Quality of Service and the Monopoly of Violence
December 28, 2007 tdaxp	15 Comments
First, some agitation-propaganda relating to the idea that the police are there to protect you:
Caged behind a deep moat and six-metre walls but tiger escaped to kill zoo visitor
Police were called to the zoo early yesterday after the animal, a four-year-old female Siberian tiger named Tatiana, went missing from her pen. Four officers came across the body of the dead man, who is thought to have been in his 20s, in the darkness outside the tiger's enclosure. Three hundred yards away, they spotted another man slumped on the ground outside the zoo's cafe, with blood pouring from gashes in his head. Beside him sat the tiger.
When the animal resumed its attack on the man, the officers crept closer. Their movement caught the tiger's eye, and she began to move towards them. All four officers opened fire with their handguns, hitting the cat several times and killing it. It was then that they noticed a third man had been mauled.
Police see a wild beast attack a human. They watch the beast. Police see a wild beast move towards them. They kill the beast.
Now, of course wild beast attacks are relatively rare (as opposed to wild human attacks, which are depressingly common). However the broader point remains: the police (just like everyone else) love their family, their jobs, and themselves more than they love you.
In the case of the San Francisco zoo horror, making sure they would not get in trouble for destroying lie property mattered more than preventing possibly fatal injury to a would-be tiger-snack. But similar QOS (quality of service) problems happens in any market where there is one major service provider.
Thus, I have trouble imagining why people who talk about a "monopoly of violence" think what they do. The idea is inherently anti-American, a rejection on the P2P security network enshrined by the 2nd amendment.
Secure neighborhoods are armed neighborhoods. Many of those who speak of a "monopoly of violence" are wealthy enough to live in the petite bourgeois neighborhoods that the police were raised to protect. Good for them. But for those who do not live in such neighborhoods — either because they are too poor, or unfortunate, or because the police administration of their neighborhood is run by leftists, a security provider other than the monopoly is needed.
That's why you need a 2nd Amendment. And that's why a "monopoly of violence" is as dangerous as a tiger on the loose.
monopoly of violencep2pservice providers
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15 thoughts on "Quality of Service and the Monopoly of Violence"
"either because they are too poor, or because the police administration of their neighborhood is run by leftists" How do you know it's always leftists? I can easily imagine a right-wing police dept choosing not to do its duty towards neighborhoods filled with people they dislike (immigrants, racial minorities, hippies. . .).
Ironic thing about the weapons debate is, the methods always proposed for using weapons rights to protect people aren't the best ones out there. Imagine you're a burglar, which city would you rather operate in?
The American one with concealed weapons allowed, such that every house COULD have a person armed with SOMETHING in it?
Or the Swiss or Israeli one where every house DOES have an armed person in it, usually with an automatic and the training to use it properly!
If you live with and accept certain kinds of risk every day, it's going to take a serious increase in the risk-level (or a new type of risk) to really get your attention.
Jay@Soob says:
"That's why you need a 2nd Amendment. And that's why a "monopoly of violence" is as dangerous as a tiger on the loose."
Can I get an Amen, brother!
Good point, Michael. Though I doubt we'll see mandatory gun ownership anytime soon here in the US. We're still quite busy pissing into the wind by concentrating both on the method and the individual concerning violent crime. If we could just rid ourselves of the lunatic and the gun all would be well, wouldn't it?
That aside, I'm quite satisfied to live in a state that enjoys one of the lowest crime rates nationally despite maintaining the most lax gun laws. Tigers beware!
Dan tdaxp says:
"How do you know it's always leftists? I can easily imagine a right-wing police dept choosing not to do its duty towards neighborhoods filled with people they dislike (immigrants, racial minorities, hippies. . .)."
(That said, my assumption is that the racists at American Renaissance [1], say, would be far less accommodating to black criminals who victimize other blacks than, say, the leftists at Daily Kos)
"Ironic thing about the weapons debate is, the methods always proposed for using weapons rights to protect people aren't the best ones out there."
True; such is the case in any policy debate.
I did not understand the later half of your comment. Could you rephrase?
"If we could just rid ourselves of the lunatic and the gun all would be well, wouldn't it?"
Relatedly, the film (as opposed to the advertising campaign) of "Bowling for Columbine") does a surprisingly good job of separating violent machines from violent people, considering the source.
[1] http://www.amren.com/
Yep I was right with Mike (Moore that is) until he went on his anti-ammunition crusade. What I took from that film was that American's just aren't ready for firearms, unlike our passive neighbors up north.
That aside you're right the film, sans the anti-Heston/NRA bit, did an excellent job of defining the difference between the act, the means and the individual when it comes to violent crime.
