Time To Make Up Our Minds About Anarcho-Tyranny
This isn’t imperfect governance. This isn’t the cost of living in a free society.
We refuse to control real criminals (that’s the anarchy), so we control the innocent (that’s the tyranny).
- Samuel Francis
It just… keeps… happening.
In the early morning hours of Sunday, April 3, 2022, six people were killed and 12 injured in Sacramento, CA in what the police are now calling a gang-related shooting. Three suspects have now been arrested, but authorities believe as many as five shooters were involved in the incident.
Two of the three arrestees are brothers - Dandrae and Smiley Martin - who are felons with extensive rap sheets. That’s not surprising, but what’s most infuriating concerns Smiley Martin:
But documents obtained by The Sacramento Bee show the DA’s office last year vehemently opposed Smiley Martin’s release from the 10-year prison sentence he received in Sacramento Superior Court on Jan. 12, 2018.
“Inmate Martin’s criminal conduct is violent and lengthy,” Deputy District Attorney Danielle Abildgaard wrote in a two-page letter to the Board of Parole Hearings on April 29, 2021, opposing his release.
The letter, obtained by The Bee through a California Public Records Act request, details offenses including robbery, possession of a firearm and giving false information to police.
“In January of 2013, just six months after his eighteenth birthday, Inmate Martin was contacted by law enforcement officers,” the letter states. “Inmate Martin attempted to discard an assault rifle which he had concealed in his waistband under his clothing.
“The rifle had a pistol grip and the capacity to accept a detachable magazine in front of the pistol grip. Inmate Martin was also found to be in possession of two fully loaded twenty-five round magazines for the assault weapon. Inmate Martin admitted to transporting the assault weapon and large capacity magazines to potential buyers. Inmate Martin was sentenced to probation and county jail.”
Let’s unpack that in reverse. When word of this mass shooting first broke, reaction from the Left and Regime-friendly voices concerned the need for greater gun control policies. However, not only was the weapon referenced in the above passage illegal to possess, 25-round magazines are illegal in nine states across the United States (CA permits up to ten rounds per magazine). In a state with among the strictest gun laws in the country, Smiley Martin still managed to break the law, illegally possess the very weapon those strict gun laws were supposed to prevent people like him from possessing, and he has now become a suspect in a mass shooting.
As usual, our leadership wasted no time waiting to call for more gun control. Here’s President Joe Biden, following the script. We know this president isn’t big on facts, which is why it’s probably a good thing, for him, that he said his piece before a clearer picture emerged:
We also continue to call on Congress to act. Ban ghost guns. Require background checks for all gun sales. Ban assault weapons and high-capacity magazines. Repeal gun manufacturers’ immunity from liability. Pass my budget proposal, which would give cities more of the funding they need to fund the police and fund the crime prevention and intervention strategies that can make our cities safer. These are just a few of the steps Congress urgently needs to take to save lives. [bold mine]
Again, assault weapons and high-capacity magazines were already illegal in CA. And it’s rich to see Biden talk about funding the police and supporting crime prevention after being one of loudest voices in the moral outrage chorus that laid the blame for society’s ills upon law enforcement after the death of George Floyd in 2020, an incident that very nearly tore apart the nation at one of its most psychologically vulnerable moments. Unparalleled leadership, this is.
Enough about Biden. Going back to Smiley Martin, he was sentenced to 10 years in prison in 2018, but served only three years, with the DA strongly advising against early release, saying, “If he is released early, he will continue to break the law:”
Prophetic words.
But the felony gun charges are just the tip of the iceberg. Not only did he continue to break the law following his sentencing for those crimes, look at what led him to the 10-year prison sentence:
Less than six months later, he was involved in the incident that led to the 10-year prison sentence, the letter says, when he forced his way into his girlfriend’s home.
“He located her hiding in her bedroom closet and hit her repeatedly with a closed fist on the face, head, and body, causing visible injuries,” the letter says. “He then dragged her out of the home by her hair to an awaiting car. After he put her in the car, he assaulted her with a belt.
“During the investigation, information was gathered that the victim had been working as a prostitute and that Inmate Martin had been assisting and encouraging her to be a prostitute. Text messages and social media conversations revealed that he would tell her what kind of sex buyer she should date, how much money to charge, how to accept payment, and what forms of payment she should accept.”
One of the most harmful myths driving criminal justice reform is the idea that millions of people are being charged and incarcerated wrongfully or for “victimless” crimes. This isn’t true. Most people with criminal records or serving sentences have earned it. When it comes to crime, the Regime and their support base seem to take the opposite tack from their usual “If It Saves One Life…” doctrine. Who cares if anyone dies or is otherwise victimized by criminal violence? If it saves even one person from being unjustly thrown in prison, then that’s worth forcing the public to bear the cost of crime, even with their lives. This is the same logic applied to gun control - if it saves one life, as President Obama once said, that’s worth disarming an entire population, placing their safety and well-being entirely in the hands of the state, total strangers, and criminals.
