Rights & Paramilitary Raids, Part 2

November 27, 2006

Over at A Stich in Haste, Kip responds to my earlier post (on Rights & Paramilitary Raids), and says not to get angry at the cops in these SWAT-gone-wrong situations. Specifically he says, the agents of the government are “just doing their job[s].”

In a nutshell, this defense didn’t work in Nüremburg, and it shouldn’t fly here, either.

Moving on though, I don’t think it’s fair to suppose that the state’s agents are absolved from sin, that they’re on a different moral and ethical plane than the rest of humanity, or even that they’re in some sort of moral limbo. You see, it just doesn’t work this way. The problem is that their training, their policies, and jurisprudence instructs them to act as though they are in fact on a different plane. Throw in the warped incentive system that all but assures your typical SWAT squad is either vastly under-trained, or a group of Rambo-wannabes, and the situation becomes, well, let’s just say, much less promising.

Lots of mistakes have been made, of record, and there doesn’t seem to be a very high degree of accountability. This is bad policy, to say the least. I’m mostly angry at the policy - but even the best policies, when carried out by men of questionable ethics, or even by good men acting on faulty information, are bound to fail. Adding the ingredient of lethal force all but guarantees catastrophe. Ultimately, failure to examine the morality of their actions ex ante is a problem that is only made worse by the incentives of power, which create such a moral conundrum: Men who doubt openly the usefulness, the efficacy, the morality of launching such raids are highly unlikely to be selected for service on SWAT teams.

No law officer is obligated to put himself in a position where he feels his life is in danger; they are free to respond (or not) to any call that comes over their blotter. It follows then, that everyone who engages in these raids does so knowingly - knowing that there is a potential for escalating violence. As I’ve said before, when the cop intentionally puts himself in a position to be shot, he shouldn’t be surprised when he gets shot. At that point of drawing fire, I don’t blame them, as individuals, for returning fire - the instinct of self-preservation is tremendous.

The “self-defense” notion, however, is a non sequitir. The man (or men) who initiate the use of violence are never, never, in a position of self-defense. It reminds me of the South Park episode where uncle Jimbo takes the boys hunting, and they skirt the law against poaching cute furry things by hollering, “It’s coming right for us!”, thus claiming self-defense.

That’s not self-defense, and neither is it self-defense when you are the initiator of mayhem-inducing force.

Either it is lawful and just to shoot at home invaders, to defend your life & property, or it is not. Since there is no way, in most of these cases, for the subjects of these raids to know, objectively, that the intruders are law-enforcement agents. Anyone who values their own life, and the lives of their families, will, if possible, meet the intruders with as much force as he can possibly bring under his command. The time it takes to make that crucial determination, cop or criminal, might make the difference between life and death - especially if the invaders are in fact criminals, and even occasionally when they are police officers. The fact that criminals have begun to imitate these tactics makes this crucial determination of legitimacy even harder to ascertain.

And law enforcement agents need to know this, because until this deficiency can be overcome, it will remain undoubtedly immoral to conduct such raids. Any man or woman who continues to serve in such a manner is clearly acting with wanton disregard for any sense of morality. As long as we keep encouraging law officers to break down the doors of largely non-violent offenders 3 in the morning, terrible mistakes will continue to be made, and innocent people will continue to die.

That’s not a rallying cry I’m willing to stand for.


Posted in: Potpourri

Comments

2 Comments so far

  1. KipEsquire November 27, 2006 11:02 pm

    Sorry, but I’m seeing nothing but straw man arguments here. (Nuremberg and South Park in the same analysis? Come on…)

    Your position is indistinguishable from pure anarchy — would a tax protestor have the right in your opinion to blow away an IRS agent coming to seize his property for unpaid (but oppressive) taxes?

    My only point is that if the police are shot at (or, as in the Jamaica incident, otherwise lethally attacked), then they are morally justified in shooting back. The underlying government laws and policies — which may very well be flawed or even evil — are irrelevant.

    If that’s totalitarianism, then sign me up.

  2. doinkicarus November 27, 2006 11:33 pm

    a Tax Collector? talk about straw men!

    When tax collectors start kicking down doors without serving notice, in the middle of the night, then yeah, we should treat them like the criminals that they appear to be. The problem in all of these situations is failure to be properly identified - and when the cop (or tax collector) is literally indistinguishable from a criminal…

    See, both cop and homeowner can’t be morally justified in shooting at each other, simultaneously. One of them is right, and one of them is wrong.

    As far as the moral position of the police officers returning fire is concerned - you’re supposing that men committing acts of dubious morality are justified in defending their privilege to commit those acts. You’re morally allowed to defend your position if you’re being suppressed in your attempt to commit an immoral act? I don’t buy it.

    There simply does not exist a “right” to defend an immoral privilege.

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