This morning, I opened my inbox to find a press release from the Libertarian Party bearing the headline "Libertarian Party Calls for an End to All Violence." This was promising; an end to all violence is more or less exactly what libertarianism seeks, founded as it is upon the rock of the non-aggression principle. The LP, however, has been at best an inconsistent advocate against violence throughout the years, and, indeed, this particular press release turns out to be entirely about killings of and by police officers, and addresses nothing else whatsoever; certainly a more limited scope than one could expect from a call "for an end to all violence."
The killing needs to stop. All of it. None of these shootings were justified — not the shootings by the police, not the shootings of the police. The Libertarian Party denounces all killing.
That’s not a bad start. Surely, though, it can’t be too much of a stretch to suggest that the LP should consider mentioning the endless wars somewhere in its denunciation of all killing, no? Perhaps the issue here is that the LP’s own presidential ticket doesn’t call for ending the wars, preferring instead the weak-kneed and noncommittal stance of "mov[ing] quickly and decisively to refocus U.S. efforts and resources to attack the real threats we face in a strategic, thoughtful way." Apparently, the Libertarian Party only denounces all killing unless it’s sufficiently "thoughtful."
No American should feel they’ve invited violence upon themselves because of their skin color, the uniform they wear in service to their communities, or their decision to exercise their Second Amendment rights. None of these factors should make you a target for murder in this country.
I would like to see the Libertarian Party adopt a bylaw requiring party officials to write like grown-ups in official statements. "No American" is obviously singular, and yet goofball Nicholas Sarwark uses no fewer than seven plural pronouns in its stead! Not content with that degree of butchery, he then makes a sudden leap into the second person, reassuring me personally that I should not be a target for murder for any of those three reasons. This paragraph honestly reads like something I’d expect Wayne State freshmen to turn in as a homework assignment in "diversity" class. Perhaps the Libertarian Party should look to the quality of its prose if it wishes to be taken seriously.
Linguistic morass aside, this section only serves to weaken the preceding few sentences, which are actually a pretty strong and compelling statement on their own. Now all of a sudden we’ve gone from "the Libertarian Party denounces all killing" to "the Libertarian Party denounces three specific kinds of killing, and also we sure do like the police." The Libertarian Party, of all parties, should be a bit more circumspect about its gushing reverence for the government police, especially given what it’s going to say next:
When rogue cop after rogue cop gets off scot-free after using excessive force and changes are not made, and consequences are not felt, it causes this horrible tension we are feeling today.
This exemplifies the problem with the Libertarian Party. It’s trying so hard to be all things to all people that it ends up with nothing and nobody. Take a stand, Nicholas Sarwark! It shouldn’t be a bold, unreasonable thing for the Libertarian Party to come out four-square against killing. The correct answer is: killing is wrong. That’s the very first thing in Mr. Sarwark’s statement, and it’s a great place to start. We can do so much more than that, though, that it’s just bizarre that this press release spends two entire paragraphs trying to walk it back, culminating in this utter inanity:
It is despicable that a couple of bad actors put a cloud over all that and increased tension for everyone.
For pity’s sake, "increased tension" is not the problem! The problem is killing. The problem is violence. The Libertarian Party would be much more effective, and thus much better served, by taking an unqualified stand against violence — not because violence and killing sure can be inconvenient for the rest of us, what with the tension and all, but because violence and killing are wrong. The Libertarian Party could then go on to discuss the root cause of the issue, which is undeniably the existence of a politically-privileged caste of unaccountable violence-dispensers, created by the government and funded, at gunpoint, by unwilling victims. Does the Libertarian Party do this? Astonishingly enough, no; it adopts the attitude that every case of police violence is an isolated, random occurrence, and refuses to consider the fact that a series of isolated occurrences becomes a trend. Instead of taking an actual libertarian position and calling for an end to monopolistic, violent government police, the LP prefers to thank the police for their service and weakly request that they "do a better job of policing themselves." Why would they, when even the Libertarians are willing to let them off the hook?
I can’t quite seem to understand what the purpose of the Libertarian Party is if it’s willing to get in line, salaam the government’s kill teams, and thank them for their "service." Don’t we get quite enough of that from the Republican and Democratic parties? And as for this:
The Libertarian Party calls for peace and justice. Those two things go hand in hand.
That’s just foolish. Justice is often antithetical to peace. This is why justice must be tempered by other virtues; justice is the fire, and can easily become all-consuming if it escapes control. What goes hand-in-hand with peace is indeed liberty — a thing about which one could reasonably, though apparently incorrectly, assume the Libertarian Party would have a thing or two to say.