This is anarcho-tyranny. It’s real, it’s here, and it’s getting worse. No, the system hasn’t collapsed and it probably won’t, at least not this decade or even our lifetime. But anarcho-tyranny doesn’t require collapse. The originator of the term, the late Samuel T. Francis, explained almost 30 years ago what the American regime is and isn’t:
In the United States today, the government performs many of its functions more or less effectively. The mail is delivered (sometimes); the population, or at least part of it, is counted (sort of); and taxes are collected (you bet). You can accuse the federal leviathan of many things—corruption, incompetence, waste, bureaucratic strangulation—but mere anarchy, the lack of effective government, is not one of them. Yet at the same time, the state does not perform effectively or justly its basic duty of enforcing order and punishing criminals, and in this respect its failures do bring the country, or important parts of it, close to a state of anarchy. But that semblance of anarchy is coupled with many of the characteristics of tyranny, under which innocent and law-abiding citizens are punished by the state or suffer gross violations of their rights and liberty at the hands of the state. The result is what seems to be the first society in history in which elements of both anarchy and tyranny pertain at the same time and seem to be closely connected with each other and to constitute, more or less, opposite sides of the same coin.
For a deeper dive into the topic, read this post of mine from last year. What you need to know now, specifically, is that anarcho-tyranny may be dysfunctional, but it “works” in the sense it’s a system capable of sustaining itself. As long as living standards are decent, basic necessities are met, and people can participate in the daily grind, there’s no reason for this system to collapse. As Francis explains, both the orderly and disorderly aspects of the regime have come to reinforce each other.
For example, the state may refuse to do anything about crime, but it’ll make sure you pay your taxes. No matter how expensive life becomes due to inflation, how much living standards drop, or how dangerous the environment, you don’t have a choice but to obey the government’s dictates if you want to participate in the economy and society. What ought to be a two-way street becomes one-way - you must live consistent the Regime’s rules, but they have no obligation to return favors.
This isn’t imperfect governance. This isn’t the cost of living in a free society. This is the state contributing to and enabling crime, while absolving itself of any responsibility to maintain order and uphold the rule of law (but, again, you’ll pay your fair share for the privilege of contributing to society!). The idea someone would be released early from prison after racking up the kind of record possessed by Smiley Martin is either out of incompetence or entirely purposeful. Both are totally unacceptable, but we know nobody will be held accountable for this. This isn’t the exception, either, but the norm:
The thing about crime is that it’s among the easiest of problems for the state to fix. See Singapore - long-cited by cosmopolitans the world over, including in America, as an example of how we can always be better, the city-state has among the lowest crime levels in the world, with violent crime all but non-existent. Why is this?
Despite it’s high living standards and wealth, Singapore has more in common with a totalitarian dictatorship than Anglo-American democracy. What most Americans would consider petty, victimless crimes, like jaywalking, are prohibited and even failing to flush the toilet is considered a public offense. Even being naked in your own home, spitting outside, or even feeding pigeons are against the law (see what else is illegal in Singapore)! The death penalty, mostly by hanging, not only exists, but can also be applied for offenses that don’t directly involve loss of life, like drug trafficking. Corporal punishment, mostly in the form of caning, is frequently implemented in Singapore, as one young American discovered the hard way in an infamous 1994 case.
My point isn’t that the U.S. ought to become like Singapore. Not only do I not want this, I also believe we don’t need to treat people in this manner to have a peaceful, orderly society. However, even the most liberal society needs a line to be drawn somewhere. Violent criminality must be crushed, even in a free society. In fact, liberal societies may require fewer lines, but those fewer lines need to be marked boldly, and in red. This is hardly a violation of our commitment to liberty and justice for all, but an anarcho-tyrannical society certainly is.
Last weekend, I became familiar with the 2017 film Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri. I hate to spoil movies, especially one awarded so many accolades (including Best Actress for Frances McDormand and Best Supporting Actor for Sam Rockwell), so I’ll just say the story is a comedic, yet serious, take on what eventually happens when law and order isn’t upheld. It’s one thing for there to be no rules, it’s quite another for rules to exist, but not be observed. Eventually, some people decide they have nothing to lose, go off the reservation, and exact their own form of justice.
My concern isn’t that we’re on the verge of widespread vigilantism. I don’t think we are. The fact is, most people, despite any dissatisfaction with the system, will ultimately go along with it because going against it is more costly. The criminals bear a relatively small cost, because they’re not invested in the system to begin with and you can’t really pay for something you never bought.
But, if this continues long enough and the state continues to fail to uphold its end of the bargain, there will be a backlash. It may not consume the entirety of society, but, with all other indicators of national health pegging red, you can’t tell people to just put up with rampant lawlessness for long. Again, upholding the rule of law is the least the state can do.
At least one person has decided he’s had enough, triggering a predictable response from authorities:
Can’t do your job? Then someone else always will and they just might do it better.
Max Remington writes about armed conflict and prepping. Follow him on Twitter at @AgentMax90.
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