Cato Institute Book Review: Tyranny Comes Home. Authors: Professors Coyne and Hall

On June 19, 2019 at the Cato Institute in Washington, DC, the book Tyranny  Comes Home was discussed as presented by its authors Christopher Coyne and Abigail Hall.

They contend that the distinction of the military and the police force has been frequently overlooked such that military deployed methods and equipment have been brought into use domestically by police departments around the country.  Particularly obvious is the use of cameras placed strategically on city streets to record the activities of citizenry in an area of high crime.  I understand that London police have saturated the downtown with these cameras but have not incurred widespread negative opinion.

Anyway, the authors observe there really is no oversight agency to regulate the deployment of techniques that monitor or even curtail one's freedom in the daily routine of social living. They note that nonetheless waterboarding used by intelligent agencies have been banned from domestic use through a negative public opinion response.

These authors admit that the introduction into the domestic scene of coercive techniques in information-gathering may be effective but they ask, at what price to human freedom?  "Bad people" will always be with us!  Nonetheless, it would behoove us to be wary of practices the US military learns are used abroad from entering our shores.  Even though the Chinese government may seek to control its people by examining the content of their cell phone communications, we should not follow their lead without first establishing some oversight of this, as any other, invasive technology upon our legitimate and non-violent activities.

Sad is the case when a policeman is found to have shot his suspect in an unarmed citizen encounter.  There must be oversight to a policeman's use of force in such an instance.

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But how about the apparent successful use of coercion in dealing with our country's allies and partners deployed by Trump?  Should the US employ a similar economic penalty of the imposition of a tariff schedule the US announced effective against Mexico in dealing domestically with the problem of illegal immigration?  That is to say, should employers who hire illegals be charged a penalty for their adhering to this practice?  (Interestingly, when years ago the US encountered the problem of illegal immigration, it enacted just such a penalty that virtually stopped the illegal flow of immigrants into the country at the time!)