“Two stunning political moments in the past 24 hours: Gov. Cox's eloquent appearance just now...and Bernie Sanders's extraordinary statement yesterday.”
“A government is an institution that holds a monopoly on the legitimate use of violence.”
Max Weber
Politics and violence cannot be separated. The only relevant factor is “legitimacy”, which is determined politically.
At what point, during the incremental rise of the Nazis, would it have become “legitimate” to take action against them, and how would this legitimacy be determined? Too early, and it would have been seen as illegitimate murder or “political violence” - too late and… Well, we know what happened.
Very understandably, most reasonable people are uncomfortable with violence* but then we seem powerless at the state level to stop the gradual rise of violent ideology that everyone knows will end in classes of vulnerable people who are no longer protected by the prohibition on non-state violence.
* state violence that is part of the script of life isn’t scary for some reason though.
“A government is an institution that holds a monopoly on the legitimate use of violence.”
Politics and violence cannot be separated. The only relevant factor is “legitimacy”, which is determined politically.
At what point, during the incremental rise of the Nazis, would it have become “legitimate” to take action against them, and how would this legitimacy be determined? Too early, and it would have been seen as illegitimate murder or “political violence” - too late and… Well, we know what happened.
Damn that is excellently put.
Very understandably, most reasonable people are uncomfortable with violence* but then we seem powerless at the state level to stop the gradual rise of violent ideology that everyone knows will end in classes of vulnerable people who are no longer protected by the prohibition on non-state violence.
* state violence that is part of the script of life isn’t scary for some reason though.
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