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BTW, is it really your opinion that the state has a legitimate claim to nigh-unlimited rule over the public? The Constitution and Bill of Rights was a best-eff
by srtjstjsj 10y ago
BTW, is it really your opinion that the state has a legitimate claim to nigh-unlimited rule over the public? The Constitution and Bill of Rights was a best-effort attempt to prevent tyranny, not an effort to draw a line for rulers to toe and reach over as far as they can.
- rayiner 10y agoYou're reading "unlimited rule" into my comment. All I said was that the police are, by design, empowered to do some things ordinary people are not empowered to do.
- simoncion 10y agoAs Pinker's research has demonstrated, when we move from vigilante "justice" to a centralized system of rules and punishments, over-all violence is greatly reduced and over-all social stability is greatly increased. It turns out to be a really good thing to give The People In Charge a monopoly on violence and punishment. For optimal stability, The Punishers must also be accountable to the people that they serve. Lamentably, we're doing poorly on the whole accountability part, but the alternative to a State monopoly on violence is -historically- far, far, far worse than the situation that we have today.