Barnes v. State Exposes the Division Between Law-and-Order Conservatives and Libertarian Conservatives; A Test for Determining the Difference

Barnes v. State, which holds that there is no longer a right for a homeowner to resist an unlawful police entry into the person's home, has exposed a deep division among conservatives.  First, there are the law-and-order conservatives. Those conservatives emphasize security and believe that giving law enforcement officials more authority and discretion makes the world a safer place.  Second, you have libertarian conservatives, those who emphasize liberty and believe that giving law enforcement more authority and discretion leads to the abuse of that authority.

I definitely fall into the latter.  I believe in the quote often attributed,m correctly or incorrectly, to Benjamin Franklin:  "Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety."

If you want to figure out which camp of conservatives you fall into ask yourself the following questions:

1.  Do you believe that a homeowner should have the right to reasonably resist an unlawful police entry into the person's home?

2.  Do you believe that sobriety or drug checkpoints should be permitted giving police officers the right to stop cars without probable cause?

3.  Do you think police officers should be permitted to pull someone over for allegedly not wearing a seat belt?

4.  Do you think there should be criminal public intoxication laws that let police officers  arrest a person simply based solely on the officers' observation that the person is intoxicated while in a public place?

5.  Do you think police officers should be able to seize property which they suspect has been used in a crime even though the owners of the property are never charged with a crime?

6.  For those of you who know about the case, do you think Fred Sanders had the right to defend himself and his home when Matt Faber and another officer proceeded to knock in the door of his apartment when Sanders refused to talk to them?  (If you don't know the case, you can discard this question.)

The Libertarian Conservative answers are as follows:  Yes, No, No, No, No, Yes.  Libertarian Conservatives will almost always answer as I outlined.  Law-and-Order Conservatives might hedge on one or two at the most.

Finally, I would point out there are Law-and-Order Liberals and Libertarian Liberals.  One would think liberals would be more libertarian on the above issues, but I'm not sure that's true at all.  Some of the biggest defenders of giving law enforcement officials more power are liberal Democrats.