“Unleash the Police” Is Back: Post-Libertarian Crusaders Fight for MUH LIBRARIES

The post-libertarian types are at it again, now calling to “unleash the police” on homeless individuals to save muh parks and libraries. Let’s hope they stop complaining then, about state forces being used against them to mandate masks and jabs on public property.

Post-Libertarian Thought — More Useless Than the State Itself

I googled “useless things” just to get some examples and analogies for this article, as the first thing that came to mind after hearing the most recent iterations of “post-lib” sophistry — this time regarding libraries and homeless people — was: “Wow, these guys are like near beer.” Basically pointless. They kind of want to be freedom-ish, if it helps their image and RTs, but not actually, because hey, they gotta work in the morning.

Not everyone drinks alcohol, though, and some might even say comparing freedom with booze is a poor analogue on several levels. So then, I thought of some other things as useless as utilizing “statecraft” for peace (that’s their beyond-cringe, Harry Potter-esque term, by the way, not mine, so thanks for that, Peter Quiñones). Condoms with holes poked in them? Decaf coffee for a late night pick-me-up? A promise from a politician or cop?

What brand of “useless” exactly are these regurgitated alt-right/statist/nationalist ideas best represented by? The list of possible inanities goes on. But I think maybe this picture of a “watermelon” best captures the essence of the post-libertarian position:

Barely anything good inside, and what good there is, is surrounded by a bitter rind so dense and impossible to get through, one would be hard-pressed to call this a watermelon at all. Well, I guess we could call it a “pragmatic” watermelon? I don’t know. Throw the fuckin’ thing away.

The funny thing about all the post-libertarian (read: minarchist/non-libertarian) arguments is that they are founded on the premise that in order to reduce the evils of statism, a small amount of those exact same evils must be systematically applied against non-violent people for the “greater good” of these exact same non-violent people getting violated. So, I guess we have found something even more useless than statism itself: an argument for the state to exist in order to eliminate the state.

Full Disclosure and Personal Background

Before I dive into the most recent madness on Twatter, where the old late-Rothbardian-turned-alt-right adage “unleash the police” is making a comeback again in regard to keeping homeless people out of libraries (Rothbard also said a mother killing her own child in the womb was akin to “eviction,” for context, so it’s clear he didn’t win ‘em all in the realm of ideas), I have a backlog of experience with Peter Quiñones, or the “Free Man Beyond the Wall,” that is worth addressing.

Pete was one of the folks who told me to pipe down years back when I was trying to tell people about now-exposed Libertarian Party lunatic Adam Kokesh, after his campaign had hired an infosec to track and dox my family, and “take him [me] out,” with even my young son not being spared as potential collateral damage to their greasy, boneheaded mission. There were also lamentations that they could only reach me digitally.

Peter would subsequently apologize for telling me to shut up about it — even though he admitted not remembering why the falling out had happened — only to later become obtuse and thorny toward me once again. After the apology, which I happily accepted, I was on his podcast to talk about agorism (which he said at the time was “the way forward”), and I was a follower of his content, and generally dug his work until he shapeshifted yet again.

Now openly mocking anyone apolitical as a “lolbert,” going along with wild arguments comparing a country’s “rights” with those of individual human beings, and advocating “statecraft,” it’s hard to understand the guy. I am fine with arguing strategy, but denigrating and mocking anyone not wishing to participate in politics is bizarre. We are not all “purists,” blindly condemning anyone who may choose to vote in a small county election or join a school board meeting to stave off some immediate danger.

The point is, such things simply don’t bring about lasting change long-term, and most importantly, always result in continued, blanket violation of the non-violent, which is why I personally do not participate.

Suffice it to say, the argument that follows would be the same with or without all this stupid crap and backstory. It is mainly the half-baked ideas I take issue with, and not the human beings, ultimately. I wish no ill on Pete or anyone insofar as they are not violating me, and appreciate allies in the fight against the current covi-cult madness. But denigration of sound, logical principle, in the name of idealistic fairy tales posturing as practical solutions, is a big red flag.

