Baltimore cop attacks skateboarder

Posted on February 14th, 2008 by bile

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8 Responses to “Baltimore cop attacks skateboarder”

bosco Says:
February 15th, 2008 at 9:11 am

If you wouldn’t mind indulging me in a lesson on Rothbardian proportionality, I have some questions for you:

1st. Assuming that the land is private (it isn’t, it’s the waterfront, I have a co-worker from Baltimore) and the skateboarders were causing damage to private property, say by grinding on ledges causing approximately $250 dollars worth of damage, what kind of response by the owner of said property or an agent of the owner is allowed to immediately cause the skateboarders to no longer damage the property.
2nd. Assuming the above scenario, what kind of loss is the owner allowed to recoup from the skateboarders and how can he recoup it assuming the skateboarders do not have any money?
3rd. Should any punitive action be taking to prevent the skateboarders from doing it in the future?

bile Says:
February 15th, 2008 at 9:50 am

Common law which what our civil court system is based on already does much of the Rothbardian proportionality theory refers. Have you not read those links I provided prior on the topic?

1. You make it sound like the scenario is static. Possible actions change as time and the events change. I think most people would yell first and escalate to physically restrainment or threat of violence.
2. The cost of repair in total. So cost of physical repair, time spent in dealing with the situation, etc. Again… how do we deal with not having money now? They are under the obligation to pay it back however the victim decides what he wants as payment instead of now which isn’t consistent. Indentured servitude?
3. The owner of property can do what they like with their property. Again… how is this different from what we do now? People put razor wire on fences to keep people out. If you try to jump a fence you could get cut up. If you setup traps and someone dies you could be sued by the family of the individual so posting warnings would be smart to make sure there was no question of intent or maliciousness. Again. No different than now.

bosco Says:
February 15th, 2008 at 10:03 am

Yes, I have read your links on the topic. The reason I bring it up is because I was reading Ethics of Liberty and I was thinking about how that applies to this situation. Rothbard maintains that restitution isn’t enough, he thinks the skateboarders should have to pay double the damage they did as a punitive measure. He would have the skateboarders pay $500 dollars. He too was a proponent of slavery to pay off debts.

I was wondering if you agreed with this.

bile Says:
February 15th, 2008 at 11:16 am

You aren’t completely understanding what he said.

He was describing a system of proportionality and describing a very simple, generic situation. He says in chapter 13 in The Ethics of Liberty:

Even here, simple restitution of the $15,000 is scarcely sufficient to cover the crime (even if we add damages, costs, interest, etc.). For one thing, mere loss of the money stolen obviously fails to function in any sense as a deterrent to future such crime (although we will see below that deterrence itself is a faulty criterion for gauging punishment). If, then, we are to say that the criminal loses rights to the extent that he deprives the victim, then we must say that the criminal should not only have to return the $15,000, but that he must be forced to pay the victim another $15,000, so that he, in turn, loses those rights (to $15,000 worth of property) which he had taken from the victim. In the case of theft, then, we may say that the criminal must pay double the extent of theft: once, for restitution of the amount stolen, and once again for loss of what he had deprived another.[6] But we are still not finished with elaborating the extent of deprivation of rights involved in a crime. For A had not simply stolen $15,000 from B, which can be restored and an equivalent penalty imposed. He had also put B into a state of fear and uncertainty, of uncertainty as to the extent that B’s deprivation would go. But the penalty levied on A is fixed and certain in advance, thus putting A in far better shape than was his original victim. So that for proportionate punishment to be levied we would also have to add more than double so as to compensate the victim in some way for the uncertain and fearful aspects of his particular ordeal.[7] What this extra compensation should be it is impossible to say exactly, but that does not absolve any rational system of punishment-including the one that would apply in the libertarian society-from the problem of working it out as best one can.

The victim, then, has the right to exact punishment up to the proportional amount as determined by the extent of the crime, but he is also free either to allow the aggressor to buy his way out of punishment, or to forgive the aggressor partially or altogether. The proportionate level of punishment sets the right of the victim, the permissible upper bound of punishment; but how much or whether the victim decides to exercise that right is up to him.

There isn’t some monopoly enforcing these ideas. He’s just describing the idea of proportional retribution in detail.

As for proponent of slavery… he writes:

Suppose that, as in most cases, the thief has already spent the money. In that case, the first step of proper libertarian punishment is to force the thief to work, and to allocate the ensuing income to the victim until the victim has been repaid. The ideal situation, then, puts the criminal frankly into a state of enslavement to his victim, the criminal continuing in that condition of just slavery until he has redressed the grievance of the man he has wronged.[3]

You are still bound by libertarian philosophy. He says "just slavery" as in indentured servitude. Just saying "slavery" generally means ownership. Individuals can not be the property of others. I don’t believe there is any word which encompasses the situation quite right. The victimizer could refuse to do any work to pay back the victim… doesn’t mean he can then go and beat him to death. Well he could but he’d likely be retaliated against. He could in more extreme situations use force to put the guy into a worker camp. Some company which would use his labor and pay the victim. Realistically you aren’t going to have people put in work camps or forced to break rocks for stealing a candy bar. The person who stole could very easily pay back even several times the cost or could work it off in no time at all. Only big things would anyone spend effort in the extreme of tracking someone down and forcing someone to labor to pay off a debt.

I’ve previously said I’m in agreement with proportional restitution. That creates a retribution limit. Unlike now… in a free justice system with actual victims choosing their course of action, nothing up to “two teeth for a tooth” + overhead.

bosco Says:
February 15th, 2008 at 12:25 pm

That’s exactly the chapter I was reading. What struck me was the phrase you highlighted.

"What this extra compensation should be it is impossible to say exactly, but that does not absolve any rational system of punishment-including the one that would apply in the libertarian society-from the problem of working it out as best one can."

Who decides this? Does the plaintiff? Does the court? If so, what court I thought we believed in voluntary mediation? What if the skateboarder doesn’t agree to voluntary mediation?

bile Says:
February 15th, 2008 at 1:10 pm

Rothbard’s For A New Liberty. Chapter 12. The Public Sector, III: Police, Law, and the Courts

invisipunk Says:
February 15th, 2008 at 4:42 pm

found this little gem today
http://www.ratemyeverything.net/post/3563/National_Skateboarding_Day.aspx

laur Says:
February 15th, 2008 at 7:53 pm

follow up