The ‘monopoly of violence’ is a useful lens to use around things like this. Despite being less accountable than normal citizens for it, the state has monopolized violence to be acceptable for them to commit, but unacceptable for others.
The state will even often times will use violence to arrest or put down non violent situations or people as well. Like the student protestors, George Floyd and any number of other police killings we’ve seen.
I disagree. This particular state continues to give itself more authority without more accountability. Allow that to continue and you won’t have a state left either, well not a free one anyway.
Also studies about America’s Political system continue to show most people don’t really have a say in what happens at the federal level. You got swing states and thats it.
How long can a society remain free when the monopoly on voilence is given based on a minority of voters?
You're changing the subject, though. The state having the monopoly on violence is a trait of civil societies in general. You can break a liberal democracy in many, many ways entirely unrelated to that issue, which is ultimately just that individual citizens aren't allowed to enact their will through violent acts and instead must appeal to the state for restitution when they are wronged.
The US's issues aren't that the government doesn't allow its private citizens to legally act violently (the exact opposite is a problem in the US, in fact), and having a monopoly on violence doesn't bear one way or the other on whether a country's international policy is compliant with international law.
Never said that was the problem. Said it was a good lens to use. Makes a lot of people look real hypocritical. The disagreement was about the US’s monopoly on violence in particular being a good thing. Do anyones cops kill more civilians per capita than US cops? Because we know no one imprisons more people per capita. We have a lot of violence given electoral mandate by the minority. That’s the problem, and that in itself even threatens the monopoly as those in the majority going unheard realize they don’t have a lot of options. A riot is the language of the unheard. Similar effect.
Despite being less accountable than normal citizens for it, the state has monopolized violence to be acceptable for them to commit, but unacceptable for others
is no more true in the US than Finland or France. All modern countries legally prevent their citizens from taking violent action. This is normal. It's intended, it's a good thing.
The problem is with accountability for the agents of the state, which has nothing to do with the monopoly on violence, it has to do with the criminal system and how the use of that violence is controlled.
If you say the monopoly on violence is the issue with the US's police violence issue what you're saying isn't that the police should be controlled better in their deployment of force, you're saying that individuals should be able to shoot back at the police or, in fact, at anybody else they don't like.
Which is clearly already way too frequent in the US. The interpretation of exceptions to enable private violence, be it the right to bear arms or the insane "stand your ground" rules and other expansive interpretations of legitimate defense are part of the problem. The state's monopoly on violence in the US is too lax, not too strict. Which is mostly unrelated with the fact that the state deploys violence unjustly or without enough accountability or limitation.
Those are different things. I don't think you mean what your statement is implying, I think you mean the other thing, but that's what you're saying and you can probably see how that's a problem.
If you say the monopoly on violence is the issue with the US’s police violence issue what you’re saying isn’t that the police should be controlled better in their deployment of force, you’re saying that individuals should be able to shoot back at the police or, in fact, at anybody else they don’t like.
I’m saying in theory the monopoly of violence is given mandate through elections, and in the US those winning elections do not always do so by being the most popular. It’s an issue that goes higher than the police as the monopoly is transferred to those without an actual majority of support. The President is commander in chief of the executive branch, that includes the cops. The problems are coming from the top down. It’s considerably different than any of the other countries you mentioned.
You're talking about democratic legitimacy, not about the monopoly on violence. Non democratic countries also have a monopoly on violence for the state, it has nothing to do with the legitimacy of the state to represent the will of the People.
If your argument is that the current electoral or political system in the US lacks legitimacy because it's not representative enough I can agree with that. But the monopoly on violence by the state is the same with or without that issue, and the lack of legitimacy doesn't change the fact that you don't want random people being allowed to resolve their grievances violently.
The use of violence against citizens in America remains an high outlier compred to more than most developed free countries. This isn’t simply a legatimacy of government issue, it’s also a use of violence issue. Why does it have to be one or the other?
Because nobody wants the government to stop being the only one who is allowed to deploy violence. So the monopoly on violence is not in question.
The solution to the government abusing its monopoly on violence is accountability and regulation, not to remove the monopoly and allow people to just shoot each other freely.
I didn't bring up legitimacy, by the way, you were the one to claim that the government doesn't have enough support from the majority. That is an unrelated issue, as far as I'm concerned.
I already adressed why legitimacy is an issue above.
I’m saying in theory the monopoly of violence is given mandate through elections, and in the US those winning elections do not always do so by being the most popular.
If it’s not given popular mandate it’s just another form of war. Again the whole point of this is to use the monopoly of violence as a lens. Thats how I started the whollllle comment chain. You seem to think that means I want it abolished, which no one’s said this whole conversation.
No, it's not "another form of war". Plenty of illiberal countries have a strong monopoly on violence and nobody conceptualizes that as them being at war with their population. That's absurd.
Making grandiose declarations doesn't make them make sense. I wish people took an extra breath to check what they are actually saying when they post.
Also, if you're not saying you want to abolish the monopoly on violence by the state what are you saying? Because that's the thing about monopolies, you either have it or you don't. As I've said above, control and accountability don't remove the monopoly on violence, and the US already has an unusually lax regulation on this issue. So what are you saying?
