The ‘martial law’ nonsense (or, why libertarians will never escape the fringe)

Oh libertarians. As Ann Coulter recently told a group of you, for self-proclaimed individuals, you certainly are mobbish.

Coulter was talking about the behavior of a John Stossel studio audience, which burst on cue into mass applause every time Stossel hit certain libertarian talking points. I'm talking about something similar - how so many of you can be predictably counted on to think the exact same things, even when (actually, especially when) prevailing sentiment in the nation is exactly the opposite. Which is not to say prevailing sentiment is never wrong, but in the case of the Boston lockdown, it is decidedly against the libertarian impulse and with good reason. While most Americans are celebrating not only the skill of the police but the willing cooperation of Boston residents for staying in their homes during the manhunt for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, libertarians are screaming that it is the imposition of "martial law." Representing this paranoia is Thomas R. Eddlem writing for The New American:

---

In the end, if the goal of the terrorists was to terrorize, the terrorists won in Boston. Rather than returning to its ordinary business, the two suspects identified by authorities — Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and his older (deceased) brother Tamerlan — were able to terrorize — and even shut down — one of the world's greatest cities for days. The two presumably hated America for its freedom, and were able to get the government to take away much of those freedoms from its citizens for a period of time.

Got that? It wasn't the Tsarnaevs who "took away freedoms" for less than a day. It was the police. This guy is running around town with six bombs, he is already known to have killed at least four people and committed a carjacking to escape, but when police tell people to stay inside, it's not a common-sense measure for their own protection, it's martial law. This is why libertarianism will always remain a fringe movement within American politics. Leave aside for a second how many of them gravitated to kooky Alex Jones-type theories like the "false flag." Let's just focus on this martial law nonsense. Most Americans are cheering the outcome in Boston because a) they got the bad guy in less than a week, and the curfew imposed during the manhunt lasted for only part of one day - and was lifted as soon as Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was in custody, as there was no further reason at that point to keep it in place; and b) it was a tremendous example of responsible citizens cooperating with the police because their sense of community spirit told them the sacrifice was worth making to prevent any more killings. So most of us not only recognize there was sacrifice necessary, but that under the circumstances, there was little choice, and given the outcome it was worth it. Also, most of us are struck at a time like this by the heroism of the police, who put their lives on the line every day but especially when a character like this is running around. Our appreciation for their courage is heightened when they have to take the risks necessary to catch someone like Tsarnaev, and our willingness to make the sacrifices they ask is higher. Our inclination is not to grouse. Each of us understands the situation is bigger than ourselves. We want to help. But not you. No. You don't cheer the outcome. You yelp about "martial law" because people had to stay in their homes for one day. You deride the police for overreacting or for oppressing us or however it is that you choose to express your indignant paranoia. Here is the problem with you: When it gets right down to it, you are a mob made up of selfish individuals, who are completely incapable of community-mindedness. You can't even celebrate the arrest of a terrorist because you think, if that was you who lived in Boston, you sure as hell wouldn't let the police tell you what to do. You want to give me orders, pig? Get a warrant! I know my rights! Libertarians do stumble into some defensible positions on things like economics and government spending, but even that is a stopped-clock-right-twice-a-day phenomenon. When you're so paranoid that you simply oppose everything government does, you're going to be right a fair amount because sure, there's a lot government does that it shouldn't do, and a lot more that it doesn't do well. So in that respect, you are sort of "right" about those issues. But contrary to the prevailing mob sentiment of libertarians, they are not the ones who engage in independent thought. They all use the same singular template - if government wants to do it, I'm against it - and they apply that template to everything, then they go off in search of arguments to support their positions. That's not independent thought. That's knee-jerk groupthink so hard-wired that it renders you incapable even of celebrating the arrest of a dangerous killer. So even though you will occasionally gain some ground over issues like federal spending or the crush of the bureaucracy, you will always end up showing your true colors in situations like Boston, and you will always be left to settle for your 1 percent of the vote. But at least you will have the smug satisfaction of knowing you are "right" about everything you believe, which you can confirm by checking with any other libertarian, who will be guaranteed to think all the same things you think. Mobs work that way.