Intuitively, it seems like we should. We’re instinctively outraged that cops can outright murder people and almost never get locked up for it. We’re understandably incensed that politicians from Richard Nixon to Ted Kennedy can commit heinous crimes and stay free, just because of their high social standing.

More fundamentally, even when cops and politicians are operating strictly within the limits of the law, they commit acts that would otherwise be seen as high crimes. As long as they follow all the right rituals of law, cops can threaten and kidnap completely peaceful people, and batter them if they resist. By waging war, politicians commit mass murder, and by expanding the prison state for campaign contributions, they literally sell people into slavery.

Ordinary people would certainly at least go to prison if caught doing any of those things. Anarchism is in part defined by a rejection of political authority, which means that we do not morally distinguish between the actions of a cop or politician and the actions of any other individual. So, one might think that the straightforward conclusion here is to one day set up libertarian tribunals to dish out punishments against agents of the state.

This view is understandable, but gravely mistaken.

Before law enters into the situation, we tend to hold to a pretty strict standard of self-defense. Which is to say: in any interpersonal conflict, we reject the initiation of force and only accept violence to the extent that it’s both proportional and genuinely necessary to protect the person being harmed or threatened. When someone goes beyond that minimally necessary amount of force, then they also become an aggressor, and their actions must also be condemned. After the fact, we demand that aggressors make restitution to their victims, but never counsel revenge.

There are very, very rare instances in which forced confinement may be justified, but this is only the case when someone is proven to actually be an ongoing threat to everyone in the community. Even then, this justification doesn’t apply for even the vast majority of violent criminals, and a justification for forced confinement does not justify forced confinement in any particular place. Nor does it justify the near total control that prisons have over prisoners. Hence why prisons are still inherently unjust.

A response might be offered that cops and politicians are indeed ongoing threats to the community at large. That much is true.

Yet the reason cops and politicians are ongoing threats to the community is not because of some psychological condition shared by all cops and politicians. Nor is it about any other quality shared by the particular individuals who occupy those positions of power. Rather, the individuals in those positions of power are ongoing threats to the community precisely because of their positions of power.

In other words, the minimal amount of force necessary to subdue them is just to get them fired or out of office, with the long-run goal of eliminating their jobs entirely. As for getting justice, what should be demanded is restitution – either in the form of hefty monetary compensation, or making amends through some other restorative process. Unlike punishment, that restitution can actually work toward giving back some of what’s been taken from their victims.

Which brings us to what may be the most important point: putting cops and politicians in prison does absolutely nothing to actually solve anything. When some on the left called for the trial and incarceration of George W. Bush (and others in his administration), prison abolitionist Dean Spade dissented, writing:

[T]he call to imprison Bush Administration officials is unsatisfying to me.  Imprisoning them would do nothing for those who have been killed in the wars, and making the call, to me, suggests that we believe the criminal punishment system is an apparatus for dealing with dangerous people and seeking justice, which is not true.  I would rather we put our energies into fighting for things we actually think can ameliorate the harm that has been done and prevent it from continuing.

Even if Bush had gone to prison, the United States government would still be bombing Iraq again in 2014. Even if Darren Wilson goes to prison, the police will continue to arrest black youth at wildly disproportionate rates. To the extent that their sentences would count as victories, they would only be symbolic victories. Those symbolic victories would lead many of us to believe everything was finally under control, numbing our passions for justice, and distracting us from the root causes of their aggression. Just like any other case of punishment.

The desire to fill prisons with those who are most truly dangerous in our society – namely, agents of the state – is a hard one to shake. Even still, it must be seen as a lingering form of retributivism felt by radicals brought up in a culture of criminal law, and like all forms of retributivism, it must be rejected. Especially given that its rationale is the same that empowers the very people it’s trying to fight against.

After initial reports that Brown had been shot in the back, early autopsies showed that the bullets actually entered through the front (one shot which grazed the hand may have come from the rear). After claims that Darren Wilson, the officer who shot Brown, had a fractured eye-socket, it was discovered that he just had a swollen face.

Yet no matter what information comes out, most people have stuck firmly to whatever narrative they accepted from the beginning. Discussions about the facts of the case have also been very loud and emotionally charged.

This is because conversations about what happened between Darren Wilson and Michael Brown are not really about what happened between Darren Wilson and Michael Brown. The case is actually serving as a symbol for two other questions, more fundamental and much broader in scope.

The first of which is: “Are the police out of control?”

The way people are talking about this case seems to imply that if Wilson’s use of force was not in necessary self-defense, the police are out of control — and if it was, everything’s fine. No matter how the facts of this particular case turn out, though, the answer to this question is yes.

