing to run down a constable rather than stop and find out what he wanted? Did he already know very well what the constable wanted, since he had 31 outstanding tickets? Should the constable have jumped out of the way rather than shoot?
ReplyDeleteWhat it comes down to is that I see parking-ticket man getting shot for reasons that are fairly divorced from society's interest in enforcing parking regulations, though of course it's true that the whole thing stems from our willingness to employ the forcible powers of government in aid of that ministerial task.
If I may. The issue isn't that the scofflaw was shot for 31 traffic tickets. Though that is what the warden was there for. He was shot for (allegedly) attempting to run over the warden with his car. Which I will grant every citizen a right to defend themselves with lethal force, be they a law officer or a legally carrying private citizen. I would never put the burden on anyone to "just jump out of the way" if someone is attempting to run them down with a car (though I think it's likely a good idea to get out of the way if possible). I'm not a fan of "duty to retreat" nonsense. That said, there better damned well be an investigation into whether the driver was attempting to run him down, or just evade (which should still likely be a crime, just not one worthy of lethal force). All official shootings should be investigated, and this should be no different.
ReplyDeleteThe story isn't complete enough for us to guess whether it was clear the guy was deliberately gunning for the constable with his car. If I'd been the constable, and there was any doubt at all whether the guy saw me and was deliberately driving his car at me, or possibly just didn't realize I was in the way, I'd hesitate to shoot if I could instead jump out of the way. For one thing, who says shooting will stop the car in time to save me? Was the constable over-excited? Angry at the threat, or at the challenge to his authority?
ReplyDeleteBut these are questions that raise issues about whether constables are well-selected and well-trained, rather than about the appropriate use of laws to regulate behavior, given the ultimate possibility of having to use deadly force to enforce them.
The issue isn't that the scofflaw was shot for 31 traffic tickets. Though that is what the warden was there for. He was shot for (allegedly) attempting to run over the warden with his car. Which I will grant every citizen a right to defend themselves with lethal force, be they a law officer or a legally carrying private citizen. I would never put the burden on anyone to "just jump out of the way" if someone is attempting to run them down with a car (though I think it's likely a good idea to get out of the way if possible). I'm not a fan of "duty to retreat" nonsense. That said, there better damned well be an investigation into whether the driver was attempting to run him down, or just evade (which should still likely be a crime, just not one worthy of lethal force). All official shootings should be investigated, and this should be no different.
ReplyDeleteYes, yes, yes.
WE tend to have a hard time separating results from processes from just plain old "imperfect people mean imperfect results". And then there's the whole, "You weren't there" aspect to this.
On the face of it, this sounds suspicious but I'm not convinced that the odd bad result means we can't pass laws or enforce them (which is NOT what I take Joseph to be arguing, to be clear :)
A complicating factor here is that the pay is often very low for these jobs and that necessarily affects the caliber of person who is hired. Not sure what to do about that.
Grim once argued that police shouldn't be armed, which seemed odd to me given his oft stated belief that being armed is everyone's right. I don't think that's correct - we get upset over incidents like this, but hard cases are a poor foundation for sensible policy.
Do recall, Cass... I was arguing stridently for the "don't pass a law" thing myself. Frankly, I think swearing out a warrant because this jackwagon wants to park his car like a bunghole is more extreme than it should be (hell... the city should just sue the guy). But I also don't think stripping public safety officials of the rights and privileges that the average citizen enjoys is called for either.
ReplyDeleteI would never put the burden on anyone to "just jump out of the way" if someone is attempting to run them down with a car (though I think it's likely a good idea to get out of the way if possible). I'm not a fan of "duty to retreat" nonsense.
ReplyDeleteEven assuming the article has all of the facts and they're accurately reported, "just jump[ing] out of the way" is not the same as retreating. The constable could have followed McCullers and attempted service at the man's destination. The Constable could have requested backup (I assume) to join him in the following and service. And so on. No retreat.
Texas law allows me, pursuant to a home invasion incident, to shoot the invader. Even in the back while running away. Even after he's left my property, so long as I maintained contact (hot pursuit). Shooting a man, though, isn't always justified.
Eric Hines
From the description in the article I really wasn't sure why the guy started shooting. But there's always that context (what kind of neighborhood was it, have they had problems before with people going hermetile on them, etc.).
ReplyDeleteMike, I do recall you arguing against passing laws (just kidding :p).
What's the point of ticketing people, though, if they simply ignore the fines? I am pretty sure we don't want to do away with enforcing parking regulations entirely. So what's the punishment for repeatedly, systematically refusing to obey the law?
This is where I really part company with the "don't pass laws" crowd. I think sometimes we forget *why* and *how* laws get passed (because there was an actual problem bad enough that people wanted a solution). Sometimes foolish laws get passed on the tail end of moral panics, but parking laws are pretty standard everywhere you go.
How would most of us react if complete strangers started parking in our driveways or in front of our houses or blocked access to our garages? If there's no law, you're left with pulling a gun.
Maybe it's OK to shoot someone over a parking violation if the shooter isn't the dreaded "government" :p But they're still dead. The efficacy of a law (IMO) isn't in whether it's perfect or can't be abused or *prevents* the unpreventable so much as in it being better than no law.
