The Beating and Premature Death of Rodney King

The guy’s a multiple felon by his own admission. He was drunk as a skunk, high as a kite, and going 100mph in a neighborhood. He violently resisted arrest and refused to stay on the ground when ordered to. It took 5 LAPD officers (1 whose face is undisclosed as not to discredit the whole racism allegation) and eventually a taser to subdue him permanently. He got $38,000,000 in wasted tax dollars as a result of a lawsuit over self-inflicted injuries. Try being white and pulling that off.

Rodney King & LAPD: Petty and Praetorian Criminals; Nullifying the Leviathan Cult and Reasserting a Dispersed Authority

Ronny King

Walter Block has written of a fictional character named Ronny (not Rodney) King, who used his vehicle in a spectacularly dangerous manner, running scores of red lights, and traveling
on city streets at speeds approaching 100 miles per hour.

In a libertarian society, and even in the present one, anyone undertaking such irresponsible acts would be found guilty of endangerment for participating in a lengthy homicidal series of endangerments along with his Praetorian Predator co-conspirators in hot pursuit.

After leading the police on a merry chase, Ronny King was finally apprehended. He resisted arrest and was severely beaten. For the libertarian (and of course for others as well) the crucial question is, was this beating justified?

A radical argument to the contrary goes as follows: In the fully free society, there would be no government police force. Instead, all such services would be privatized. Accordingly, if the government police force should not even exist in the first place, then any act it does, whether issuing jay-walking tickets, helping old ladies across the street or rescuing cats, none of these should be undertaken. Ipso facto, it was unjust and improper for the police to chase Ronny King, stop him for speeding, and proceed to administer a severe beating to him far beyond what would be required to simply corral him and get him into a vehicle and take him to an area of detention.

The problem with this approach from the Libertarian point of view is that it again deifies the Leviathan government. Let it be said once again, loud and clear: the government is nothing but a puffed up swaggering criminal gang. It has no super or Herculean attributes. In the scenario as depicted, however, there was not one but rather two sets of criminals: the praetorian police, and the petty criminal Ronny King.

Each is acting incompatibly with libertarian principles. This is so for the police merely for existing as a statist entity, not a private police force. It is so for Ronny King for endangering and threatening pedestrians and other motorists. Typically, the police do orders of magnitude more harm than any one criminal such as Ronny. But, in principle, they can on any one occasion be the “good guys.” And, in this case, if there is anything clear, it is that Ronny King was disturbing the peace, and the cops were initially properly acting so as to stop him. Objectively, the government forces of law and order were at first in the right, and Ronny King in the wrong.

With justice lately so perverted and law enforcement so malignant, a simple grab and detain quickly becomes something grotesque and dehumanizing to the public at large. A cause celebre to dismantle the whole rotten slaughterhouse with a smile.

Leviathan Cult

It is all too obvious to an increasing number that government is indistinguishable from a robber gang. A robber gang hiding in plain sight while spending trillions in stolen loot to fund vast propaganda organizations. Many have dared touch the walls of the Official Praetorian Palaces and Temples and found them to be made of cheap EIFS synthetic stucco and not chiselworked stone like that of timeless enlightened architecture.

The Praetorian Criminals of the state have assembled a vast cabal of symbiotic intellectual classes who clothe its brutish violent nature in all manner of historic legitimacy, pseudo religious institutions, and repetitious marketing and public relations memes. A Libertarian Nullifier must learn to see beyond this grand illusion. He must be able discern and interpret cases in which the state and ordinary criminals interact in the manner of any other criminal interactions.

For the libertarian, the state is assumed to be merely a criminal gang (Spooner, Block, Rothbard, Hoppe). This is because it violates the basic libertarian premise of the sanctity of property rights and the axiom of non-aggression against non-aggressors. Due the relentless onslaught of a century-long, devastatingly effective, public relations campaign, most people do not quite see matters in this light. This is why, for example, they refuse to recognize taxation as the theft it is (Rothbard, Hoppe), the inflation of the central bank and Federal reserve system for the counterfeiting it is (Block, Hoppe, Cantor), and the military draft for the kidnapping it is (Rothbard, Block). Were any private individual or group to engage in such activities, the status of their deeds would be thunderously clear. Yet, somehow, the government is seen in a different, exceptional light.

