DARREN WILSON IN GALT’S GULCH?
Posted by Zenphamy 10 years, 7 months ago to Philosophy
DARREN WILSON IN GALT’S GULCH?
As a long standing Objectivist, I’m disturbed. In the last few weeks, there have been a number of posts and comment/reply strings on this site on the subject of Michael Brown’s fatal shooting by policeman Darren Wilson and the riots in Ferguson, MO. As well as the activities and statements made by those that support either side of the rightness/wrongness of the shooting, of the actions of the rioters, of the police response to the riots, of the St. Louis justice system’s response to both the shooting and the rioting, the militarization of the police, the involvement of professional race baiters (Sharpton, Jackson, etc), the involvement of the US Department of Justice, and the involvement of Obama. The statements and opinions expressed by the majority of the posts I’ve read have covered the entire imaginable range of support and as well, derogation of the participants involved.
During the same time, the media, both main-stream and alternate have fed us a continual stream of ‘information’ (more appropriately termed infotainment) structured to cater to their particular audience or produced biased episodes and articles supporting all and any of the above.
The major issue that I’ve gleaned from the majority of the coversations is that everyone seems to want very badly for their ‘beliefs’, from one side or the other, to be substantiated. To date, there has been very little factual information provided to the public from which rational, logical reason could reach conclusions, even the Grand Jury ‘evidence’. Commenters, many on this site, illustrate quite vocifirously their biases, their mistrusts of government and key government figures, but at the same time express their sincere hopes that they can trust in the fidelity, honesty, and virtue of the government police forces that they’ve entrusted to protect them, that police are ‘heroes’ for all of us, that what officer Wilson did was justified and right. But in all of the conversations, debates, and quoted infotainment on this Galt’s Gulch Site, I’ve seen very little Objectivist logical reasoning.
Three activities of late, as well as the referenced postings, comments, and replies here in the Gulch have generated for myself, a desire to reflect on and discuss further the questions posed so far and raised by the below.
1. One of course has been the Michael Brown killing, with an associated report by Reason.com: “Deadspin is Crowdsourcing a Police Shooting Database”, Anthony L. Fisher|Aug. 20, 2014 3:47 pm @ http://reason.com/blog/2014/08/20/deadsp....
It appears that researchers and others wishing to study and report on police shootings have discovered that there simply does not exist a publically available record of police shootings and killings in this nation. Why?
2. In the second activity fortuitously published by The Oklahoman on Novemeber 9th, substantiating the first item, it was reported that The Tulsa World had just completed such a study in Oklahoma, finding that to do so they had to search Oklahoma’s OSBI (Bureau of Investigation) records, the Highway Patrol’s records, the Office of the Medical Examiner’s records, local news reports, and Court records of law suits to generate such a study just for Oklahoma.
A brief summary of some of the report: In Oklahoma, with a population of 3.8 million a study just released reveals that 109 citizens have been shot and killed since 2007, with only one found to be non-justified. Since 2009 when the victim count was only 7, the number of such shootings per year has tripled while only 3 LEOs were killed statewide during the same time period and assaults on police have been on the decline nearly 30% during that time.. Blacks were 18% of the victims, but 7% of the population and whites were 62% of the victims. Hispanic and Indian killings were proportionate to their representation in the population.
3. The third activity has been the recent release of the video of the police killing of Tamir Rice 2 weeks ago, 12 years old, in Cleveland playing with a toy gun. The video starkly contradicts the police report of the shooting. See @ Reason.com http://reason.com/blog/2014/11/26/police....
Some of the questions raised for me are:
1. In a country that records everything down to the minutest detail of every piece of information on every citizen whether legally or illegally, even their phone calls, why doesn’t anyone keep public records of police shooting deaths?
2. Most police shootings do not result in the death of the citizen. Police are notoriously bad shots and often empty their 12 and 16 round clips, even reloading on occasion. How would that compare to the numbers that could be generated only from deaths?
3. Most police abuse of their position doesn’t result in shootings, but often result in beatings instead, some in death. How does the findings from the above reflect on additional information on police/citizen interactions?
4. Police lie. How many of the shootings and beatings not videoed happened as the police reported?
5. FBI statistics on crime in general show that every category of crime has been steadily decreasing throughout the nation for at least a couple of decades and don’t seem to support or justify the police rationalization of extreme danger, more funding, military hardware and weapons, etc.
But what’s absent in any of the discussion and reports to date?
• What would be the place of a Darren Wilson in an Objectivist Galt’s Gulch?
• How would the Gulch respond to such an action as the killing of one of it’s citizens by a policeman whose only legitimate reason to exist is to respond to violations of citizen’s individual rights?
