A Libertarian “Family Values” Solution to Fighting Gang Violence

     Between 3 P.M. on Friday, August 3^rd, and 6 A.M. on Monday, August 6^th, 2018, seventy-four people were shot in Chicago, Illinois. In the first three hours of that Sunday alone, thirty people were shot, in addition to another ten people within the few hours before and after that. Eleven or twelve of those 74 people reportedly died as the result of their injuries.

     As a response to the escalation in violence, hundreds of additional police officers have been put on patrol in the city. The rash of shootings has prompted calls for the resignation of Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel. Emanuel, who served as Barack Obama's chief of staff during the first year and a half of his presidency, condemned the shootings, calling them “unacceptable in any neighborhood”. Chicagoans might have considered this number of shootings “normal” if they had occurred during the Fourth of July weekend, but given that they took place in early August, it just seems out of place.

     The shootings have also renewed public interest in calling-in the Illinois National Guard to help the Chicago Police Department patrol problematic areas of the city. Illinois Governor Bruce Rauner disagreed, saying “the national guard is not for neighborhood policing”. Rauner, who is up for re-election this November, added that improving economic opportunities would help to end the violence in the city.

     In November, Rauner faces re-election challenge from Democratic nominee and fellow billionaire J.B. Pritzker, Conservative Party nominee and state legislator Sam McCann, and Libertarian Party nominee Kash Jackson, as well as, possibly, various other independent, minor party, and write-in candidates.

     On March 3^rd, Kash Jackson was nominated for governor by the Libertarian Party of Illinois, defeating challengers Matthew C. Scaro and Jon Stewart. Although Stewart was the only one of the three candidates who was open to considering deploying the Illinois National Guard in Chicago, he articulated his own comprehensive plan to address gang violence during their campaigns, as did Mr. Scaro and Mr. Jackson. All three candidates agreed that economic opportunity would play a part in the solution to gang violence, as well as the decriminalization of non-violent drug offenses and gun possession. Jackson in particular would like to give inmates the opportunity to acquire skills while in jail that will help them become valued, contributing members of society and the labor force.

     The Libertarian Party and its candidates, of course, do not agree with Bruce Rauner on everything. If we liked Bruce Rauner, we wouldn't be running anyone against him. However, I, and many L.P. members, feel that Bruce Rauner and Kash Jackson are correct in their agreement on this particular issue. Economic opportunity should be part of the solution, and calling-in the National Guard should not.

     In my opinion, this is a position which fits in line perfectly with what libertarian-inspired public policy should look like. It also stands as an example of what moderate Republicans do right, as far as libertarians are concerned; looking to freedom, rather than brute strength, to fight gangs, gun crime, and violent behavior associated with the use and sale of drugs.

     You don't fix urban gang violence by calling the National Guard into cities, nor by imposing a curfew on adults. That would violate the freedoms of all people within the areas being patrolled; even adult citizens who vote and pay taxes, and who of right ought to be allowed to make their own decisions. To impose a curfew is to disregard people's natural freedom of locomotion (movement; travel), and makes them unfree to leave their homes. This is not Saudi Arabia, nor it is Egypt in 2011, where governments can get away with using brutal, uncivilized means to supposedly achieve civil “order” (which essentially amounts to a state of legalized terror over the public).

     The patrol of streets by police officers, who often watch and even follow people without warrants or reasonable suspicion, essentially create a standing threat against citizens. When supplemented by officers trained in military techniques, and especially when provided with military-grade weaponry and surveillance technology, police departments can be transformed into what essentially amounts to units of a standing army. That is what the second and third amendments to the U.S. Constitution were intended to prevent.

     Calling-in the National Guard sends the message that not just law-breakers, but also potential law-breakers, will be dealt with as if they were an invading army of foreign militants, posing an immediate threat to people. This makes people feel as if they are not at home in their own country. This treatment especially negatively affects people of color, and brings back bad historical memories (more than those whose relatives do not have stories of similar situations can imagine).

     Additionally, the ubiquitous presence of police results in what is called “the alienation of the will”, as well as the “Panopticon” effect. It causes people to worry that they are being watched, and change their behavior as a way to compensate. The motivation behind the Panopticon is to cause people to “police their own behavior”. Unfortunately, this has turned many of us into our own worst enemies. Thus, the Panopticon has done little other than to put a man's leash into his own hand, and to allow police to get away with shouting “fire” in a crowded theater with no fire, by shooting at people who they claim to be threats.