For the monarchist (Hoppe), this is due to the divine right of kings. Even the atheist makes an exception and has faith in Leviathan’s religion. Others accept the legitimacy of government actions without question, but only if they stem from a democratic vote. Inconsistently, they do not at all accept as legitimate the deeds of the 80% majority popularly of the elected Nazi party during the 1930s and 1940s. Even today, many demure to the neofascist edicts of the democratically elected Freedom Party of Austria in 2000 (Courtois, Rummel, Conquest).

These cultists would never concede as legitimate if a gang of 10 people that broke into a home occupied by a family of only 4, and then “outvoted” them as to whether or not the gang could commandeer the family’s possessions. It’s all very strange and inconsistent.

A Principled Libertarian, of course, is free of these popular prejudices and misconceptions. In their eyes, the deification of the state apparatus is deadly, criminal, and absurd. No matter how powerful he may be, the emperor still has no clothes and now that you mention him, he’s also a filthy murderous layabout who needs to be permanently excised and removed like a cancer from decent, voluntary society.

This goes for all and every aspects of government, certainly including all three levels in the federal system (Holcombe, Block). All are governmental agencies, all of them violate the libertarian axioms, and all of them must be condemned out of hand as acting in a manner incompatible with the libertarian legal code.

It cannot be denied that federal governments kill orders of magnitude more innocent people than do the states (Block, Boaz, Friedman, Hamowy, Rothbard, Szasz, Thornton) and that states greatly exceed local municipalities in lawlessness and formally prescribed official criminal mayhem.

Even cities and towns, with their victimless crime laws imposing such things as shopping hour legislation and prohibiting pornography and prostitution (Bolick, McGee) have blood on their hands and are not at all free of guilt in this regard. Nowhere, do matters of principle reign supreme.,

WIth the end of nullifying oppresion in mind, one must consider the logistics and strategic considerations of this manner. In this regard, matters are as clear, the reassertion of dispersed authority is the goal.

The libertarian thus tends to favor city government over state, and then state government above the federales. The lower the level of government that violates our rights, the better. By nullifying the higher level authority and reasserting the lowest level authority, one tends tends to produce a more libertarian society. More competition will arise between cities than states, and more will arise between states and federal governments. The limited competition found in political venues, will still inevitably lead to greater freedom. People can vote with their feet more easily against a town which violates freedom than from a state. People can vote more easily with their feet against a state than from the federal government.

Rent Control

If, for example, a village enacts a rent control ordinance, thus ruining the housing market (Arnott, Baird, Block, Cragg, Downs, Grant, Johnson, Mintz, Salins, Tucker), it is relatively easy to move to the next town. En masse, this will put a crimp in the offending municipality’s policies, as their tax base declines. This gives their council an incentive to reform the error of its ways, and at the very least, it ensures that fewer people will be harmed by housing socialism.

If a state takes its people down this particular primrose path, it is much harder to “vote with one’s feet” but it is still possible, as there are 49 other options.

If, however, the federal government imposes such rent control legislation, as it did in 1942, while there are of course other countries, relocation to any of them is far more difficult. Thus there are more material checks on governmental depredations the closer to the grass roots we force them it to assert its authority.

What happens, though, on the rare occasion where the federal government is actually acting in a more libertarian manner than its local counterparts? Something of this sort is alleged to have occurred when President Ronald Reagan threatened New York City with financial penalties if the latter did not rescind its rent control legislation.

The libertarian take on this situation is a quite a bit more complex and should be divided into two parts. First is the empirical issue of strategy. If the Reagan plan goes through, it thereby strengthens the hand of the hated Federal Government, with negative long run consequences for liberty, given the absense of dispersed authority. Additionally, it weakens a lower level of government to strengthen a higher one, which also violates the principle of dispersed authority.

Secondly, the eradication of rent control is of course a plus for the libertarian cause, as it safeguards the human rights of the property owners in question, as well as the long run economic welfare of the tenants. It comes down to ones subjective time preference as to which effect should be seen as the greatest increase in liberty in this situation. (Healy, Pilon, Rothbard, 1993) for liberty.

