Boston Mayor Has Moment of Libertarianism
The mayor of Boston, Tom Menino, had a nice moment of libertarianism Friday when he said he would not be approving the police department's request to arm patrol officers with M-16 rifles given to them by the U.S. military. It's a basic libertarian tenet that giving the government's enforcement arm additional firepower is bad for the prospects of individual liberty. Militarization of the police is a hallmark of oppressive regimes and something we should oppose at every turn. Of course, he didn't rule out arming "specialized units" with such weapons, and he most certainly did not do a truly pro-liberty thing like pushing for the rifles to be sold on the free market to private buyers and sending the proceeds back to Uncle Sam with a demand for the money to be applied to the debt or somehow returned to the American tax payers. But it's a start.
Of course, the argument in favor of such enhanced armaments (an argument often put forth by well-meaning law-and-order conservatives) is undoubtedly that the police need those weapons to combat the well-armed gangs who thrive on illegal drug trafficking. Unfortunately for their position, that's like liberals who are arguing that the current government-regulation-induced financial crisis should be cured with more government regulation.
Rather than engage in an arms race with better-funded and more highly motivated drug gangs, resulting in innocent casualties and an ever more powerful and dangerous government, we should (thinking to ourselves, what would Sun Tzu do?) remove the traffickers' very raison d'etre by legalizing all currently illegal drugs. Then we'd be simultaneously ending an un-American policy of keeping people from putting certain things in their bodies and ending the violent drug black market over which the gangs are fighting (and bribing cops, lawyers, and judges). After all, since the end of the disastrous prohibition of alcohol, you don't see people battling in the streets over liquor turf, do you?
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July 1st, 2009 - 13:20
Funny thing they keep talking about these well armed gangs of drug dealing thugs. If it is such a common occurrence then why don’t we read about Waco style stand offs in the newspapers or on TV these kinds of things are happening every day right? I mean are the cops constantly serving search warrants and finding large caches of fully automatic assault weapons in every crack house and meth lab? Is every inner city black kid armed to the teeth with Uzi’s and AK 47s? Hmmm it just don’t sound kosher.
July 3rd, 2009 - 07:57
Yes, like any government organization, I’m sure they exaggerate the scope of the problem in order to get the money and toys they want (paid for by us tax payers who would find law enforcement’s current toys pointed our way if we refused to pay up).