• Are such questions in this ‘real’ non-objectivist society of today meaningful to those whom espouse the ‘non-initiation of force principle’ of Ms. Rand’s philosophy and the lessons provided by her novels as well as by the Liberal society imagined and provided for by our founders?
• Can any semblance of an Objectivist society ever come to be while our police beat, shoot, and kill it’s citizens with impunity?
In an age in which we’re finally beginning to realize and see the true scope of the absolute and total attack on the Constitutional foundation of this country and our natural individual rights, both explicit and implied, an apparent disregard for application of law to those within government, in this nation with the largest prison population in the world while only having 5% of the world population, it might behoove us to look a little closer at the underlying and exposed issues illustrated by this set of events and associated discussions, both for our ‘real’ society and for Rand’s Galt Gulch.
As a long standing Objectivist, I’m disturbed. In the last few weeks, there have been a number of posts and comment/reply strings on this site on the subject of Michael Brown’s fatal shooting by policeman Darren Wilson and the riots in Ferguson, MO. As well as the activities and statements made by those that support either side of the rightness/wrongness of the shooting, of the actions of the rioters, of the police response to the riots, of the St. Louis justice system’s response to both the shooting and the rioting, the militarization of the police, the involvement of professional race baiters (Sharpton, Jackson, etc), the involvement of the US Department of Justice, and the involvement of Obama. The statements and opinions expressed by the majority of the posts I’ve read have covered the entire imaginable range of support and as well, derogation of the participants involved.
During the same time, the media, both main-stream and alternate have fed us a continual stream of ‘information’ (more appropriately termed infotainment) structured to cater to their particular audience or produced biased episodes and articles supporting all and any of the above.
The major issue that I’ve gleaned from the majority of the coversations is that everyone seems to want very badly for their ‘beliefs’, from one side or the other, to be substantiated. To date, there has been very little factual information provided to the public from which rational, logical reason could reach conclusions, even the Grand Jury ‘evidence’. Commenters, many on this site, illustrate quite vocifirously their biases, their mistrusts of government and key government figures, but at the same time express their sincere hopes that they can trust in the fidelity, honesty, and virtue of the government police forces that they’ve entrusted to protect them, that police are ‘heroes’ for all of us, that what officer Wilson did was justified and right. But in all of the conversations, debates, and quoted infotainment on this Galt’s Gulch Site, I’ve seen very little Objectivist logical reasoning.
Three activities of late, as well as the referenced postings, comments, and replies here in the Gulch have generated for myself, a desire to reflect on and discuss further the questions posed so far and raised by the below.
1. One of course has been the Michael Brown killing, with an associated report by Reason.com: “Deadspin is Crowdsourcing a Police Shooting Database”, Anthony L. Fisher|Aug. 20, 2014 3:47 pm @ http://reason.com/blog/2014/08/20/deadsp....
It appears that researchers and others wishing to study and report on police shootings have discovered that there simply does not exist a publically available record of police shootings and killings in this nation. Why?
2. In the second activity fortuitously published by The Oklahoman on Novemeber 9th, substantiating the first item, it was reported that The Tulsa World had just completed such a study in Oklahoma, finding that to do so they had to search Oklahoma’s OSBI (Bureau of Investigation) records, the Highway Patrol’s records, the Office of the Medical Examiner’s records, local news reports, and Court records of law suits to generate such a study just for Oklahoma.
A brief summary of some of the report: In Oklahoma, with a population of 3.8 million a study just released reveals that 109 citizens have been shot and killed since 2007, with only one found to be non-justified. Since 2009 when the victim count was only 7, the number of such shootings per year has tripled while only 3 LEOs were killed statewide during the same time period and assaults on police have been on the decline nearly 30% during that time.. Blacks were 18% of the victims, but 7% of the population and whites were 62% of the victims. Hispanic and Indian killings were proportionate to their representation in the population.
3. The third activity has been the recent release of the video of the police killing of Tamir Rice 2 weeks ago, 12 years old, in Cleveland playing with a toy gun. The video starkly contradicts the police report of the shooting. See @ Reason.com http://reason.com/blog/2014/11/26/police....
Some of the questions raised for me are:
1. In a country that records everything down to the minutest detail of every piece of information on every citizen whether legally or illegally, even their phone calls, why doesn’t anyone keep public records of police shooting deaths?
2. Most police shootings do not result in the death of the citizen. Police are notoriously bad shots and often empty their 12 and 16 round clips, even reloading on occasion. How would that compare to the numbers that could be generated only from deaths?
3. Most police abuse of their position doesn’t result in shootings, but often result in beatings instead, some in death. How does the findings from the above reflect on additional information on police/citizen interactions?