Steve French says:
Jeff Snyder made a similar point in his essay Nation of Cowards.
I second Steve's motion and demonstrate thus:
http://www.rkba.org/comment/cowards.html
A.E. says:
Soob, I thought you'd put the Tiger to the sword.
J. Kauffman says:
I haven't done any research on this. So I suppose my comment is more of a question.
Aren't the neighborhoods with the highest gun per household rate in crime ridden poverty infested areas? If that's the case then gun ownership certainly doesn't deter criminals.
Agreed on the film.
An interesting twist on the analysis is the possibility that Canadians and Americans are not just "twins" of each other, but the major differences in migration patterns (going back all the way to the informal cleansing of the loyalists following the Revolution) may have created populations with different biologically-driven propensities.
So perhaps we are not more or less mature. Just different.
Steve & Jay,
Thanks for the article, and the link!
A.E.,
Swords, however, do not negate individual strength and training to the extent that guns do, which makes them a less "democratic" (to still a nonsense leftist interpretation of that word) than guns.
J,
If I recall correctly, a negative correlation (less guns, more crime) has been shown, but that research was criticized on methodological grounds as overweighting rural areas. I'm unfamiliar with the current status of a look to a statistical link.
Any such link will be problematic, of course, because higher crime will induce the purchase of guns, as a safety measure. (Similar to the presence of pit bulls.)
In terms of modeling, banning guns has a good effect of making the black market for such weaponry even risker while completely removing it as a self-defense and community-defense mechanism. Of course, simply liberalizing our drug laws may have the same good consequences as without the bad one. [2]
PS: Unbeknownst to me, Eddie posted on this subject first. [3] Great minds think alike!
[1] http://www.amazon.com/More-Guns-Less-Crime-Understanding/dp/0226493636
[2] http://www.economist.com/displayStory.cfm?Story_ID=10259217
[3] http://hiddenunities.wordpress.com/2007/12/26/the-year-that-was-gun-violence/#comment-3663
Nah. That's so 13th century…
TDL says:
Good post. Hailing from Chicago (the city itself, not a 'burb) I couldn't agree more. I have a friend and an acquaintance that are cops w/ the CPD. Both have made the assessment that the CPD is nothing more than a gang. I do not believe that is the reason they joined the CPD (or that most people join police forces,) but that is ultimate outcome when you ban competition (whether that is private police services or curtailing our rights to defend ourselves that is enshrined in the 2nd Amendment.) I also second the need for liberalizing (i.e. decriminalizing) drug laws, it would dramatically decrease the incentives to use violence to gain market share.
Dan McIntosh says:
LOL. I guess the tiger always looks more dangerous when its coming for *you*. But then, I always get a chuckle from the "to serve and protect" on the side of cop cars.
TDL & Dan McIntosh,
"Both have made the assessment that the CPD is nothing more than a gang. I do not believe that is the reason they joined the CPD (or that most people join police forces,) but that is ultimate outcome when you ban competition (whether that is private police services or curtailing our rights to defend ourselves that is enshrined in the 2nd Amendment.)"
"LOL. I guess the tiger always looks more dangerous when its coming for *you*"
These two quotes are really getting at the same thing: the other guy loves himself, his family, and his job more than he loves you. Pretending that police are above this denies their humanity, and is a recipe for abuse.
You are absolutely correct. I think there are the issues of incentives, risks, and training that are not clearly delineated. Police officers are trained to fire at the silhouettes of human bodies. Police officers are also trained to shoot at the body of a human (not the legs or head or the tire of a car like we often see in movies.) Realistically, the boots on the ground may not have had the adequate training to use force appropriately until the absolute threat of losing their lives forced them to make an emotional decision. Your assessment of them loving their lives, family, and job more than "you" is still accurate, but other issues are at play here as well. Without fully understanding the way the scenario was playing out we can not fully understand what the officers were thinking (hell for all we now they may have been moving closer to draw the tigers attention so she would not be so close to the person she was attacking; I don't think any of these guys wanted to be on the wrong side of a wrongful death suit.)
P.S. Happy New Year
"I also second the need for liberalizing (i.e. decriminalizing) drug laws, it would dramatically decrease the incentives to use violence to gain market share."
Additionally consider the global aspect of this. As Steve French commented [1] our drug laws "…make being in the gap pay."
