News & Commentary from the liberterrain...
In the real world, what's the difference between "illegal arrest" and "kidnapping?"
In a recent Libertarian News Examiner article the veteran freedom activist Julian Heicklen was described as being "kidnapped" by police and paramedics when he attempted to hand out Fully Informed Jury Association flyers on public property in front of the federal courthouse in Manhattan.
Kidnapping or arrest? What would you call it when people
physically obstruct a fellow citizen from performing an act that
harms absolutely no one? (screenshot from Pete Eyre video)
Describing an arrest and, in this case, involuntary transport by ambulance to a hospital psych ward as a "kidnapping" has been criticized before and it's being criticized now.
One reader insists that calling this a kidnapping "makes the writer and everyone involved sound hysterical."
But libertarians don't believe in two sets of standards, one for government employees and another for citizens.
A legitimate crime occurs when one person initiates force or threat of force or fraud against another. Everything else, every law and rule and regulation that doesn't involve these standards is simply an attempt by the ruling class to impose its will on those it seeks to rule.
If one citizen grabs and holds another against that citizen's will is it hysterical to call that a kidnapping?
If not, it isn't hysterical to call it a kidnapping when a ruling class employee does the same to a citizen.
Julian Heicklen was not committing any crime, but by pamphleting on public property he was ignoring one of the ruling class's unconstitutional laws about pamphleting on public property.
And for that reason alone he was arrested. But it was an illegal arrest, and illegal arrests in the real world (as opposed to the theoretical "legal" world) are the same as kidnappings.
It's time for everyone, not just libertarians, to quit playing the euphemism game invented by the rulers and start calling a spade a spade.
Kidnapping is kidnapping no matter who does it, and people with uniforms and badges shouldn't be given a free pass when they violate an innocent person's rights by doing exactly what the thugs they're supposedly protecting us from do.
Real libertarians don't try to rationalize coercion away with claims of "hysterical language"; they condemn it.
Pete Eyre of Liberty on Tour has produced a professional quality video of ruling class employees violating Julian Heicklen's rights. Watch it and make up your own mind. If Heicklen committed a crime he was arrested; if he simply disregarded an arbitrary and unconstitutional rule he was kidnapped.
FIJA Outreach NYC (Liberty on Tour video by Pete Eyre)
(F-bomb warning)
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Comments
Those LEOs are the "Ruling classless". And, yes, they are committing kidnappings every single time they "arrest" someone who is not attacking, stealing, defrauding, or REALLY trespassing against a legitimate individual property owner (which does not include government, obviously). Government possesses nothing it did not steal from the real owner, or "buy" with stolen or counterfeited money. And, as a thief, government has no say in what is done with the stolen property it possesses.
Thanks for sharing this video Garry! Just one small point of clarification - the video was edited by my bud and colleague Adam Mueller using footage from both our cameras.
Keep up the good work!
I think the language is working against you, Garry. When you say an arrest is "illegal" or that Julian wasn't committing a "crime", you're referring to laws as they exist, not libertarian principles. And if the law (as passed by Reps and Dems) says Julian committed a "crime", then the arrests were legal (i.e. in accordance with the Reps' and Dems' laws).
Now, maybe those laws are unconstitutional. The Supreme Court hasn't ruled them as such, but you've already claimed that the SC isn't the ultimate or proper arbiter of such things.
Still, we must admit that the current consensus among the US population is that laws are assumed to be constitutional until a court strikes them down.
So we can claim (and make a strong case, IMO) that Julian's arrests are morally wrong, the police are evil for making them, and the state is complicit for allowing them. But calling them illegal means we're using the statists' language. And they have the upper hand there.
Bob is right on the money here.
Bob is correct when he says the language works against me, as frequently happens in attempts at communication. In Iran it's "legal" to stone women to death under Sharia Law. But I write from a libertarian perspective and my column identifies that fact by its name, Libertarian News Examiner. Under what we might call "Libertarian Law" coercion is coercion, period, and coercion is always wrong to libertarians no matter what the Supreme Court judges or the Iranians say. Calling citizens criminals for kidnapping people but promoting cops for kidnapping people is a double standard. Giving the same act two different names (kidnapping vs. arresting) is also a double standard and only serves to legitimize an act of coercion. Yes, what Julian did was "illegal" to the coercion-loving authoritarians but not to any libertarian. Until people like Marc reject coercion by everyone they are just authoritarians enabling coercion against others. No amount of gaming the language can change that.
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