The Police

In the past I have accused police of being glorified welfare bums with guns and parasites on society and I would like to expand upon these statements which I still to this day believe to be accurate. They are glorified welfare bums because their salaries are funded by taxation, much like those of the people on welfare. Money is stolen (that is, taken without the consent of the person who it is taken from) from productive people labouring in the private sector and given to the police. In this sense they are glorified welfare bums. It is also in this sense that they are parasites who live off of society. They produce no wealth, indeed they are responsible for the destruction, consumption and the prevention of the creation of wealth. They are not productive members of society, they are parasites.

Now few people will accept that we do not need police. I can tell you in my personal life I have had no use for police, that the violence initiated upon me by citizens and individuals has been nothing compared to the violence initiated upon me by police. I have been harassed, detained, placed under false arrest, kidnapped, detained, thrown violently to the ground, chained, locked up in cages with degenerates and violent scum, lied to and been manipulated by police. They came close to ruining my life and they have ruined the lives of many. I am not now and have never been a violent person, as everyone who has ever known me my entire life will admit, yet the police have been violent towards me, because I do not recognize their authority and I refuse to kiss their feet when they harass me. Yes, it is true I often react with resentment and contempt when stopped by police, but this should be protected by my right to free speech and my right to be free of police harassment.

It is true I am a criminal. I have broken laws in the past, I break laws presently, and will break laws in the future. There are so many god damn laws in this country it is impossible to be a law abiding citizen unless you do nothing but sit on your couch all day and watch television. But St. Thomas Aquinas once wrote that an unjust law is no law and I believe it is not only my right but my duty to break unjust laws, and this is a nation with many unjust laws.

Sadly, what Bastiat once complained about has become ubiquitous in our society; namely that the law has changed from a tool to protect property rights into a tool of plunder. The purpose of law is to defend property rights and to protect individuals from violence. It should not be to mold our behaviour towards societally accepted norms or to take from one man to give to another. These forms of societal controls are ripe for corruption and must be refused.

We do not need police. We do not need people spying on us or telling us what we can produce, consume or trade. Now we do need to deal with violent criminals, thieves, murderers and thugs but the problem with our country is that the government is the largest criminal organization that exists. How can a judge condemn the petty thief of shop lifting when he belongs to an organization that steals hundreds of billions from private citizens every year? This is very much the case of the pirate and the emperor. Furthermore police are useless at preventing crime - the most they can ever do is punish someone after the fact. Instead we need citizens to be vigilant to defend themselves and to protect their property. There is a market for security, for men with guns to defend things, but we should not have a coercive monopoly on the use of force but rather societal norms that prohibit the initiation of violence and a free market in defense from aggression (insurance is one way of dealing with this).

We do not need police to protect us from ourselves, but we most certainly do need someone to protect us from the police.