4. Police lie. How many of the shootings and beatings not videoed happened as the police reported?
5. FBI statistics on crime in general show that every category of crime has been steadily decreasing throughout the nation for at least a couple of decades and don’t seem to support or justify the police rationalization of extreme danger, more funding, military hardware and weapons, etc.
But what’s absent in any of the discussion and reports to date?
• What would be the place of a Darren Wilson in an Objectivist Galt’s Gulch?
• How would the Gulch respond to such an action as the killing of one of it’s citizens by a policeman whose only legitimate reason to exist is to respond to violations of citizen’s individual rights?
• Are such questions in this ‘real’ non-objectivist society of today meaningful to those whom espouse the ‘non-initiation of force principle’ of Ms. Rand’s philosophy and the lessons provided by her novels as well as by the Liberal society imagined and provided for by our founders?
• Can any semblance of an Objectivist society ever come to be while our police beat, shoot, and kill it’s citizens with impunity?
In an age in which we’re finally beginning to realize and see the true scope of the absolute and total attack on the Constitutional foundation of this country and our natural individual rights, both explicit and implied, an apparent disregard for application of law to those within government, in this nation with the largest prison population in the world while only having 5% of the world population, it might behoove us to look a little closer at the underlying and exposed issues illustrated by this set of events and associated discussions, both for our ‘real’ society and for Rand’s Galt Gulch.
Previous comments... You are currently on page 2.
I admit ignorance on that count - checking into it.
1. You are arguing from "respect for the law." I believe that only natural law deserves such reflexive respect. I also believe that police should have slightly fewer rights than ordinary people -- because courts should always be assuming that the civilian is innocent, not that the cop is innocent, even if the cop is the one on trial.
3. Agree with you on the "genuine thug sub-culture" but I believe it started out justified, as the same sort of reaction any minority group would have when they are constantly the subject of unfair attacks by police (and this has been true in the US pretty much since the end of Reconstruction; in fact the drug laws were written to persecute minorities). As things stand today, we've got to purge the police departments of their racists (in either direction), and the way to do that is accountability. I like the idea of privatizing police as a means to make them accountable, but there are other ways to do it; at a minimum they must be stripped of all legal immunity, and of their monopoly on the right to prosecute.
4. I don't buy any argument of the form "We must re-educate the population before trying to create a ___ society." Human nature doesn't change, most people will never change their views much (so huge swings of viewpoint only occur over generations of time), and most importantly, any form of society, whether open or closed, large or small, can only be stable if its supporters have both the means, and authority, to keep it in place. Thus if any of us think our particular versions of "Galt's Gulch" can be made stable, they should go ahead and create them somewhere. If one works, more of us will apply to join.
So giving them non-lethal weapons hasn't and won't help.
In the Wilson/Brown case, by the time Wilson started shooting he had been beaten on enough that he would be right to shoot to kill even if he'd had those other gadgets anyway.
And short of making police personally accountable in court, to victims, for every misuse of power, there's simply no way to make a police department honest.
I would think that the real punishment would be expulsion from the Gulch. I suspect that there would be some lesser crimes that would not merit such an extreme sentence, but the book gives few clues on the actual structure and government, choosing to focus on the people instead. If a real Gulch ever materialized (see jbrennan's concepts), that is part of what has been vigorously debated, so I'm afraid if you are looking to me for positive answers, I can do nothing more than disappoint.
That being said, education is key to everything. We can not force people to choose one way or the other, but we can endeavor to educate them that they do actually have a choice. That must be the first step. People must first learn about the concepts of natural law, then make up their minds to obey them. Then they can be admitted into the Gulch.
Is there hope for society to change? I think there is already a strong undercurrent pushing in that direction that still remains a majority here in the United States. But we must engage them and help them to see that there is still hope and that America's fate is far from a foregone conclusion - the destination of socialism and ruin. The only way to combat despair is with hope, and that is where an alternative MUST be presented.
It seems to me that the underlying assumption is that there would be no Michael Browns in the Gulch. That sort of implies that the Gulch would be an exclusionary arrangement. The one AR described was by invitation only. How realistic is that?
What if the citizen the police is treating as a friend and a neighbor behaves as an aggressive, emotion fuming criminal?
I agree with you that our country is perceptibly deteriorating and I do not see a reasonable scheme to change back the slope of the line. On the other hand, it is not hard to believe that the whole world is on the same trend. What with some trying to brig us back to 1000+ year old arrangements, some others trying to emulate Stalin and Hitler, where do I find reasons for hope?
Pleas help me understand this better.
With sincere respect.
The larger questions raised, I think, are still valid. The militarization of police forces within the US - as evidenced in the early days of Ferguson where the police brought in paramilitary armament - is a legitimate concern, and Zen is also right to ask. We are in a world where the gap between law enforcement's artillery and the citizen's restrictions on matching that capability widens on a daily basis, through legislation and sheer financial clout.
