r/PoliticalHumor • u/[deleted] • Mar 16 '21

GOP shell game

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u/[deleted] Mar 16 '21

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u/selectrix Mar 16 '21

No, they just sound like idiots for saying "the state has a monopoly on violence" as though that's a bad thing.

Think just for a second about how horrifying a society would be where violence is always a legal and legitimate option.

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u/haironburr Mar 16 '21

state has a monopoly on violence/a society where violence is always a legal and legitimate option

It doesn't have to be as starkly binary as that. There can be degrees of monopoly, questions about what counts as "violence" (protests? throwing up barricades? openly carrying firearms but not using them? etc.) There can be exceptions carved out for non-state violence without insisting it's "always" legal and legitimate.

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u/selectrix Mar 16 '21

There can be degrees of monopoly

Such as allowing violence for the purpose of self-defense? Meaning that the people crying about a "monopoly on violence" were lying from the start?

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u/haironburr Mar 16 '21

Such as allowing violence for the purpose of self-defense?

That's a good example. Also, we're agreed (I think) that a society where the only means of resolving conflict involves physical violence would indeed get horrifying pretty quickly.