Ghost of a flea: Liquidity

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November 21, 2005

Liquidity

Small "l" libertarian, Christopher J. Falvey argues concerns about technological advancement in law enforcement and the diminution of personal freedom are misplaced.

What the fear of technology really boils down to is people's desire for laws and law enforcement to be liquid. We assume that laws are often iniquitous, and that investigation is often merely good guesswork, so we want the shield of inefficiency in enforcement to ensure that fairness at least statistically occurs "more often than not."

I think Falvey's point is basically sound: if we do not like a law we should change it rather than rely on inefficient law enforcement to shield us from its effects. This was, for example, my line of reasoning against the choice of many self-described conservatives who chose to break (or at the least bend) the law in violating court injunctions issued by the Gomery Commission. If Canada's laws on publication bans are too free-wheeling, I argued, we should consider changing the law rather than breaking it; particularly when a number of court proceedings and the right to a fair trial is at stake.

It seems to me the best riposte to my position, or Falvey's, is that we should have little confidence in the polity to either legislate wisely or to correct its mistakes having done so unwisely. There are all sorts of iniquitous and ill-advised laws on the books and, while I hesitate to go into detail, there have been some I chose to disregard as the expression of a public will too stupid to be relied upon to act as a guide (particularly when I was a teenager and therefore knew everything). And of course it could have been worse. Efficient law enforcement technologies might only be an expression of the law but this expression does you precious little good, and substantial harm, if the law is imposed by Kim Jong Il and the rest of the parliament of dictators yet to come. Something about a boot stamping on a human face forever comes to mind. Even in a sensibly representative place like Canada we manage to legislate all sorts of nonsense with mind-numbing regularity. Such is the virtue of America's founding political philosophy. Our southern neighbours remain a potential source of inspiration; blessed as they are with a Constitution whose aim is to prevent the mechanism of government. Those checks and balances remain liberty's best defense from the finger-waggers and morality-legislators of the left and the right let alone the machinations of dictators whose tenure is protracted by the light of a perverted science.

Posted by Ghost of a flea at November 21, 2005 09:14 AM

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