[1]https://www.blogger.com/comment.g?blogID=37179942&postID=5067777798501221052&pli=1
Huh? I thought the preferred barbarian warlord method was to feed livestock and enemies to the Tiger until it became your oh-so-photogenic pet?*grin*
On the more serious subject of police, I wonder if community policing policies improve things? Seems like the police would be more willing to leap into the fray for you if the officers see you on a regular (non-adversarial) basis and have come to consider you a part of 'their' community. Likely wouldn't have helped those zoo visitors much (unless they were regulars, even officers who patrolled the zoo regularly wouldn't know many people beyond workers and regulars), but for neighborhood policing. . .*shrug*
Stephen Pampinella says:
I used this topic as the jumping off point to start a blog. Please take a look, I have some disagreements.
http://stephenpampinella.wordpress.com/
Excellent blog! I've left a comment! [1]
Absolutely agreed on community policing. Which makes Sioux Falls, South Dakota's decision to cut back on home visits (to help pay for a rec center) idiotic. [2]
A thought experiment: even if legalizing drugs would make things worse for America's underclass, would it still be worthwhile for its global consequences?
TDL,
"As medics attended to the victim, an officer spotted the tiger sitting down before it fled and began attacking another victim, according to the logs." [4]
Training is important, because it prevents you from having to make rational decisiosn about what's going on. The officers made a conscious decision to allow the tiger to keep sitting without shooting it, to wait for a tranquiler gun to become available. The purpose of training is so we do not have officers weighings risks and rewards, and deciding that the tiger's life is more important.
Clearly, training was not sufficient in this case.
[1] http://stephenpampinella.wordpress.com/2007/12/31/the-significance-of-the-monopoly-of-violence
[2] http://www.argusleader.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2007712260316
[4] http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/nation/5411349.html
Sometimes the simplest explanation is the best. Like, maybe the cops didn't shoot the tiger while it was on a person because they might have hit the person?
The outcome would be entirely dependent on your definitions of ". . . make things worse for . . ." and ". . . its global consequences".
In my case, I'm inclined to believe that legalisation would make things better for the underclass overall. Addicts would seldom have to commit crimes to pay for their fixes. The temptation to drop out of school would be reduced; gangs, presumably, would still be there but have a harder time striking it rich via crime. And legal drug salesman would very seldom have to resort to hanging out at schools or running hits on competitors (how often do you see bartenders or liquor store clerks doing that?), making the streets safer.
The drugs themselves could be regulated for purity and potency and taxed to help offset remaining costs to society. And those remaining costs – dealing with addiction, underaged usage, etc- could be faced without the seductive temptation of bans clouding the issue.
I'm on board with legalization, but only of marijuana, especially for the reasons cited by Michael (quality control, rehabilitation). Otherwise, I can't really see legalizing harder drugs like cocaine or heroin, as this might endow them with social legitimacy that could increase consumption.
Regarding the officers at the zoo, I still haven't found a newsstory that indicates the length of time between an armed officer sighting the tiger and dropping it. There was some hesitation, but its plausible that Adrian is right, that hesitation was due to potentially shooting a victim.
Adrian,
Just as the tiger acted in a very tigerlike manner, the police acted in a very humanlike manner: watching the tiger eat an innocent victim for 30 seconds [1] rather than taking aim aim and shooting, running up and shooting, etc.
Thirteen minutes past between the police first spotting the tiger and the police killing the tiger. [1]
Why should the police risk their life to save someone else?
PS: Should only socially legitimate things be legal?
I agree, but my concern is that the underclass has both a high discount rate and a low general intelligence — frankly, they are not that smart, and they want what they want now. One benefit of only legalizing alcohol and tobacco is that not everyone particularly enjoys those drugs, so while alcohol and nicotine are lawful, only a fraction of the undreclass is effectively targeted.
Legalizing all drugs with that level of potency may be a full-spectrum attack on those people who can withstand it the least.
[1] http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/12/29/MNDVU65TO.DTL&tsp=1
From that link:
"They were unable to shoot while the creature was so close to his victim, authorities have said, so they distracted it by shining police car lights on it."
Exactly. One could solve the inaccuracy problem by reducing range to target, but that's dangerous. The tiger could have attacked the officer! I don't blame someone for placing their love for themselves, and their family, and their job, above saving a stranger.
It just seems to me that you're establishing an awfully high bar for the police – charging a 400 pound tiger when you don't even know whether that would save its victim.
If a tiger was eating someone I loved more than myself, watching it for two minutes would not be an option (especially if I had ready a firearm and the training to use it!)
Now, if that person was a stranger….
My point is not to say that the police who waited for the guys with the tranquiler gun, until they felt threatened themselves, are bad people. My point is that such behavior is what you can rationally expect when you outsource security to a monopoly.
If you want security to be always on, distribute the system. If you want legitimate citizens to be equally helpless in the face of violence, monopolize violence.
