The state is nothing but a monopoly on the legitimate use of violence. To a hammer, everything is a nail. To a state, everything is a target for violence.
This sounds super motivational until you stop to think about how the only thing worse than legitimate violence is the endless horrors of ILLegitimate violence. Solidarity is nothing but a stance of pure aggressivity towards those neighbors outside of your community
So just because it’s sprinkled with the magic fairy dust of ‘government’ it’s immediately moral and good violence?
Here’s a freebie thought experiment I had to pay a PoliSci professor for; if tomorrow the democratically elected government passed a law that from today forward, all babies with blue eyes will be euthanized at birth, is that legal?
Yes. 100% legal. And 100% morally bankrupt.
Consent of the governed is the bedrock of civil society - the ghouls that run big business seem to have forgotten/don’t care that legality does not equal morality.
You win my most obvious strawman award. I really tried to find how any of this pertains to any part of my comment and gave up. I still like your pretty metaphors despite the absence of logical meaning
The state is nothing but a monopoly on the legitimate use of violence.
Which, ideally, is pretty much how it has to work. The state is, ideally, composed of elected representatives and their appointees. The alternative to violence monopolized by elected representatives is violence distributed to private interests. State monopoly of legitimate violence is not great and I agree with the problems inherent to that, but realistically the alternative seems worse. I’m racking my brain for another system, but I can’t think of anything that doesn’t devolve to oligarch-led private armies oppressing people.
state is, ideally, composed of elected representatives
oligarch-led private armies oppressing people.
They’re the same picture.
Elections are a venue for competiting oligarchs - US elections are largely just a wealth check - with the bonus that afterwards people feel they’ve chosen their oligarchs and are less likely to notice that 90%+ of elected representatives only represent the interest of elites.
I do the same thing at work when I need mentally ill people to do what I say. “You can do what I want version A, or do what I want version B, which one?” always works better than “Do what I want!”
I agree that violence management is a very difficult problem with no easy solution. But I don’t think giving full control of legitimate violence to the rich is the best solution, which is what a state of elected representatives does.
The state is nothing but a monopoly on the legitimate use of violence. To a hammer, everything is a nail. To a state, everything is a target for violence.
The state even sometimes uses violence on itself.
See: Civil Wars.
This sounds super motivational until you stop to think about how the only thing worse than legitimate violence is the endless horrors of ILLegitimate violence. Solidarity is nothing but a stance of pure aggressivity towards those neighbors outside of your community
Those look like sentences but it’s weird… I’m not seeing any meaning here.
Precisely what I was trying to highlight–many thanks for the confirmation comrade
So just because it’s sprinkled with the magic fairy dust of ‘government’ it’s immediately moral and good violence?
Here’s a freebie thought experiment I had to pay a PoliSci professor for; if tomorrow the democratically elected government passed a law that from today forward, all babies with blue eyes will be euthanized at birth, is that legal?
Yes. 100% legal. And 100% morally bankrupt.
Consent of the governed is the bedrock of civil society - the ghouls that run big business seem to have forgotten/don’t care that legality does not equal morality.
You win my most obvious strawman award. I really tried to find how any of this pertains to any part of my comment and gave up. I still like your pretty metaphors despite the absence of logical meaning
I figure legitimate in this instance just means they won’t have any reason to expect repercussions for their acts of violence.
Which, ideally, is pretty much how it has to work. The state is, ideally, composed of elected representatives and their appointees. The alternative to violence monopolized by elected representatives is violence distributed to private interests. State monopoly of legitimate violence is not great and I agree with the problems inherent to that, but realistically the alternative seems worse. I’m racking my brain for another system, but I can’t think of anything that doesn’t devolve to oligarch-led private armies oppressing people.
They’re the same picture.
Elections are a venue for competiting oligarchs - US elections are largely just a wealth check - with the bonus that afterwards people feel they’ve chosen their oligarchs and are less likely to notice that 90%+ of elected representatives only represent the interest of elites.
I do the same thing at work when I need mentally ill people to do what I say. “You can do what I want version A, or do what I want version B, which one?” always works better than “Do what I want!”
I agree that violence management is a very difficult problem with no easy solution. But I don’t think giving full control of legitimate violence to the rich is the best solution, which is what a state of elected representatives does.
Still, there’s the friction of checks and balances. It’s certainly not perfect, far from it, but the alternative is still worse.