Even if Darren Wilson turns out to be a near-perfect moral exemplar, the police are out of control. Some estimates say that police kill roughly 400 Americans a year, but the real number is likely much, much higher due to issues with the way that statistic is calculated.

Furthermore, while there is unfortunately no footage of what actually happened that night between Wilson and Brown, Ferguson has since then given us plenty of evidence of lawlessness from the police. Police have used tear gas, rolled through in military vehicles, raided churches, screamed “I’ll f—ing kill you” at crowds, attacked reporters and just generally wreaked chaos on the Missouri town.

The second question that many people are really asking when they ask what happened to Michael Brown is, “is the criminal justice system of the United States still especially skewed against people of color?”

Here, too, we already know the answer is yes. Maybe Darren Wilson is literally incapable of seeing race. Maybe he is the least racist white person in all of Missouri. Even if that ‘s true, it is also true beyond a reasonable doubt that people of color, especially young black men, live under constant attack from the police.

As has been widely reported, blacks in Ferguson are stopped by police at an alarmingly higher rate than whites and are also subject to a disproportionate number of arrests. Ferguson is not unique here. Institutional racism is unfortunately just another part of the American experience.

Despite whites being more likely to use illegal drugs, blacks are four times more likely to be arrested for marijuana possession. Racial disparities in the prosecution of gun crimes are even larger. It’s not for no reason that black families have somber talks with their sons about how to deal with the police.

Because these figures are just numbers to most people, they often fail to inspire change. This leads those living their reality to rally behind a symbol like the fallen flesh and blood of Michael Brown.

Since so much has happened to so many people that has never gotten the news coverage this case has, Brown serves as a stand-in for what’s happened to them or those that they know. They don’t see Darren Wilson, they see the cop who murdered their brothers, framed their cousins or shoved guns in their faces at an early age. They don’t see the Ferguson Police Department, they see the prisons that overflow with people who look like them for “crimes” that hurt no one.

Given Ferguson PD’s failure to be forthcoming with their side of the story, the actions they’ve taken in response to protests and proven lies from nearby departments, it’s probably safer to be skeptical of their claims. Even in the unlikely event that they’re right, though, there’s still more than enough reason for the public to take a strong stance against the police. Not just in Ferguson, but everywhere.

It’s not just Michael Brown getting killed. It’s not just Ferguson where the police are an occupying army. It’s not just Darren Wilson and it’s not just a few bad apples. These problems are structural and have to be addressed at the root.

Last year, as part of a series on the police reform movement in Utah, Balko published a profile piece praising Chief Burbank. Balko summarizes Burbank’s approach as follows:

Unconventional has been Burbank’s modus operandi since he was appointed chief of police in 2006. Be it the drug war, immigration, or the handling of protests, Burbank’s mantra to his officers is the same: Use the minimum amount of force necessary to resolve the situation. Or as Burbank puts it, “It’s not can I do it, but should I do it?”

His comparatively peaceful approach is not the only thing that makes Chief Burbank more likable than the average cop. He also attempts friendly relations with groups often at odds with abusive police officers. Transgender individuals face brutal repression and violence from police across the country, but Chief Burbank attended and spoke at Utah’s Transgender Day of Remembrance service last year, mourning trans people who had been killed. This year he spoke at Salt Lake City’s SlutWalk, a protest against mistreatment of sexual assault survivors. Several years ago both Burbank and myself were attendees at the ACLU of Utah’s annual Bill of Rights Celebration. If you want to find an image of a “good cop,” Chris Burbank is probably one of the best examples you’ll find. When an incredibly astute critic of police abuse like Radley Balko praises a police officer, that officer is probably above average.

So it’s pretty telling when Burbank and his subordinates behave in the same destructive ways as any other cops. And they do that all too often. Last week, Salt Lake City police officers shot and killed an unarmed man, 20 year old Dillon Taylor. His brother, Jerrail Taylor, witnessed the killing and described it to the Salt Lake Tribune:

“We’re walking out of the 7-Eleven with a drink, when the cops show up and start harassing us with guns,” Jerrail Taylor told The Salt Lake Tribune Tuesday night. South Salt Lake police, who are investigating the shooting, said Salt Lake City police were answering a 911 call reporting a man there was waving a handgun; Dillon Taylor purportedly matched the description of the armed man.

Dillon Taylor was wearing headphones and didn’t respond to the three officers until they surrounded him, Jerrail Taylor said.

“He couldn’t hear them, so he just kept walking. Then … they had guns pointed at his face. That’s when he turned off the music,” he said. “I saw them point guns at my brother’s face, and I knew what was going to happen.”

One officer told Dillon Taylor to get on the ground, while another told him to put his hands on his head.

“He got confused, he went to pull up his pants to get on the ground, and they shot him,” Jerrail Taylor said.