     This can have disastrous consequences, including 1) more secretive behavior on the part of citizens and law enforcement officers alike, 2) government encouraging citizens to spy on their neighbors, and 3) criminals killing more witnesses and police in order to get away with their crimes than they otherwise would have (a problem which is spurred-on by the harsh penalties involved). Moreover, 4) an environment of fear is created in the community, as well as the perception that one is being watched, and that privacy is impossible. Also, 5) some citizens begin to behave as if they were police officers. Not by protecting and serving, mind you, but by using the violation of petty infractions as an excuse to shoot people who are engaging in harmless behaviors which they personally don't like, and by extrajudicially detaining someone who “looks like a terrorist” in a grocery store for no reason, while they call the cops.

     Making people believe that they are being watched at all times, has more unintended consequences than we can anticipate. There is little evidence that creating an environment of Kafkaesque fear – fear that we'll be accused of anything and everything, and be on our own to defend ourselves against charges our accusers can't even articulate, and fear that we could be breaking some obscure law no matter where we go and what we do - has ever made people into better or more law-abiding citizens.

     This environment of fear has, thus far, only served to reproduce in the streets what the people of Pamplona feel every year; that of an approaching stampede shaking the ground, and of a public panic about to ensue, which, for everybody's safety, needs to be prevented.

     The “law of the instrument”, explained by a quotation whose origin has been attributed to many different people, states that “every problem looks like a nail if the only tool you have is a hammer”. Not all of our problems can be killed or destroyed; didn't we learn that from our failed war on the ideology of terrorism?

     I believe that it is impossible to solve gang violence by treating ordinary citizens as if they were standing threats to public order, even if they are supposedly walking in dangerous neighborhoods. We cannot put all of our potential “problems” in jail, just because we think that they might do something bad or harmful. Especially when our “problems” are human beings, who nearly always have perfectly rational motivations for the things they do.

     The idea that we can police our way into paradise, and that all we need is increased police presence on the ground, presumes people guilty until proven innocent, instead of innocent until proven guilty. It puts the responsibility upon the accused person, to defend himself against accusations which the accuser has little to no responsibility to even articulate, much less for which to provide evidence. All of this subverts our civil liberty to due process of law and fair legal proceedings. It plays into the idea of “thoughtcrime” (a term coined by George Orwell in his novel 1984) and “pre-crime” (a term used in the film Minority Report).

     Using this logic, we might as well put everyone in jail! But then, who would hold the keys?

     Willingness to violate a petty infraction does not make one a violent criminal, and failing to follow the law should not merit being treated like some sort of hostile foreign invader who is incapable of living in a civilized society.

     In Illinois, many Republicans want a more strict enforcement of the law, and say “make an example of small-time rule-breakers”. But ironically, some of them defend calls for Democratic former Illinois Rod Blagojevich to be pardoned, and prematurely released from prison, after being sentenced to 14 years in prison for corruption. Granted, political corruption is not technically a violent crime, but this is our government, and we ought to be holding our elected officials to higher standards than ordinary citizens.

     Why these Republicans are defending a corrupt Democrat is confusing enough as it is; but maybe they're just taking Trump's lead. Either way, the fact that they'd rather release Blagojevich (who isn't eligible for release until May 2024) than “small-time rule-breakers” is not only disturbing, but perhaps even shows a tinge of racism. Maybe these are the same people who chose to set Barabbas the murderer free instead of Jesus Christ.

     It amazes me; the lengths some Illinois Republicans are willing to go, to compare non-violent petty offenders to murderers, and to cast Rod Blagojevich as a faithful public servant who was unfairly targeted. The man offered to sell the vacated seat of the outgoing U.S. Senator who became president, and all but admitted it on audio tape.

     As we saw in Operation Iraqi Freedom, “shock and awe” failed to win the United States of America “the hearts and minds of the Iraqi people”. Likewise, the police should not expect to be able to win the public's trust.

     Especially not by simply making sure that most of the police officers who are arresting minorities, are themselves minorities, or “look like the neighborhoods they're policing”. Especially not if they are arresting their own families and neighbors for petty theft, minor drug charges, and the possession of weapons without permits and licenses.

