3 ms·

You say that, but I'm not sure what gives a government organization the agency to own and maintain such weapons, either. It all seems to come down to "might ma

You say that, but I'm not sure what gives a government organization the agency to own and maintain such weapons, either. It all seems to come down to "might makes right" and we know that isn't true. So the whole argument goes right out the window, then. What makes the US Government so special that it should be armed with world-ending nuclear weapons? How is a large bureaucracy somehow better than say a private corporation or even an individual in that regard? There is no answer...

hga 10y ago
How about starting with something like "The Constitution is not a suicide pact"? It's certainly a serious argument for a strong, in this domain, serious central government. I don't think anything in federalism besides the usual political stuff applies. And that "usual political stuff" is where this government gets it moral legitimacy, which partly addresses your point, especially when we strip away ludicrous hyperbole like "world-ending" (maybe your world would end, but things would remain largely unchanged for perhaps half the world's population, and not severely changed for a very large fraction of the rest; the world is big, and we are small). And while "might makes right" might not settle well with your moral tastes, operationally, might rules. Otherwise, you might be counting yourself lucky to be speaking Russian. But not needing to speak Punic.