The ideas themselves are not hard to take to task. So let’s dig in.

It’s fitting, talking about post-libertarian sophistry, to start with a comedian. But first, look at that tweet from Tho Bishop at the top of this article one more time. That is the caliber of awareness we are dealing with. And what Dave Smith retweeted, as though it were some kind of novel discussion starter.

Comedian Dave Smith’s Funny Pleas for State Violence

The whole conversation about the homeless overrunning libraries and parks began where most inane conversations do nowadays: online. The idea is that if some homeless folks are ruining everyone else’s library or park experience, it is okay for libertarians to support the police getting them the hell out of there.

I myself 100% admit I do not want someone shooting up heroin and shitting on the floor next to me while I try to take in some Chaucer on a quiet Sunday afternoon at the library.

What Smith and others overlook is that in order to end such a tragedy of the commons, applying more tragedy of the commons services (cops) is not going to help, long run. Privatization is more than just “ideal” as Smith says in the screengrab above — it’s the only way to solve the problem.

Sure, you can have your extortion-funded cops come in there, literally kidnap the bothersome homeless individual, put him or her in a shelter, jail cell, or whatever “solution” is going to cost taxpayers even more money than they’re already paying. Violation of the homeless individual’s self-ownership aside (and that’s a huge allowance for the sake of argument, here), it helps immediately for the high-time preference person that just wants their quiet library back, and doesn’t care too much about long-term results or maintaining sustained, systematic, non-violent order.

In other words, it’s a good solution for a non-libertarian.

Further, if Dave Smith is cool with unleashing the cops because it is public property (an anti-concept, but let’s roll with that as well, for the time being), then when another taxpayer sees him at a park unmasked, he will need to shut up and accept their decision when they call the cops on him, and state agents physically remove him. To the individual putting in the call, it’s just common sense public safety, in the same way removing the homeless man from the park is common sense public safety to him, and both are taxpayers extorted to pay for the same public space. For Smith to think his examples about libraries and parks are different is a special pleading fallacy if there is no direct threat to body or property.

The homeless man shitting on the floor next to me at my Sunday library may also have paid taxes before he lost his livelihood and home. Who am I to say that little square foot of floor he’s shitting on isn’t his? It actually makes me laugh that a libertarian comedian doesn’t get the joke here. The takeaway is that every single post-lib sophistry slinger (intentional or otherwise) wishes to leverage state violence on others, as long as it is not leveraged on them.

As Brandon Aragon lays out in his article about how the state destroyed an entire Navajo community’s water supply with its actions, the anti-concept of “public property” always results in chaos:

“What about the other ‘owners’? If everyone owns it then no one does, and why does only the government get to decide what is done with the public property in question and not the people that actually contributed their labor towards it, and the maintenance thereof?”

In regard to the tweet directly above, talking about “mentally ill drug addicts,” I wonder if Smith and Quiñones have thought about what creates these problems of homelessness and drug addiction in the first place (we’ll get into this more in-depth below). The drug war and taxation are at least part of the root of the issue. And yet, posturing about pragmatism, they wish to add more fuel to the fire when the most pragmatic thing to do would be to cease participation in the problem itself.

But that’s not realistic! The post-libs whine. What folks like Smith and Quiñones and Tom Woods (we’ll get to Woods’ commentary in a second, too) want seems to be, ultimately, to remain comfortable. We’ll get hurt if we disobey too directly, they protest. Well, maybe so. So why not build something new? Is the only solution to keep applying blanket, violent legislation to all others indiscriminately in the name of the state as long as it is not you that is the one being violated? That seems to me to be a pretty bitch-made argument.

Finally, the government doing or not doing anything is always theft as long as it exists, extorting money. The state is predicated on this theft and systematic violation of the non-violent. So subsidization or not, it’s theft, and it’s the state that is stealing from you, Dave, not the homeless guy. You are essentially saying: “Arresting homeless people with the stolen money is better than doing nothing with the stolen money.” Well…okay.