     The only way the police can gain public trust is to make sure that people are less afraid of the police than they are of gangs. And one of the best ways you can do that is to decriminalize the non-violent possession of drugs and weapons, and decriminalize prostitution by consenting adults, and repeal laws against victimless crimes. Fortunately, it's also one of the easiest ways to deal with the problem, because the police would have less work to do, and therefore less resources would be expended, leading to lower taxes.

     Why shouldn't legalizing harmless, peaceful, non-violent market activity – even if it is supposedly “black-market” activity - be part of extending economic opportunity to these often poor, overlooked neighborhoods experiencing gang violence? We should be careful to avoid confusing non-violent “black market” behavior, which is technically illegal but harmless; with violent “red markets”, which involve crime for profit, such as murder-for-hire, robbery and burglary, and coerced prostitution. The longer we pretend that the black and red markets are the same, the longer they will work together to avoid their mutual enemy the state.

     Of course, selling drugs and becoming a prostitute is by no means the only type of “economic opportunity” which would help struggling neighborhoods. Bootlegging could be decriminalized. Jurisdictions could reduce fines on becoming a food vendor without applying for a permit, or they could get rid of the permits, or reduce the fees or requirements therefor, or they could re-evaluate which professions need strict permits altogether.

     Job opportunities aside, minor traffic and parking infractions which result in no harm to person or property could be dealt with more fairly; and in a more lenient fashion; and without relying on the impossible dream of an omnipresent state, to make all behavior everywhere to conform to what the state wants.

     When the people are not constantly antagonized - and overregulated, tracked, and spied on – in their places of business (legitimate or not) and elsewhere, then the prospect of citizens and police getting along, and working together against violent crime, will become possible. Only when that happens, will the people be less afraid of the cops than they are of the gangs.

     To expect people to “snitch” on members of criminal gangs that would want them dead for doing such a thing, is patently absurd. But it is nowhere near as absurd as the idea that one set of violent criminals (the state) is qualified to crack down on another set of violent criminals who help them enforce the drug cartel. The state has just as much of a history threatening and intimidating peaceful people as organized criminal gangs do; maybe even more. Considering how much material support Al Capone's gang provided to needy people, I almost want to recommend that people turn-in problematic police officers to their local gangs.

     To many people, to snitch on a criminal is a “turn in a friend, get a free plea deal” situation; it's a no-win situation. This is to say that small-time drug dealers are afraid to turn-in drug dealers who steal, kill, or poison the drugs they sell; and that prostitutes are afraid to call the cops on pimps and johns who abuse them. Not only are prostitutes and small-time drug dealers not criminals; if they are reporting any of the offenses I have mentioned, they are victims of crime. To prosecute such people is to send a clear message that the police have no interest in protecting and serving vulnerable members of society.

     It's not that co-conspirators, accomplices, and accessories to the crime shouldn't be prosecuted; what I'm saying is that people who break laws against victimless crimes, such as vice laws, should not be perceived as criminals, simply because they have broken some petty infractions. Harming “the public” is impossible, because what “the public” is, is a social construct. It is a fantastical, made-up thing, which does not tangibly exist, and thus cannot be physically harmed, much less called to testify in open court. When the public is the accuser, a fair trial is all but impossible, since one cannot confront one's accuser, except through a duly authorized representative (and what makes that representative acceptable is a matter of debate).

     Whether we're talking about decriminalizing non-violent black market activity, or legalizing under-the-table work in “gray markets”, or just getting rid of some of the many laws that ordinary people violate every day without even knowing it (several felonies per day, by one estimate); the point is to rid ourselves of the need to create laws whose enforcement results in the police unnecessarily antagonizing the people.

     Through liberalization, legalization, and decriminalization of non-violent behaviors, the need for police to enforce the law can be diminished, and the presence of police in neighborhoods will diminish due to that lessened need. Perhaps it helps to think of the police as an occupation force, like the United States was, and still is, in Iraq and Afghanistan: as the people rise up to defend their homeland, the police will draw-down their level of active duty assistance in policing those neighborhoods.

     But of course, people are only governable if the set of laws by which they're expected to abide are reasonable, and are limited to the protection of people and justly acquired property. Otherwise, a system of officers of the peace (who may not go on patrols), citizen militias (who may not forcibly recruit), and deputized citizens (whose arrest powers must be limited), would burst through those constraints, and collapse into an occupying army. “Mission creep” would set in, and many people would be coerced into becoming Stalinist “see something, say something” spies on their neighbors - volunteer snitches who do police bidding without caring whether the laws they're enforcing are just in the first place – in order to survive through currying favor with the authorities.