Now, there are times and places when both approaches are reasonable. The whole purpose of zoos is observing wild beasts, and presumably one takes on some risk by entering the gates. But communities that are poor, are the wrong skin color, religion, or ethnicity, or are under the government of leftists, shouldn't be zoos.
They should be secure.
"One benefit of only legalizing alcohol and tobacco is that not everyone particularly enjoys those drugs, so while alcohol and nicotine are lawful, only a fraction of the undreclass is effectively targeted."
Yeah, but WHY doesn't everybody enjoy those drugs? For some people it's concern about long-term health or addiction. For some, it's a dislike of being intoxicated. For many, it's probably as simple as a dislike of the flavors and/or the coughing involved in learning to take the stuff.
Why wouldn't these factors be involved in dissuading many people from harder core drugs? Heck, a lot of people would avoid Heroin simply because they don't like needles! And supposing you're right, what does illegal status currently accomplish that a public education program and free rehab for all who need it does not?
A thought,
Many of the current negative effects of illicit drugs are due to the prohibition, namely impurities, random dosages, and a price that makes injection worthwhile. No one injects alcohol, but most (I think) heroin users inject heroin. Legalization would encourage use, but the total negative effects could very well be much lower.
One other thought – drug users are usually the best anti-drug commercial imaginable. Prohibition tends to dilute the cause and effect of drug use and obnoxious behavior.
"Yeah, but WHY doesn't everybody enjoy those drugs?"
Preferences vary throughout the population, for a mix of environmental and genetic factors. (In short: heck if I know.)
"Why wouldn't these factors be involved in dissuading many people from harder core drugs?"
I'm sure it would be possible… perhaps we would see a similar success rate as the "Truth" ads with cigarettes.
To the extent that the drug laws are paternalistic, they seem designed to protect an underclass that has a general intelligence level of 85 and less (100 being normal, 70 being retarded). All the "public diplomacy" in the world might not do much good in a population with low impulse control, a very high discount rate, and little prospect for material success (as opposed to getting by in some frugal comfort).
I think there's an overwhelmingly strong case to be made that farmers in the New Core, Seam, and Gap would benefit if drugs were legalized in the Core.
I think there is a pretty strong case, one I agree with, that the Core would benefit as well.
I think there is a case, one I also agree with, that the underclass of the Core would not be worse off.
I am wondering if the benefits to the developing world are so large as to be worth it, even if the war on drugs makes sense in terms of protecting the Core's underclass.
Perhaps I've missed this somewhere in this thread, but why do you assume that the underclass nets out positive from drug prohibition? The evidence seems mixed at best. While legalization would increase drug use, drug use would seem to be a distant second in terms of total harm done.
"Perhaps I've missed this somewhere in this thread, but why do you assume that the underclass nets out positive from drug prohibition?"
I don't. I think drug prohibition is a bad thing.
But that harm/benefit is obviously open to investigation. Certainly one can imagine findings showing that the war on drugs is a good idea after all.
The thought experiment I raised was, if we had our minds changed wrt the harm of prohibition on the underclass, would legalization still be a good idea?
Ah, so if it turns out that bad for the American underclass by some standard (whatever that is) but good for the rest of America and the rest of the world, would it still be worth it?
I would say yes, but I'm for drug legalization on moral grounds.
Any utilitarians out there?
This is going to sound more than a little cold-hearted, but maybe there's a Darwinistic element that we're dodging?
Under the current prohibition regime, the effects of stupidity are often mixed up with the effects of bad luck. A smart person can get caught in the crossfire of a fight between drug gangs same as a stupid person. A smart person can be killed (OD, impurities), addicted or incarcerated by a moment's curiosity same as a stupid person. A smart addict can have as much trouble supporting a habit or finding help with kicking it as a smart person.
Legalise drugs, and many of these mixups are reduced or eliminated. The business is taken out of the hands of criminal gangs, reducing the collateral damage (stupid and otherwise) from their disputes. Government regulation reduces death or illness from impurities and smart people can satisfy their curiosity with low risk of addiction or overdose as with alcohol (labeling laws, publicly available information, etc). Imprisonment is limited to people who deal outside the law or who commit other crimes while under the influence– same as with alcohol. Supporting a habit becomes much cheaper and anyone who wants to quit can get help doing so (sadly unlike alcohol; I have a friend in this boat).
Now throw in educational reforms to minimize the effects of environment on intelligence, increasing the numbers of smart people who will be relatively uneffected by legalisation. What you have left is a group of people- of all races and genders- who aren't very bright or self-controlled. Who may have genetic reason for being that way.