And most of us have never lived under "no law" so we have great difficulty imagining that state of affairs. At some time in the past, there was no law. And enough people got fed up with that scenario that they agitated to pass a law.
IOW, the Chesterfield scenario.
"So what was the constable doing, standing behind the car a la Tiananmen Square, assuming the driver would stop?"
ReplyDeleteThat's exactly what they tend to do.
The black woman with a kid shot to death in DC at a concrete barricade she was trying to back out of and drive away from, only partially bumped the DC thug behind her because they surrounded her vehicle, at a concrete barricade that she didn't even run into yet.
The reason the feds and the various other death squad trained branches of the Democrat Regime don't want videos, is because it's kind of hard to make up a story that is consistent with the video, for justified lethal force.
ReplyDeleteIn DC, their power is such that even with the street video, everything is papered over. But in the rest of the country, No Videos of the Police is ruled a law.
Meanwhile, they depend upon loyal adherents to the Authorities to pay attention to their press releases and believe made up evidence.
Grim once argued that police shouldn't be armed, which seemed odd to me given his oft stated belief that being armed is everyone's right.
ReplyDeleteDid I say that?
If I did, and I wasn't speaking hypothetically ('maybe we should consider the British tradition of not arming the police as a general thing') I must have meant that they shouldn't be armed qua police: that they should be armed only in the manner of ordinary citizens, with the same private rights and duties as anyone else.
But that fits with my general view that the police are properly only full-time citizens: that the common peace and lawful order is all citizens' business, though sometimes it is helpful if some citizens are devoted to it full-time. So I tend to support traditions like citizens' arrest, and laws (like Georgia's) that apply exactly the same standards to police use of force as citizen use of force. It's unwise to make a special category for police, as if they were anything other than a citizen doing what a citizen ought to do, to be held to the same standards as everyone else.
Which, by the way, also deals with that entrapment problem I was angry about a little while back. You can't get entrapment if you don't make special laws for cops, because they'd be just as guilty as the people they were trying to entrap.
ReplyDeleteIt's good if people mind their own business instead of trying to make trouble. On the other hand, if someone is actually violating the common peace and lawful order, that's everyone's business. Every citizen's, anyway.
On the face of it, this sounds suspicious but I'm not convinced that the odd bad result means we can't pass laws or enforce them (which is NOT what I take Joseph to be arguing, to be clear :)
ReplyDeleteBingo, Cassandra; you have understood me well. A long time ago I blogged here about the corresponding problem with private weapons.
I'm as much in favor of the right to keep and bear arms as anyone here...but the statistical nature of reality, and the imperfect nature of the human race, means that sometimes the wrong people are going to get shot. It's a price we pay and I say it's worth it (because there's a price to disarmed citizens too...a far worse one).
Just as airborne training means some brave troops are going to be killed or crippled just training for it; and ocean sports mean some people will be eaten by sharks. All things that can and should be done...but we must face the nature, and the dangers, of what we're doing boldly.
Incidentally, the "don't pass laws" crowd -- the anarchists -- have come up with some pretty intricate solutions to this kind of problem. I don't myself fall in with them because every real anarchy I know about seems to turn into some kind of clan tyranny...which can be every bit as stifling as an empire.
Clan tyranny, indeed. I think the highest level of human social development is to honor each other's freedom as far as possible, but I'm not crazy enough to think that always works. There are always going to be mad dogs who have to be put down and, even short of that, there are usually lots of people around who prefer to deal with each other by domination to one degree or another. Take away the central police power, and they'll try to set up little local police powers with themselves in charge. For me the whole task of civilization is to keep them in check by some other means than simply trading them for an even more dangerous central power.
ReplyDeleteI must have meant that they shouldn't be armed qua police: that they should be armed only in the manner of ordinary citizens, with the same private rights and duties as anyone else.
ReplyDeleteBut that fits with my general view that the police are properly only full-time citizens: that the common peace and lawful order is all citizens' business.
I quite agree...in fact, I think we had a good chat about it a while back.
"But that fits with my general view that the police are properly only full-time citizens: that the common peace and lawful order is all citizens' business."
ReplyDeleteThat is what Robert Peel thought. I wonder if they ever teach about his principals of modern policing in the LEO academy's?
All humans are armed: with lethal force. They just don't know how to use it, so rely on external tools like guns, which attach range modifications, precision modifications, and lethal intent in the size of a bullet and its blackpowder infused casing. Well, modern powders aren't black any more, but it makes little difference.
ReplyDeleteWhenever lethal force or military force is secluded to one type or class of society, inequalities and discrimination inevitably results. Especially if that privileged aristocracy is made out of incompetent megalomaniacs like the Democrat party and its union thug arms.
Distributing command and control to the rest of the various factions in power, like Japan does, doesn't exactly remove the desire or need for centralized Authority, but it makes Centralized Authority a lot less corrupt, stupid, or privileged.
It's one thing if the sole resource, law enforcement and usage of lethal force, was a state owned treasure that nobody else could command or control. But in the modern 21st century, that problem has already been cracked, and NOT with the distribution or creation of firearms. The human arm itself is its own lethal weapon, attached to the original weapon (the human brain), and guns and swords are merely attachments to an attachment. Sort of like an AR 15 with a P rail system. Customize like some hot shot's sport driving midnight racing car.