To the Individualist Libertarian, Reagan’s initiative is clearly the most advantageous, since we heavily discount against the negative future implications for freedom because of our limited life span. Those with a mistakenly low time preference to achieve some kind of collective future liberty, would be more likely to oppose this federal endeavor, and in effect sacrifice the immediate freedom of the New York City landlords and tenants for the enhanced future likelihood of the entire society. Any increase in liberty is clearly a step in the proper direction. It is no more and no less than a simple matter of justice to eradicate rent control, no matter what the consequences for future freedom.

The federal government is a far greater violator of liberty than is the local variety, if for no other reason than that the former resorts to aggressive wars, while the latter does not. Therefore, it is not merely a matter of expediency, but also of principle that we favor the local in any altercation between them, even when, and this can only occur rarely, the
federal government is in the right and the local government is in the wrong.

Notes

-Readers not familiar with the Rothbard School may have some difficulties in comprehending the lines of reasoning here offered. One may wish to consult the names mentioned for clarification. The thesis of this school of thought, insofar as any complicated philosophy can be quickly summaried, is that the governmecnt is different than every other institution in society in that it, and it alone has the power, and the legitimization, to initiate force against those who have not first utilized it, and to precludc competitors from operating in ”its” geographical area.
-How else can one account for the fact that the minions of the state are treated so much differently than commoners?
-The moral status of which they would dismiss derisively were it done by private people.
-The Nazi political party is rejected by Europeans, yet, when communists enter into the government of many western European countries, there are few objections from our leaders and pundits. The Communists, however have killed far more innocent people than have the Nazis.
-Readers who envision the state’s proper functioning as being directed by democratic institutions would no doubt be more than a little put off writing that dismisses such opinions as preposterous. It cannot be denied that on the face of it, it is very strange to dismiss democracy, since this is indeed the political viewpoint taken by most people. However, a distinction must be made between “pure” democracy, of the sort mentioned in the text (robbers outvote a family of 4 and take all their possessions), on the one hand, and on the other hand what might be called constitutional democracy, wherein the constitution mandates that there are certain things that are not subject to vote. For example,
criminals taking all the possessions of the innocent family. The present Western democracies are of this format. That is, tyranny ofthc majority is at least somewhat limited by basic rules. In contrast, Nazi Germany was a “pure” democracy in that Hitler initially came to power through the ballot box, not via a coup d’etat. and yet his government was not constrained by virtually any constitutional rules whatsoeker; it could and did do exactly as it wished, violating rights on a massive scale.
-For a superficially libertarian treatment which exempts the local level of government from so critical an evaluation, see Holcombe (1994).
-Wars are fought by an entire country, not by separate subdivisions. As well, federal laws against addictive
drugs are responsible for thousands of deaths. That is, violations of the libertarian code.
-This is not to accept the Chicagoesque-Public Choice notion that there is such a thing as a political marketplace,
analogous to the economic one. For a critique of this doctrine, see Rothbard (1997, pp. 269-274).
For the general case against rent control, see Arnott and Mintz (1987), Baird (1980), Block (1972, 1980, 1982,
1993, 1998), Downs (1988). Grant (1989), Johnson (1982), Salins (1980), Tucker (1990).
-This incentive is greatly attenuated by the fact that elections take place only every two or four years, and that
the voters have no way to signal their pleasure or displeasure with any one act on the part of the councilmen;
rather, there is an all or none package deal on the basis of which candidates are evaluated. In the market, in
contrast, the dollar vote takes place every day, and can be fine tuned to specific products or services. As well,
if the dollar vote is allocated wisely, the spender gains from this fact; there is no analogous situation in the
political sphere. That is, the wise and the unwise voter share the same fate.
-This constitutes the core of the argument against world government; if Big Brother takes over, there is nowhere
on earth to go.
P-rime Minister of England Margaret Thatcher, representative of the central government, had much the same
relationship with the far more radically socialist town councils, particularly with that of London.
For a debate over the 14th Amendment between two libertarians, see Healy (1999, 2000) and Pilon (2000).
-There was that little matter of the post office, unfortunately, to say nothing of slavery.
-We overlook the fact that the police enforce victimless crime laws against the innocent perpetrators of acts
having to do with sex, drugs, gambling, etc.