Im saying a few things. First and foremost im saying every politician condemning violence is full of shit. Secondly Im saying the monopoly on violence in the US is not a good thing for two distinct reasons: The system often give the head executive office to someone who doesn’t have a popular mandate, meaning the people they place in the positions to execute the state violence shouldn’t have the right to hold their position. On top of that no free country half as safe as American uses violence on its citizens more. That is not a sustainable model of monopoly of violence. Hell even the courts are both illegitimate and practicing violence, particularly against women. So it’s not even contained to the executive branch.
So in short, politicians lie, illegitimate officers are executing violence on civilians, and more violence on civilians than anyone else. How long does a country like that stay free? Because the answer could just be about 5 more months.
So what is a US where there is no monopoly on violence by the state in your view? Or rather, if it is a "bad thing", what is a good thing? How do you see this working?
The same way US prisons are a bad thing but no serious prison abolitionist things the solution is to instantly release all prisoners right now. We need to take corrective steps and if I knew the in’s and out’s of all those steps I probably wouldn’t be trying to have discussions on social media, and instead be writing books, running for office, or starting a movement.
So you know it's bad but you don't know what good looks like.
Please consider the possibility that this is because it's not bad at all to have the state, rather than private citizens, hold the sole ability to use force, and that the problems you've observed may be unrelated to that principle. Not that they don't exist, just that they are not caused by what you're saying they are.
You’re right and the down votes are reactionary. The alternative to the state having a monopoly on violence is even more violent parties. The benefit of a monopoly is violence resting with the state is that the violence is subjected to checks and balances. Perhaps those checks and balances aren’t as restrictive as we might like, but the alternative is unchecked violence.
Obviously we prefer no violence, and yes violence is abused by parties within the state. But that’s a separate issue. If we dismantled the monopoly, violence would skyrocket and what little regulation our institutions enforce would vanish. That’s objectively worse
The world is a nasty place, solutions being unsavory doesn’t preclude them being the best option.
I can’t believe you’re being downvoted for this. The only alternative to government monopoly on violence is that corporations and other citizens are free to interpret laws and use violence to enforce them. You really want Walmart running their own armed police squad? You want the kkk running their own legal military? You want your neighbour able to legally shoot you because they thought your tree was dropping leaves on their property?
It’s absurd that ANYONE would support broader adoption of legal violence. These people have lost their marbles.
In an actual assassination attempt the moment of the gunshot the alleged victim would be completely shielded by the security detail and whisked away in an ambulance. There would be no post gunshot photos of trump.
Like the could drag his dumpy fat ass off the stage before he’s ready to move while keeping him covered. They did the best they could with a man so driven by theatrics and ego.
If this was a false flag I doubt the secret service agents would be in on it anyway. Now, I wouldn’t put it past Trump to fake an assassination attempt, but I would be surprised if he pulled one off without any blatant mistakes or leaks. I guess we’ll see, but there isn’t enough public information yet to jump to any conclusions. There are plenty of people with plenty of reasons to want the man dead after all.
Wouldnt it be crazy if trump had some life changing moment being shot and tries to turn his shit around. Totally not going to happrn, but the slim possibility is there.
They’re training them to protect federal infrastructure and they’re still subject to gun regulations. I think it will be a political tool used to oppress the citizenry, so not the spirit of the law, but the letter.
No matter who’s president? Because fighting off rebellions was a big part of what those militias were used for.
Ostensibly. They’re obviously lying, but that’s what they say.
It’s WELL-regulated, not “barely regulated at all with little to no enforcement to speak of”
It’s my understanding that the extant gun laws are legally considered to fulfill this requirement, otherwise private gun ownership wouldn’t be possible. Personally I disagree, but I’m not sure what standard would otherwise be used.
I do hope you’re correct, but I don’t trust the US government to adhere to common sense anymore. I guess we’ll see what the court says, because someone’s going to challenge this.
Or maybe he’ll get voted out in November and this will be disbanded before anything happens with it. I think that’s probably the best option, because then it doesn’t get a chance to be approved by this SCOTUS and nobody has to have their civil rights violated by this group.
otherwise private gun ownership wouldn’t be possible
That’s the point right there: it was never about private guns for private use. That’s a fiction (in both the legal sense and the colloquial one) that conservative activist judges on the SCOTUS invented to please the people bribing them.
I do hope you’re correct, but I don’t trust the US government to adhere to common sense anymore
That’s the problem with legal fictions: they don’t have to be correct or even make sense. If people of sufficient authority says it is so, it legally us so 😮💨
I don’t trust the US government to adhere to common sense anymore
Yeah, I was interpreting it under the lens of current legal application, not reality. In reality, it’s a group of people who want to violently oppress their fellow citizens through any means possible.
I’m sorry, I must not have communicated my thought well. I understand this article’s point perfectly well and I am rejecting that point because it’s fucking offensively wrong and stupid. This is 100% the fault of Republicans and their supporters, full stop, and unless they’re prepared to acknowledge that simple reality I don’t see any point in discussing this incident any further.
It’s been pretty hot this summer hasn’t it? Let’s talk about what we can do to keep climate change under control.
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