To cap off the mental gymnastics, here we see Smith attempting to equate property “publicly owned” with his own private backyard. Sal the Agorist is right on this one, because he has not put the cart before the horse. Instead of attacking the problem at the root, which is that there is not and cannot be such a thing as public property (as property entails exclusive use rights), Smith instead seems to decide that sometimes violence can be arbitrarily initiated against folks he doesn’t like being around. So again, let’s hear no complaints when you are removed from a library for being unmasked, please.

Popular podcast host and radio personality, Tom Woods, also engages in a special pleading fallacy, and employs a false dichotomy/strawman, saying that “no action can be taken” according to libertarians when there is a drug addict “screaming obscenities” in the library. Why can no action be taken? There are any number of actions that can be taken. From getting someone to calm the individual down through measured dialogue, calling in private mental health professionals and addiction specialists, or simply leaving the tragic commons that is the public library and creating an alternative, private space. If the individual becomes physically violent, then self-defense is called for and in such cases people do call the police when unequipped to defend themselves, thanks to statist laws often making armed self-defense illegal.

There are such things as private libraries. And if the government owns the library, as Tom says, then it is strange to complain about how it is used. If that is the case, and the owner (government) allows homeless people to be there, what are you complaining about? It is the state’s property, as you say. Does the state own it, or do you also have a say in those exclusive use rights? It’s just so much convoluted nonsense one almost wonders if it’s intentional. “We’ve been robbed for a library we can’t even use?” Woods complains about not being able to use the library more than the initial robbery itself.

K.

Actual Solutions

The easy answer to the hypocrisy and self-detonating positions of the post-libertarian argument on the issue of homeless individuals (often referred to as “vagrants” in much the same way Trump humpers refer to Mexicans crossing imaginary statist borders as “illegals”) is simple consistency.

If one does not wish to have masks forced on their children in public schools, or needles forced into their bloodstream in order to enter “public” buildings, one should not simultaneously advocate arbitrary, anti-propertarian rules for libraries and parks. That guy sleeping on the park bench every night may be an eyesore to you, but if there is no victim, there is no crime.

Your unmasked face may be equally unpleasant to the statist Karen on the other end of the “unleash the cops” spectrum. And no matter how stupid her position, if you engage in special pleading to unleash jackboots on poor individuals, you open the game for special pleading in any instance, and reset the whole conundrum of statism you ostensibly were setting out to solve in the first place. Special pleading gets us nowhere. The so-called pragmatism espoused by post-libertarianism is usually little more than fear causing the scared party to run back to the state for protection.

Would I call the cops if I had absolutely no other option and my life was in danger? Maybe. Would I call the cops on Woods’ “junkie … screaming obscenities,” in lieu of other solutions to the annoyance? No. I’m not a bitch. And, as Sal the Agorist noted, these new “library laws” being advocated can and would be enforced to the point of death. But hey, when your entire position is “Who cares? Hopefully they disappear,” I guess murdering bums is fine.

The only thing that really matters is whether or not an individual is initiating violence against me. If someone is not immediately threatening my body or property, I have no right to call in the thugs of the state to kidnap them or worse, end their life. Even though they might be a “bum” and “who cares.”

But we pay taaaaxes! Not the homeless guy’s fault. That’s the state’s fault. Homeless bro did not extort you.

But the state is scaaaaary we can’t ignore them! Yes, indeed. The state can be scary, 100%. Look what they’ve done to Ulbricht, Weaver, Sherry Peel Jackson and countless others. I guess Harriet Tubman should have just gotten into politics, too. She took a big risk. Silly lolbert.

But muh liiiiibrary! Muh paaarrrks! Congratulations. You have encountered a real-life problem with real-life risks, in need of a real-life solution.