Witnesses said they heard two shots. Taylor died at the scene; his brother and cousin were detained for questioning.

So Chief Burbank’s subordinates surrounded a man and pointed guns at him, then shot him when he attempted to pull up his pants. And they almost certainly won’t face the kinds of criminal charges we would expect if a private citizen committed this sort of shooting.

This June, Salt Lake City Police Officer Brett Olsen entered a fenced yard without a warrant and shot a dog named Geist. After massive public outcry over this shooting, Chief Burbank criticized the public for much of their anger. Or, as J.D. Tucille of Reason put it, “Police Chief Chris Burbank stepped in front of a camera — and acted pissy that anybody would dare criticize his officers.” The SLCPD eventually concluded that Olsen “acted within policy.”

In 2011, attorney Andrew McCullough represented two escort services in a lawsuit challenging a Utah law that allowed police officers to arrest suspected sex workers for touching themselves, exposing themselves, or acting in any lewd manner. McCullough argued that this criminalized perfectly legal expressive activity routinely engaged in by strippers as part of their job, and thus violated the First Amendment. Chief Burbank had lobbied for the law and continued to defend it during this suit. His argument for the law was based on the idea that officers were being asked to behave inappropriately when they conducted undercover operations to catch sex workers. In other words, because he wanted it to be easier for his employees to identify and coerce sex workers for their choices of what to do with their bodies, he supported an overly broad law that could threaten legal businesses and free expression.

What can we learn from all this? What I take from it is that even the better police officers still respond to the structural incentives associated with policing. Police are granted a monopoly on legal force, and along with that are given privileges to use force we would consider criminal if carried out by a mere mundane. Police officers are also rewarded for enforcing vice laws, and they thus have incentives to seek expansive powers for enforcing such laws. Moreover, they are a concentrated and too often revered interest group that can easily influence legislative bodies in order to claim these expansive powers. Burbank’s actions show that even cops who emphasize treating the public with respect and preserving civil liberties will respond to the perverse incentives embedded in policing itself. They will almost inevitably find themselves helping killer cops escape accountability and seeking more power to coerce people who pose no threat. Given these perverse incentives, I think we should take the advice of Anthony Gregory and abolish the police.

Cops are, generally speaking, the enemy. They are a terrorizing, occupying force who preserve the culture of statism and violence. However, individual police officers are also human beings. They are fathers and mothers, sons and daughters. They have family and friends just like you and I. This is why the notion of violence against state agents puts anarchists in such a precarious situation. While we recognize the state is a monolithic, terrorist organization, it’s not obvious that every individual who works for the state is our enemy. I know a number of cops. I know their families and friends. I would never consider killing or even harming them.

Putting aside the awkward question of who is or isn’t our enemy, what is strategically effective? The problem with utilizing violence against the state is that the state won’t back down. Violence begets violence. The more cops are killed, the more cops are hired. The more funding they will get. The more and more powerful arms they will purchase. The more they will be trained to shoot first. Any significant campaign of violence against the police will be met with an even more violent and brutal campaign against civilians.

There will be no shortage of goons, thugs and guns for the state to use to achieve its goals. And if it is met with violence by liberty lovers, you can be sure the state will respond with violence of its own. This strategy is short-sighted and misguided. Coercion is almost always a bad way to solve problems — this is one reason why the state is undesirable in the first place. Trying to fight the state with its own tools and its own methods is doomed to fail. It will only escalate the problem and put civilians in more harm’s way than they are already in.

So what is an anarchist supposed to do? Just as violence won’t get us what we want, the opposite, peace, will. We don’t need to fall to the state’s level of using violence and terrorism. We can transcend what the state is doing. We must. The only way to a free society is through peaceful discussion. Our fight lies on the battlefield of ideas. And our battle plan is to win hearts and minds through engaging our fellow humans as conversation partners. Though building relationships predicated on peace and mutual aid, not violence. Our beliefs are fundamentally about peaceful cooperation and the rejection of the initiation of violence. Let’s act like it.

Are cops the enemy? Yes. But not in the traditional way of looking at things. They are not an enemy we must crush or destroy. It is the institutions we must do that to. Rather, they are an enemy we must convince and persuade. Agents of the state must be brought over to the side of liberty, not killed. They don’t deserve it and we certainly don’t deserve the trauma inherent in using that kind of tactic. Liberty is too important a project to be left to violence.

Today is a day to recognize that the death of these police officers was a detriment, not a triumph, in the fight for freedom: An example of sinking to the level of statism. We must be better than that. We are better than that. So instead of shooting a cop when he’s grabbing some pizza, join him. Pick up a slice and talk with him about why liberty is so important. Pizza and ideas: Those are the keys to freedom.