You're Stuck In This Country With Us

If you've ever watched the movie Watchmen - or better yet, read the comic - you probably remember the following scene. If you're squeamish, skip the video.

Rorschach, one of the heroes, gets locked up with many of the criminals he put in prison. After defeating an attacker in a fight, Rorschach yells at his fellow inmates, "I'm not locked in here with you. You're locked in here with me!"

Prof. Glenn Reynolds of Instapundit alluded to that scene when explaining one of the basic functions of government.

Police don’t actually protect law-abiding citizens from criminals so much as they protect criminals from the much-rougher justice they’d get in the absence of a legal system. Burglars would be hung from lampposts, and shoplifters would be beaten and tossed into the gutter if there were no police, as in fact happens in countries where there isn’t a reliable justice system and a civil-society culture that restrains vigilantism. Reminder to the criminal class: Ultimately, we’re not stuck in this country with you. You’re stuck in this country with us.

The following day (3 Sep 2015), Prof. Reynolds linked to a story about the rising trend of street "justice" in Venezuela.

When a man they believed to be a thief sneaked into their parking lot in the Venezuelan city of Valencia, angry residents caught him, stripped him and beat him with fists, sticks and stones. 

They tied him up and doused him in gasoline, according to witnesses, in one of what rights groups and media reports say are an increasing number of mob beatings and lynchings in a country ravaged by crime.

Almost a year later, the trend has not abated. In fact, as Venezuela continues its death spiral under the crushing weight of Socialism, it seems to be getting worse. Why? Caracas city councilman, Jesús Armas, explains...

This year will without a doubt be the most violent in the history of our city...  

The insecurity has three roots. The first is associated with levels of poverty and inequality that we see in the city. Today Venezuela is the country with the highest inflation in the world, with shortages that force people to line up for hours to buy food. For decades neighborhoods have sprung up outside the city, and now more than 50 percent of the city's population lives in places where houses are built with low-quality materials, and where they don't formally have access to basic public services and are without roads or consolidated public spaces. 

Poverty, inequality and no basic public services in the Chavista Socialist paradise? Unpossible!

The second element has to do with a culture of lawlessness. In the country, a habit of disrespect for most basic laws - those related to transit, shoplifting, even the ways the authorities and the rest of the population interact with these laws, has resulted in a collective indifference toward much larger crimes because the law is simply a dead letter. 

When the government officials who are supposed to enforce the law are the biggest thieves, how can anyone else be expected to respect the law? Chavez died a billionaire, and his daughter is the wealthiest person in Venezuela.

Finally, there is the reaction of the national and local government in terms of managing the violence. The truth is that we have a mayor who, through hate speech and a series of acts of violence promoted by groups related to his party and his administration, has over the years exhibited excessive permissiveness toward huge criminal groups that dominate vast and populous parts of the city, either because they handle drug trafficking or because they have a monopoly on violence and illegal activities that generate income. 

Likewise, the state has implemented a policy that has nothing to do with protecting life, liberty and property of citizens, but on the contrary, has driven a socialist model that seeks to limit those freedoms, using crime as a way to maintain power and control of the population. But the truth is that today things are out of control and we are left with a failed state in which the so-called peace zones are micro-states controlled by gangsters and not by constitutional institutions.

Life, liberty and property? Where have I read that before? Mr. Armas hit the nail on the head. A government's sole purpose is to secure the people's rights to life, liberty and property. As Thomas Jefferson stated in his first inaugural address:

... a wise and frugal government, which shall restrain men from injuring one another, shall leave them otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned. This is the sum of good government; and this is necessary to close the circle of our felicities.

Unfortunately, Venezuela's Socialist government - like all Socialist governments - busies itself primarily with "[taking] from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned", secondarily with buying votes with the bread it took from the mouth of labor, and not at all with its actual responsibility of "[restraining] men from injuring one another".

The result is what we now see in Venezuela. We may not see it for long, not because it'll stop any time soon, but because Venezuela's government - embarrassed by its own impotence and incompetence - banned media coverage of the lynchings. Venezuela's government won't crack down on crime, much less unshackle the people and economy from the disastrous Socialist policies that led to the disintegration of Venezuelan society. They'll just prevent news outlets from talking about it, thereby accomplishing nothing of value.

As European governments refuse to protect their citizens from Muslim migrant criminals and conspire to cover up their negligence, homicide rates in some American cities skyrocket due to the Ferguson Effect, and insurmountable federal debt leads us towards Venezuela-style hyperinflation, lessons abound. The decent among us need to learn those lessons quickly and prepare accordingly. Criminals won't. After all, criminals aren't known for prudence or self-control.

Source: Fox News Latino