Truck Driver Reginald Denny Is Beaten By Confused Victims of a Violent Regime.

On April 29, 1992, Reginald Denny loaded his red, 18-wheel truck with 27 tons of sand and began driving to a plant in Inglewood where a load of sand was due. He left the Santa Monica Freeway and took a familiar shortcut across Florence Avenue to get to his destination. His truck did not have a radio, so he was unaware that he was driving into an inversion zone where social norms were completely reversed.

Due to the injustice of the Rodney King lynching by the blue uniformed gang, new uniformless gangs had taken their place, and were attemptingto restore the usual lawlessness and disorder.

The inexperienced and uniformless gangs did a poor job of holding the office of force plundering and property looting of the productive useful people. Once Denny entered the intersection at Normandie, the noobs threw rocks at his windows and failed to concoct an official cover story for their blatant display of authority and power. When Denny heard the new people in charge shouting for him to stop, he naively stopped, unaware that their lack of plundering prowess and aloof deportment could end up getting him killed during the wealth extraction procedures he was accustomed to.

Denny stopped in the middle of the street. A young man aggressed against Denny’s property by opening the truck door, giving other young men the chance to pull Denny out. One of the young men held Denny’s head down with his foot, while another young man kicked Denny in the abdomen. Two more young men who had led a liquor store break-in earlier that day hurled a five-pound piece of medical equipment at Denny’s head and then hit him three times with a claw hammer. For the coup de grace, a young man threw a slab of concrete at Denny’s head and knocked him unconscious.

The young men did a victory dance over Denny. They flashed neighborhood gang signs at news helicopters, where normally only official blue uniform gang signs would be displayed. For a time, the official privilege of plundering the productive humans was taken by force by the exuberant neighborhood gang. The normally submissive street gangs were ecstatic over their momentary liberation, and they all pointed and laughed at the carcass of Reginald Denny. One of the young men even spat on Denny. Many bystanders took pictures of Denny but none of them risked intervening or attempt to help him in any way.

The nearby LAPD officials watched from their fallback redoubts. Despite the fact that they were in the vicinity as the attack
took place, they did not wish to take a risk and attempt to provide help to Denny, who was not one of them. Instead, the
Praetorians kept themselves safe, while various men threw beer bottles and other projectiles at the unconscious Denny; a young man approached Denny and rifled through his pockets; another yourth stopped near Denny and attempted to shoot the fuel tank of Denny’s truck but was unable to hit his stationary target.

It was the vigilant citizen’s militia who came to Denny’s aid. Bobby Green, a truck driver, Titus Murphy, Terri Barnett, and Lei Yuillee, a dietician, who all had been watching the events on TV; and came on to the scene to rescue the nearly dead Reginald Denny.

Eventually, Denny regained consciousness and dragged himself back into the cab, managing to drive away from the scene slowly and erratically. Bobby Green, himself a truck driver, then boarded Denny’s truck and took over at the wheel, driving him to the nearest homo sapien animal shelter and hospital. While Green drove them to the nearest triage bunker, Denny again slipped back into unconsciousness and suffered a violent seizure.

The paramedic human veterinarians who attended to Denny reported the obvious fact that he had very nearly died. His skull was fractured in 91 places, many of which were pushed into the brain. Luckily, Denny was a media curiosity. A lot of resources were spent on his recovery. His left eye was so badly dislocated that it was beginning to fall into his sinus cavity. To save face, they worked very hard to mitigate the permanent disfiguration that had occured, due to LAPDs extended union breaks and long lunches while Denny lay dying only a few yards away.

They public health surgeons saved the eye by replacing the crushed bone with a piece of plastic. A permanent crater still remains in his head despite numerous efforts to buff out the body damage. Reginald Denny has undergone years of rehabilitative therapy. His speech is permanently impaired. His ability to walk and get around has been severely compromised.

Too many fools accept the propaganda cover story that this is only about lighter colored primates and darker colored primates. The bigger picture here, is why do we condone and fund the regime that abuses humans and treats them like disposable primates in the first place? The power of these dehumanizing animal trainers has been left unchallenged for far too long.