Some will commit crimes and wind up dead or imprisoned. Some will be lucky enough to have friends or family who can support them and keep them under control. And some will use legal means to self-destruct, accidentally or deliberately. In each case, the opportunities to pass genes along will be few. Bad for them, bad for those who love them, bad for those caught in the middle. Not so bad for society in general.
Hmm. Just read Steve's comment; I guess my last comment does sound more than a little utilitarian. I don't think it's utilitarian, though, so much as questioning what the limits should be on our societies concern.
I'm all for bending over backwards to help the underclass out of that status, for example. Change their environment, eliminate stupid Wars on Vice, confront the effects of past bigotries and discriminations, let's go! Likewise, I'm not averse to protecting people who can't be helped out of the underclass, either: hospitalization, group homes and the like.
But when does protection go too far? I mention the Wars on Vice for reasons that have already been hashed over by several people: they tend to hurt many of the people they're intended to protect and others besides. More deeply, though, at what point does protection become an insult to one's dignity as a human? At what point does prohibition become "Oh no, you can't handle that, so we the government are going to keep it out of your hands."? At what point (past the point of protecting ourselves) should we stop protecting them and allow them the dignity to do what they want and to face the consequences of their actions?
Politics is the art of the possible, so utilitarianism plays a large role in it. The only candidate in 2008 actually running on a strictly constitutional platform is Ron Paul. But my choice is… well, you'll have to wait until midnight tonight Iowa time to read 😉
When I read your first sentence I was going to smack down with "all humans are equally valuable," but your comment is very thought provoking.
The idea that outcomes in a black market load less on general intelligence than outcomes in a legal market is a powerful one. I think it's right.
All persons should be able to accumulate wealth and live in frugal comfort — for the vast majority of the population, that involves a social safety net in a largely free market. There is a fraction who are unable to handle freedom, however… and legalizing drugs makes it clearer who these people are, because luck matters less.
Really, a brilliant comment. Better than any I could have imagined.
As a postscript, I just found this in the London Times:
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article3123831.ece
The consensus among the commenters seems to be to blame the police for interrupting the tiger's meal:P I'm not sure I'd go QUITE that far, but I do wish these guys had picked another way to cleanse the gene pool. . .
Occasionally a tourist is killed after bothering a buffalo out west, so I've felt that annoyance against uppity outsiders.
That said, the zoo has been engaged in a rather incompetent media CYA over the past few days, so it'll be interesting to see how things finally shake out.
The lesson here is don't bring a slingshot to a big ass three hundred pound cat fight as claws, fangs and the ability to scale a 12 foot fence will hold sway every time.
Jeffrey James says:
"That's why you need a 2nd Amendment."
Well, the question is, do we need "the" or "a" second amendment.
To me, it seems like "the" second amendment has the potential of protecting individual ownership of nuclear, biological, and chemical "arms" if interpreted as such that everything that is an arm must not be restricted.
However, at the same time, if one argues that rights are not being violated as long as arms can be barred in one form or another, than that may leave us with slingshots in the end.
But, what about "a" second amendment? My idea would be for a constitutional modification that specifies what weapons in what form are guaranteed at a federal level, what ones are outlawed at a federal level (e.g. nuclear arms being an obvious example), and what weapons are up to state jurisdiction to decide, all this with realizing that, as arms evolve, the constitution needs to be constantly modified for practicality reasons and ending confusion over interpretation.
"or because the police administration of their neighborhood is run by leftists"
Well, I see the gun issue as less ideological and more socialogical according to urban vs. rural circumstances.
I am not an expert and don't claim to be, but Urban society to me, with its combination of poverty and population density, seems relatively ripe for violence no matter what weapons policies are in place, and with said violence comes the desire for quick, strait-forward solutions that are detrimental in the long run despite their strait-forwardness. Furthermore, from what I can see, urban Republicans (e.g. Rudy) can be more restrictive of gun rights than rural Democrats (e.g. Ben Nelson) more often than not.
Also, this raises the question to which whether this issue is as simple as being pro or anti-gun. Let's say that somewhere between 10-30 percent of Americans want guns outlawed completely, there still remains a debate between the other 70-90 percent as to were the line should be drawn, because those who advocate private ownership rights of armor piercing ammunition seem to be even more obscure than strict gun prohibitionist.
Yet in an anti-crime setting, removing the advantage of strength and speed is exactly what we want to do.
Jeffrey,
Well-thought. The 2nd Amendment protects a militia, not an army. As I see it, a militia is capable of defending a community while an army is capable of engaging in foreign policy.
My point that arms control hurts those in cities already run by leftists was more focused on a lenient-leftist view of crime, which makes society more dangerous for everyone else.
Excellent comment!