For years, in thinking about the Holocaust, I have often wondered if the great mass of police, teachers, and other civil servants simply didn’t go along with things because of the risk to their pensions. I mean, what would stop you from simply keeping your mouth shut but quitting?

Is it any coincidence that Bismark created the first welfare state?

IMHO, those who would focus on a jury’s right to ignore laws they don’t like would distract juries from their real duty: to protect society from lawlessness. Sometimes society needs protection from a lawless person on the witness stand, but sometimes it needs protection from lawless government. Properly-instructed juries in the Ryan Frederick case should have acquitted Mr. Frederick not because of any personal sympathies, but because his home was being broken into by people whose actions were grossly inconsistent with any sort of reasonable effort to minimize risk and harm to persons and property. Deliberate destruction of private property without due process would be illegitimate, and recklessness would be unreasonable (ergo illegitimate as well).

The poor? Well, in a Statist world, they’re stuck with what they get (i.e., brutality).

Have you talked with anyone who lives in a society in which private agencies provide a lot of the police services? I believe they’re pretty commonly used by middle-class-and-up people in South Africa, and while it’s better than the alternative of no police protection, I’m not sure you end up with less brutality than exists in other places. (On the other hand, the South African police were never noted for their gentleness, so maybe this is cultural.)

They tend to take the concept of “one of their own” much further than most people. I’d attend a funeral for someone in my office, but I wouldn’t drive to another state to attend the funeral of a stranger with similar job description to my own who happened to be killed on the job.

I am all in favor of PRIVATE protective services. Let the burden be paid by those who need it, or those who love them. As you are no doubt well aware, my gripe is with State socialism.

“… I advocate radical reform and transparency instead of the elimination of agencies.”

Sorry to burst your bubble, but reform and transparency have been tried and have failed repeatedly, strong evidence of the truth of Einstein’s dictum about insanity. It is abolition that is the only possible solution.

“… will the profit motive become more important than community safety if a killer is on the loose …”

Community safety will be valued by the members of that community, such that the price of apprehending a killer will known and a decision can be made as to the economic benefit of such action. Private security companies (DROs, etc.) will compete and cooperate as business dictates, driving the cost of the provision of public safety down to affordable levels with a dramatic increase in efficiency.

“I am all for people defending themselves, but should they be judge, jury and executioner when they are wronged?”

Of course they should. Who else should? Why? How is it working out presently?

You presume one organization providing security services (the present situation). In anarchy, there would be as many organizations providing security services as the market would bear (profit motive). These organizations would be true agents of the principal citizen, not the farcical bizarro situation we have now. The competition between agencies and the need to turn a profit would ensure peaceful solutions in all but the most extreme and deranged situations, which would be naturally selected out of the system over time by market pressure.

“Who sets the minimal standards of behavior?”

The community in which one lives. My ideal community would be like-minded individuals who subscribe to “First, harm no one, then do as you please.” Others may feel differently — they can find their own communities.

I enjoy the mental exercise of retreading all this old ground about anarchy, but the volume of literature on the subject is exhaustive and much better expressed than I can muster, Helmut. A Statist can sit back and refute every anarchist proposal as ridiculously idealistic and unprovable, but the anarchist can sit back and spend 24/7 ridiculing the present system as a criminal farce.

In the end, all reasonable want essentially the same thing. I believe every individual is by necessity an anarchist, as each of us seeks to control his/her environment according to individual subjective preferences and judgment — the essence of humanity.

Some of us jump off the train out of fear that there’s a cliff around the bend and seek “security” in the State. We all know how that ends. The tragic irony is that there is no cliff around the bend and no reason to jump off the train. Stay onboard and depend on yourself and those you choose to associate with peacefully.

As has often been noted in this and other blogs, cops are regarded as superior people whose death is a special tragedy.

While the cops have always held this idea – realistically, who doesn’t treat the loss of “one of their own” as being a special loss? – the notion has been bought into by politicians, the media and the public. In short, this view has been indulged rather than discouraged. To borrow a phrase, the fault lies in ourselves.

Trying to consider what a stateless society might look like is an interesting diversion, but not a necessary question to mentally get from statism to anarchy.

Fair enough. But not everyone is up to this responsibility. In fact, a fair number of the people I’ve dealt with while working in private protective services barely seem up to dressing themselves in the morning. This is where police–”the police being only members of the public who are paid to give full-time attention to duties which are incumbent on every citizen”–fire-fighters and paramedics come into the equation.

People are largely oblivious to security and safety risks. I don’t entirely fault them; people are busy, after all. But that is why I advocate radical reform and transparency instead of the elimination of agencies.

Even if I acknowledge that it may be within the realm of possibility to replace public police (and fire-rescue) with private protective services, I continue to have problems with the idea that private agencies could assume total responsibility for major investigations. Private detectives have their place, but will the profit motive become more important than community safety if a killer is on the loose (especially if the killer is targeting “street people” who don’t have much disposable income).

But even if you can convince me that PI’s will be sufficient for the investigative function, what about the courts. I am all for people defending themselves, but should they be judge, jury and executioner when they are wronged? Justice is subjective, after all. Of course, an impartial arbiter must exist. I am somewhat familiar with the idea of private arbitration services, and they also have their place. But will people get only as much justice as they can afford? If you shop around enough, will you find an arbitration agency that will let you get away with murder? Who sets the minimal standards of behavior? I continue to believe that we must have a reasonably impartial, multi-tiered system of courts. And with courts, come court orders, so sheriff’s/marshals will likely be needed. Feel free to critiqu my argument at your leisure.

I’m dead certain he wasn’t, Helmut. Not intentionally, at least. But if those are in fact his words, then he captured the essence of anarchism perfectly — the responsibility of each individual to defend himself.

Only rarely can the cops stop a crime in progress. Best will in the world, almost always they show up after it’s all over to fill out the paperwork and take away the bodies.

Which is why police are simply state sanctioned thugs, murderers, and historians — they show up to take notes, kidnap, and cage people. Protect yourself and your community, screw calling 911.