Martial Law vs. Market Law: Reflections on Boston

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von Mises Institute :

Martial Law vs. Market Law: Reflections on Boston

Mises Daily:Wednesday, May 22, 2013 by David Greenwald

 

There are two kinds of people in the world: those who respect coercive authority and consider it legitimate, and those who do not. The former group is likewise split into two factions: a relatively small group that, for whatever reason, essentially worships power, and a much larger one whose members merely tolerate authoritarianism, either as a matter of expedience or habit. In the wake of the recent bombing at the Boston Marathon and subsequent military-style manhunt, it seems clear that the great majority of Americans may be categorized as either power-worshiping or power-tolerant.

 

To be sure, the police came in for a fair share of vehement criticism from a number of established commentators. Ron Paul, for example, stated flatly that the people of Boston had been given “a taste of martial law” and likened the situation to “a military coup in a far off banana republic,” while at the other end of the spectrum, the World Socialist Website denounced the tactics of the police as having “no precedent in American history,” compared Boston to “a city under occupation or in civil war,” and claimed that the news media had “fomented fear and hysteria, spread ungrounded rumors and justified the police state measures of the Obama administration.”

 

We need look no further for evidence of this than Boston, which in a very real sense was already under quasi-lockdown even before the marathon began. In this video released by the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority Police a few days before the event, the Authority made clear the types of conduct by citizens that it would tolerate. Residents were lectured on the need to be “respectful to one another,” warned that any public drinking or “rowdy behavior” would be met with “zero tolerance,” and were even expressly prohibited from gathering on their own rooftops and porches.