     But no army, nor police force, can survive long, if it is itself itself occupied with enforcing unjust laws that are impossible to obey, and which are undesired by the people. It is only through the efforts of people, who put up with and sometimes even help enforce unjust laws, that the legitimacy and finance of the occupying police army are maintained (or else destroyed).

     While we, as libertarians, may feel the impulse to reject calls to resolve the problem of gang violence by “restoring family” as socially conservative, traditionalist, or outmoded. However, the gubernatorial nominee of the Libertarian Party of Illinois, Kash Jackson, believes that fatherless homes are a major contributing factor leading to increased likelihood of youth drug use and involvement in gangs. The statistics prove him right on that.

     Jackson believes that family values are a potential solution to gang violence, but he does not promote family values in the manner in which Republicans are apt to promote family values. His is a “family values” platform which avoids that control-freak fantasy of an omnipotent, state that can make criminals into law-abiding citizens by locking them in cells and depriving them of opportunities, nor that it can make peaceful citizens into better people by treating them as criminal suspects.

     Nor does he stoop to paternalism; his platform supports equality of the sexes, as the Libertarian Party has since its formation in 1971. When you listen to Kash Jackson, you will not hear any judgmental, dog-whistle-laden talk about minority fathers in urban areas being deadbeats, nor talk about single mothers leading immoral lifestyles. Rich or poor, white or black, whichever gender; Jackson and his supporters in Illinois are following through on their promises to treat individuals the same, regardless of their demographic differences, and regardless of what they can do to benefit the candidates personally.

     On June 29^th, 2018, after the Libertarian Party of Illinois turned in tens of thousands of signatures to the Illinois State Board of Elections in Springfield, the candidates and several state party officials held a press conference. At that press conference, Kash Jackson criticized Social Security Title IV-D (child support), saying that “Illinois sets support orders that exceed double of the national recommendations.” Kash Jackson recognizes that it is the Social Security system, not necessarily moral failings on the part of parents, that has created the mess that families are in (especially in Illinois).

     Like Republican Speaker of the House Paul Ryan, Jackson has also criticized what Ryan called “the poverty trap in welfare”; something that is a key factor contributing to the difficulty of transitioning from welfare to work. In this “poverty trap”, people are cut-off from government assistance as soon as they become required to report new income. As a result, people who receive government assistance are effectively given a disincentive to get off of welfare. While Ryan criticized this problem more generally, Jackson has criticized it in regards to the fact that single-parent households are more likely to need some form of supplemental income than two-parent households, whether from government or through child support. But then, of course, Jackson emphasizes in his speeches that the government of Illinois gets paid by the federal government every time it helps to collect on child support orders. That aside, the point is that not only does Social Security offer this perverse incentive; other government assistance programs do too.

     It would not be unfair to conclude that a two-parent household – with parents of any gender, sex, or sexual orientation – can do a better job of raising a child than the state can.

     The Libertarian Party joins those conservatives who recognize that, at least in Illinois, child support is an extortion racket, which all too often assumes fathers to be at fault, and which hurts good parents as well as “deadbeat” and abusive parents.

     But the Libertarian Party also joins those liberals and progressives who know that parents also shouldn't have their children taken away, nor their right to become parents, simply because they are an undocumented immigrant, or gay, or unwed either.

     At the Libertarian Party of Illinois's June 29^th press conference, Jackson stated, “No Illinois citizen should be kicked out, and separated from their children. The exact same thing that happens to the kids on the border, that's been happening to American citizens with child protective services and with our family court system, should be ended today, because it's Draconian, it's archaic, and it shouldn't happen.”

     And all the evidence we have seen – from the concentration camps at the border (which, for all we know, are operating on a for-profit basis) and the separation of children from their parents (at the border and internally); to the jailing of first-time and petty offenders who then learn criminal lifestyles while in jail; to the failed wars on crime, drugs, terrorism, and poverty – points to Jackson and the Libertarians being right.

     It's just too bad that Libertarians want to defund public schools. Without public schools, who would teach your children that all of these catastrophic failures of leadership are just the price we pay for living in a civilized society, and that the community and the government know better than parents what's right for their children anyway?

Written Between August 8^th and 11^th, and 14^th, 2018

Published on August 14^th, 2018