Misunderstanding on Libertarianism and Crime
Alexander S. Peak

                                                                                                         15 August 2006


[EDITOR’S NOTE:  This piece contains language which may be offensive to some audiences.  Reader discretion is advised.]

I was recently commented on what one person saw to be a grave flaw in libertarianism.  As it turned out, though, the flaw 
was in his understanding of libertarianism.  This gentleman wrote,

     The attraction of Libertarianism is the same emotion we have toward 18-year-olds going out into the world - a 
     sort of pollyanna, "the world is groovy", "it's all good", outlook... very appealing... until someone breaks 
     into his/her apartment and steals his/her electronics. Then it's, "where the fuck were the police?"

What this gentleman was ignoring is the very real fact that all libertarians regard theft as a crime, as an initiation of 
force.  Libertarianism holds that it should be punished, preferably by seeing the loot returned to the rightful owner.  A 
probable-majority of Libertarians support there being a public police force, and those that don’t—the radical minarchists 
and anarcho-capitalists—support having private agencies for hire to protect their property, which they argue would be 
much more efficient than a tax-funded police monopoly whose funding is not dependent upon results, but rather on the lack 
of results and increase of crime.


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