The spraying and arresting of Occupy people and the killings being conducted by Assad in Syria have made me wonder when an arrest (or other forcible move made on one person by another) is an arrest too far. If the police arrest someone, do they have the authority to do so? They are often agents acting for other unnamed persons who are really doing the arresting. Do those unnamed persons have the authority to exercise force against a person?
I can think of two cases applicable to a free person. In case 1, a free person declares what behaviors he will be held accountable for that may lead to his arrest. In one way or another, he declares or agrees that if he does X, Y, or Z, such as robbery, arson, and murder, he may be arrested. Arrests under those conditions are not arrests too far. There is consent. In case 2, a free person makes no such declaration. Instead he reveals his accountability for his actions by his behavior. If he robs someone, that tells others that they may rob him. If he kills someone, that tells others that they may kill him. This too is a kind of consent. It says that what I do to you, you may do to me.
When there is political protest, such as in many Occupy instances, there is confusion because neither case 1 nor case 2 exist. The people involved on both sides are not free. They haven’t declared their accountability by word or deed. They haven’t made political agreements. There are not clear authorities that have been made authorities by consent. America is in confusion through and through because consent has been obliterated and arbitrary authority elevated.
The institutions of government that claim authority do not rest on grounds that are consistent with freedom and consent. Their grounds are other things like order, police power, public safety and health, and traditions. Aspirations for freedom and consent come into conflict with power that draws its authority from other traditions.
The protests are over specific problems and issues, but that is like smoke coming out of a volcano that signals much deeper turmoil. The conflicts and clashes between protestors and police reveal the more basic conflict between a degree of real freedom that allows each person consent and a mirage of freedom in which each person is a victim of forces imposed by others who lack real authority but claim to possess it. Americans have failed to sort out important conflicts and failed to construct peaceful institutions that would circumvent this confusion and these clashes.
Because of these unresolved and conflicting elements that involve freedom vs. power, to some observers the arrests are arrests too far, while to others the arrests are not arrests far enough.
