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I hope this isn't too shallow for a top-level comment, but I wanted to share a personal observation about shifts in political views. Specifically, in the last couple of years, I've become a LOT more authoritarian on crime. Part of this is probably me getting older (damn kids, stop cycling on the sidewalk!), but I'd single out two main factors.
(1) A big part of it has been related to noticing shifting views on the issue among city-dwelling liberals (that's my in-group, whether I like it or not). I regularly visit a bunch of US cities for work, and I subscribe to their relevant subreddits, and there's been an incredible shift from "defund-the-police is a solid principle albeit the details need to be worked out" to "lock up the bums now". And similarly, several real life liberal friends who were traditionally pretty anti-police have become much more authoritarian of late, complaining about how e.g. the NYC subway used to be incredibly safe but has now become a creepy unpleasant space to inhabit, and something needs to be done.
(2) I've also had a lot more professional dealings with academic criminologists lately, and damn, it's been a wake-up call. It seems to be one of the most activist domains of academia I've ever encountered (and I deal with sociologists and social psychologists on a regular basis!). Over a few different conferences and dinners, I've chatted with criminologists who were pretty explicit about how they saw their role, namely speaking up for oppressed criminals; empirics or the rights of the wider populace barely came into the conversation. On top of this, there have been some spectacular scandals in academic criminology that have helped confirm my impression of the field. Suddenly, all those papers I happily cited about how prison doesn't work etc. seemed incredibly fragile.
I'm going to add two quick personal longstanding reasons why I'm inclined to be quite authoritarian on crime -
(i) Despite my fallouts with The Left, I'm still broadly a social democrat; I think that an effective state is one that provides good free services to all its citizens, including things like high quality education, healthcare, and public transit. But in order to be democratically sustainable, this requires a certain amount of imposed authority: if public schools become known as a magnet for drugs and gang violence, then middle-class parents will pull their kids out and send them to private schools, and won't give their votes or (more importantly) their organising energy to maintaining school quality. If subways become excessively creepy and weird and violent, the middle classes will get Ubers, and vote for candidates who defund public transit. In short, if the middle classes (who have options) decide not to make use of public options, then public options will die their democratic death. Speaking as someone who likes public options, I think it's essential that fairly strong state authority is exerted in public utilities to ensure that they are seen as viable by the middle class.
(ii) I have a weird sympathy towards Retributivism as a theory of justice and crime. More specifically, I have a lot of negative animus towards what I see as excessively utilitarian approaches to criminal justice, that regard criminals as just another type of citizen to be managed. As soon as we stop regarding criminals as people, but just factors of (dis)production, then I think we do them and our society a disservice; it's treating them as cattle. Instead, I'm sympathetic towards a more contractualist approach that mandates we treat all citizens as autonomous individuals who enter into an implicit social contract by virtue of enjoying the benefits of society, such that we would be doing them a disservice of sorts if we didn't punish them for their crimes. Let me try to put that in a maxim: you're an adult, you're a citizen; you fucked up, now you pay the price. If we didn't make you pay the price, we'd be treating you like a child or an animal.
Obviously lots more to be said here, but I'll save my follow-ups for the comments. Curious what others think.
I don't think supporting a crackdown on crime is authoritarian. Rather, I see my libertarianism and support for incarcerating criminals as two sides of the same coin. I think government should be in the business of protecting people's right to life, liberty, and property. I oppose government trying to take these away, and I oppose criminals trying to take them away.
The trouble with this is that when the government stops criminals doing it (in modern times, anyways) there's usually scope creep in terms of what's considered a 'criminal'.
The solution that could work looks more like reverse anarcho-tyranny -- don't put the government in charge of punishing subway screamers, because they will inevitably end up going after people selling loose smokes (or vapes, probably), but punish the Pennys of the world lightly if at all.
If acting nuts on the subway is likely to end with you getting beaten or dead, the nuts on the subway will be less likely to act it out.
I've been all up and down the thread saying yea charge penny for manslaughter because extrajudicial killing is a slippery as fuck slope, but I also don't give a shit about neely at all.
Obviously dude should have gotten help; not his fault his brain blew a fuse. The solution to him not getting help because there are no resources or because he doesn't want it isn't to throw up our hands or start lynching people; it's to provide resources and enforce their use.
But then we're back at your dude getting institutionalized for smokes somehow instead of for having an episode.
So I am one of those weirdos that thinks that under certain circumstances a society with just the anarcho- and no tyranny could work in a way that's superior to what we have now -- but if we are going to have anarcho-tyranny, wouldn't it be better for the anarcho-privilege to apply to the vast majority of folks who aren't out there starting shit and making everyone else's life worse, rather than the tiny minority that are a pain in the ass to the world at large?
I think Penny should be penalized -- you are correct IMO that manslaughter is appropriate under current law, based on what we've seen so far. Reduce the penalty a bit for justifiable violence, and you pretty well have what I'm suggesting. I'd personally reduce the penalty a lot for anything that looks like consentual violence, and "yelling at people and throwing trash at them on the train" would count as consent. If Neely hadn't died, in my world him and Penny would both be up on some sort of disturbing the peace misdemeanor -- and if the jury lets Penny walk for New York reasons, so be it.
Since he did in fact die, manslaughter is what it is -- this is a risk in any street fight. So maybe Penny is both a hero and guilty of manslaughter? Killing a bum doesn't make you a hero, but showing the other bums that people are willing to shut them down whatever the consequences maybe does. Pour encourager les autres and all that.
This is the big if for me.
If leading one mentally ill guy onto the chakmool and choking him to death appeases Tlaloc and cures all ills, then it was obviously worth it. We already live in omelas; making it more obvious is just owning up to it.
I just don't thing the type of people ready to throw down on the subway because the voices were too loud that day are going to be convinced by incentives; IMO they need to be cured or segragated.
But, oh fuck oh shit, there's that fucking tyranny problem you brought up AGAIN and we are institutionalizing randos like it's 1950 AGAIN.
It's that fucking lockian hobbsian all the way back to whoever was in charge of the first farming village problem AGAIN.
The Templo Mayor was a government based solution -- I am suggesting a social one.
Humans are really good at responding to social pressure, even when they are fuckin crazy.
If they aren't, they are still animals -- and the way to train animals through negative reinforcement is to make sure that the reinforcement is swift and sure -- not necessarily severe.
This is not possible for a government to do without a very resource intensive police state -- but citizens can provide it very very well, if you leave interpersonal violence on the table.
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Indeed, I wanted to make a similar point but forgot. Punishing violations of and defections from the non-aggression principle is entirely consistent with libertarianism—if not one of its defining aspects—and a function a limited government can still provide.
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