Since the violent perpetrators largely responsible for creating situations such as homeless camps in parks and drug addicts in libraries are ultimately agents of the state (see: economic downturn resultant of reckless fractional reserve banking policies, inflation and QE, minimum wage laws preventing poor individuals from becoming employed, illegality of sheltering homeless people privately, illegality of tent cities/public camping, big pharma opioids pushed on the homeless while cannabis and safer alternatives remain illegal in many areas, crack planted in neighborhoods by the CIA, illegality of food donations, building permit licensing rackets, tax (extortion) rackets, identification requirements, etc., etc.), it stands to reason that the answer to the problems should also be anti-state — or at least non-statist, and definitely non-violent.

Some thoughtful context on the topic, provided by Starr O’Hara

The construction of private libraries and parks, with private security forces (these already exist, by the way) could help. Finding ways to bend the rules about private sheltering, working within gray and black markets. Feeding people illegally. Hiring them and paying them under the table. Creating employment networks of trusted businesses that can vet potential workers serious about getting back on their feet and filter out threatening parties. Private counseling and therapy for addiction and emotional trauma. Outright, Harriet Tubman style direct action. Whatever it takes.

The tragedy of the commons will run its course regardless, if the current futile attempts to fix things with the state are the only solutions offered, demonstrating the final futility and violence of statist action. It’s happening right now. Why these social media roaring heads, then, cannot read the writing on the wall — and think the only answer is more of the same exact violence they say they want to end — is beyond me. Well, actually…no, maybe it’s not.

Fear of Death and the Fight to Survive and Thrive

The Ayn Rand quote above is enough to lay the silliness to rest. The propertarian and logical solution is simple. Get off of your ass, get off of the Twitter flame threads, organize and network, and do something about it. Yes, there is risk to exercising freedom, but the risk of doing nothing more than mocking others online and playing it safe by asking for Daddy State to help you is far greater. As a brave young woman put to death by the Nazis, Sophie Scholl, famously said:

“The real damage is done by those millions who want to ‘survive.’ The honest men who just want to be left in peace. Those who don’t want their little lives disturbed by anything bigger than themselves. Those with no sides and no causes. Those who won’t take measure of their own strength, for fear of antagonizing their own weakness. Those who don’t like to make waves—or enemies. Those for whom freedom, honour, truth, and principles are only literature. Those who live small, mate small, die small. It’s the reductionist approach to life: if you keep it small, you’ll keep it under control. If you don’t make any noise, the bogeyman won’t find you. But it’s all an illusion, because they die too, those people who roll up their spirits into tiny little balls so as to be safe. Safe?! From what? Life is always on the edge of death; narrow streets lead to the same place as wide avenues, and a little candle burns itself out just like a flaming torch does. I choose my own way to burn.”

If ever there is a situation where the state is trying to violate you, and I can help, god help me, I hope I will be able to offer you my hand if you are truly a good person. No matter how we may disagree in these little internet battles. I hope you would do the same for me. But if your goal is to simply “unleash the cops” on any problem you face in life, your whole advocation of freedom is completely and utterly meaningless, and trust is not something I would extend you even in “real life,” offline.

Yes, shit is getting extremely dangerous and extremely scary. Yes, this world is turning into an actual shithole authoritarian, impoverished hellscape — everywhere. This was always the inevitable, logical conclusion of statism. Folks are already dying. They have been dying by the literal hundreds of millions for centuries as a result of the violent “solutions” and “pragmatic order” the political class proffers.

But now that the results are coming home to roost even in the developed world, these same individuals — not firmly rooted in understanding — run right back to the government, whimpering with tails tucked between their legs, begging for violence to be employed against their fellow man after all their big talk about freedom and individual rights.

Peter actually told me to lay off the Scotch whisky when I was warning people about that literal terrorist in his precious LP circles back then. To that I would say, please lay off the near beer, Woods, Smith, Quiñones, and get with it. Have a dram of good, high-quality freedom (and maybe consider growing some balls, while you’re at it).

With all due respect.