olent criminals who have aheady been caught, sentenced, andrnimprisoned.rnBut the saga of the Napoleon of Crime in the homely personrnof B.W. Sanders is not an isolated incident. It is a representatirne tale that illustrates what I take to be an entirely newrnform of government, one that as far as I can tell is unique in humanrnhistory and unknown to political theory, ancient or modern.rnProbably no other society has failed as dismally as thernUnited States in the late 20th century to meet the basic test ofrnany civilization: to enforce simple order and protect the livesrnand property of its members. History knows of many societiesrnthat have succumbed to anarchy when the central governmentrnproved unable to control wariords, rebels, and maraudingrninvaders. But anarchy is not quite the problem here.rnIn the United States today, the government performs manyrnof its functions more or less effectively. The mail is deliveredrn(sometimes); the population, or at least part of it, is countedrn(sort of); and taxes are collected (you bet). You can accuse thernfederal leviathan of many things—corruption, incompetence,rnwaste, bureaucratic strangulation—but mere anarchy, the lackrnof effective government, is not one of them. Yet at the samerntime, the state does not perform effectively or justly its basicrnduty of enforcing order and punishing criminals, and in this respectrnits failures do bring the country or important parts of itrnclose to a state of anarchy. But that semblance of anarchy isrncoupled with many of the characteristics of tyranny, underrnwhich innocent and law-abiding citizens are punished by thernstate or suffer gross violations of their rights and liberty at thernhands of the state. The result is what seems to be the first societrnin history in which elements of both anarchy and tyrannyrnpertain at the same time and seem to be closely connected withrneach other and to constitute more or less opposite sides of thernsame coin.rnThis condition, which in some of my columns I have calledrn”anarcho-tyranny,” is essentially a kind of Hegelian synthesis ofrnwhat appear to be dialectical opposites, the combination of oppressiverngovernment power against the innocent and the lawabidingrnand, simultaneously, a grotesque paralvsis of the abilityrnor the will to use that power to carry out basic public dutiesrnsuch as protection of public safety. And it is characteristic ofrnanarcho-tyranny that it not onlv fails to punish criminals andrnenforce legitimate order but also criminalizes the innocent,rnthat at the same time the governor of North Carolinarngrotesquely fails to uphold his famous oath to protect the citizensrnof his state by keeping convicted felons in prison, he hasrnno problem finding the time to organize a massive waste of hisrntime and the taxpayers’ money to hound and humiliate a perfectlyrninnocent citizen for the infraction of a trivial traffic law.rnIn fact, we criminalize the innocent all the time in thernUnited States today—through asset seizure laws that confiscaternyour property even before you’re convicted of possessing illegalrndrugs; through mandatory brainwashing programs designed tornreconstruct your mind with “sensitivity training,” “human relations,”rnand rehabilitation if you display politically incorrectrnideas on certain occasions; through prosecuting people likernBernhard Goetz who use guns to defend themselves; andrnthrough gun control laws in general. Under anarcho-tyranny,rngun control laws do not usually target criminals who use gunsrnto commit their crimes. The usual suspects are noneriminalsrnwho own, carry, or use guns against criminals—like the Koreanrnstore owners in Los Angeles or like Mr. Goetz, who spentrnseveral months in jail after picking off the three hoodlums whornwere making ready to liberate him from life and limb.rnIndeed, the government response to crime is by far the bestrnillustration of anarcho-tranny. On the one hand, police forcesrnare better equipped, better trained, and more expensive thanrnever before in history. Police routinely use computers, have accessrnto nationwide information banks, and carry weapons andrncommunication gadgets that most tyrants of the past wouldrndrool over. Yet the police seem utterly baffled by the murderrnrate. None of their high-tech whiz-bang helps much to catchrnserious criminals after they have struck, to stop them beforernthey strike, or to keep them off the streets after thev are caught.rnBut while the police cannot do much about murderers, rapists,rnand robbers, thev are geniuses at nabbing less serious lawbreakers.rnThev can crack down on tax-dodgers and speeders,rnjaywalkers and pornography patrons, seat belt nonbueklers andrnepithet-emitters, gun owners and graffiti-seratchers.rnObviousK’, such desperate characters arc not the reason decentrnpeople are scared to walk the streets at night, and nornmatter how many of them you put in the pokey, civilizationrnand the order it is based on will not survive unless you controlrnthe streets. Under anarcho-tyranny, the goal is to avoid performingrnsuch basic functions as stopping real crime and tornthink up pureh’ fictitious functions that will raise revenue, enhancernthe power of the police or bureaucrats, and foster the illusionrnthat the state is doing its job. The victims of these newrnfunctions and laws are precisely otherwise law-abiding and innocentrncitizens. It’s easier and more profitable to enforce thernlaw against the marginal lawbreaker than against those habituall’rncommitted to spreading mayhem.rnOne example of a victim of anarcho-tyranny is a man namedrnKeith Jaeobson, an elderly farmer and school bus driver in Nebraska.rnMr. Jaeobson has a sexual fixation on children, andrnwhile that constitutes a sexual perversion, he says he has neverrnsatisfied his fixation by having sex with a child, and indeedrnprior to 1987 he had never been arrested at all. However, herndoes like to peruse pornography that depicts children engagedrnin sexual poses and activities, and when in 1987 he received inrnthe mail some solicitations to purchase some of this smut, hernordered it. Eventually, this material arrived and he went to hisrnlocal post office to pick it up. When he returned to his farm,rnhe found two federal postal inspectors waiting for him. Theyrnpromptly arrested him and charged him with violating federalrnstatutes forbidding the purchase of child pornography throughrnthe mail, and it turned out that the material he had boughtrnhad in fact been produced by the postal service itself and sentrnthrough the mail by the postal service in an undercover stingrnoperation conducted by the postal service. For some years,rnpostal inspectors had devoted their energies to ferreting out Mr.rnJaeobson’s perverse habits, encouraging them, and then, finally,rnpouncing on him. As a result, Mr. Jaeobson lost his farm to payrnfor his legal defense, he lost his job as a school bus driver, andrnhe lost all his friends and standing in his small communityrnwhen his sexual habits came to light. Eentually, the SupremernCourt exonerated him, but in the meanwhile his life had beenrntotally ruined.rnThe rationale for the harassment and entrapment of KeithrnJaeobson was that child pornography, illegal under federal law,rnis often produced in foreign countries like Denmark or Mexicornand that the law cannot reach those who produce it and whornoften kidnap or seduce children into taking part in it. Therefore,rnlaw enforcement has to concentrate on the consumers ofrnlULY 1994/15rnrnrn