However, I caution the inclination to begin with the assumption that "our police beat, shoot, and kill it’s citizens with impunity?" As a starting point it leaves zero room for "trust but verify" policies which would be at the heart of an Objectivist philosophy.
My $.04 (adjusted for profit). ;)
Brown was shot in the hand in the car, he walked away from the car for a short distance and he came charging back.
http://www.bjs.gov/index.cfm?ty=tp&t...
Bureau of Justice Statistics
1) Brown's behavior was criminal by any standard.
2) The officer's version of the events was backed up by witnesses and the autopsy as well as investigation of the opposing witnesses, who frequently recanted or were caught lying in their testimony.
3) The only question is should police officers be allowed to use deadly force when facing a beating. Considering the damage done by Brown on the officer, it was definitely an attempt at life-threatening force. That was shown in court.
3) The riots are a separate issue and every rioter who broke the law was fully responsible for their own actions and should be prosecuted accordingly. Nothing in Objectivist Ideology suggests that you give up responsibility for criminal actions if you do it for a "good cause" protesting the criminal actions of others not associated with those you victimize.
4) The officer used deadly force faced with deadly force and his side of the event was backed by the evidence. There is insufficient grounds to prosecute the officer for any crime - hearsay is insufficient evidence, especially when the story keeps changing.
5) The officer not only took responsibility, but resigned after threats to his fellow officers and did so without expectation of special consideration from the police station or state he worked for.
6) Galt would bring the officer in in a second.
7) Brown would never hear the words, "John Galt" from anyone who knew his history or his behavior in this event.
We owe mobs nothing.
No person has the right to demand "a fair fight" when they are committing a crime and they are the aggressor.
Our police have to have the means to defend themselves against open criminals.
No one has the right to victimize innocent shop keepers because the crowd is upset about something unconnected to the victimized shop keepers.
Seems simple.
Supposition about what happened is silly when the facts are available and/or going to be available.
Let the court do it's job, double check (never hurts to watch dog) and leave off judgment of the police and specific court cases when you lack the evidence to try the case. Waste of time, and often unjust to all involved.
• How would the Gulch respond to such an action as the killing of one of it’s citizens by a policeman whose only legitimate reason to exist is to respond to violations of citizen’s individual rights?
• Are such questions in this ‘real’ non-objectivist society of today meaningful to those whom espouse the ‘non-initiation of force principle’ of Ms. Rand’s philosophy and the lessons provided by her novels as well as by the Liberal society imagined and provided for by our founders?
• Can any semblance of an Objectivist society ever come to be while our police beat, shoot, and kill it’s citizens with impunity? "
First, I have to ask - how did you generate bullet points?
On to the questions
1. I have to believe that in referring to Darren Wilson you are referring to police and not individuals. I would think that the place of the individual would be pretty clear-cut - to participate as a productive member of society while respecting natural rights. Police officers are there to enforce the law, and I think it would be pretty naive to assume that no one ever broke laws - even in the Gulch. So there is going to have to be a police force to deal with it. Size and composition unknown, but I would have to start with the premise that police officers had no fewer and no greater rights than the public they serve. That being said, their job is to apprehend and bring people to court - with force being used as a last resort.
2. Definitely an item open for discussion.
3. Not sure what you mean by the "Liberal society imagined and provided for by our founders". The Founders believed strongly in personal responsibility for self-defense (ie they packed heat) and also a personal responsibility to obey and respect duly-elected laws which treat everyone equally and respected natural law. My personal opinion is that our current society has fallen away in both of these regards. The laws are no more just and equitable. To further exacerbate the problem, there is a genuine thug sub-culture being embraced by many that disrespects natural law and the rights of others, and even goes so far as to target law enforcement as a "problem". I don't believe you can effectively address the situation without addressing BOTH forms of societal corruption.
4. I think this is hyperbole, but I think the true answer again lies in culture. There must be first a respect for natural rights - life, property, etc. from all sides. Remember, police are a reactionary force comprised of normal people with specialized training. If their training teaches them to be paranoid, we will continue to see these unfortunate types of incidents. If their training is to treat every encounter like combat, that's just plain wrong. The police should be treating citizens as friends and neighbors - not as potential criminals.
Just my two cents.
From what I've gleaned, without really digging in deep, this is *not* the ideal case to rally around to reform policing. If we are against individual police officers and police actions just because there is an overall problem with policing, we make the war mentality problem worse. I hope most people, those who are not paid to turn things into an ideological us-vs-them contest, are for the law and the truth. I hope most police officers are for the law and the truth and don't fall into the trap of thinking they're the good guys so their winning is more important than the law.
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