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I'm not going to engage with you (we've had this conversation before at excruciating length) but I do want to call one thing out: the government supporting and
by djur 12y ago
I'm not going to engage with you (we've had this conversation before at excruciating length) but I do want to call one thing out: the government supporting and enforcing laws is necessary for the laws to be perceived as credible. People will only accept prohibitions of behavior they wish to engage in if they believe it is a credible restriction instituted by a legitimate authority.
Governments that rely on violence may be perceived as legitimate by force but they frequently lack credibility.
Locke's _Two Treatises of Government_ is one of the earlier sources for this model, but it's a common theme in liberal political theory.
- baddox 12y agoI don't recall our previous conversation, and I don't share your professed reluctance to engage in discussion. I agree that the vast majority of people in many countries (probably all developed countries) perceive their country's government as a legitimate authority. But whether most people in a society perceive their government as a legitimate authority is entirely orthogonal to whether the government uses violence and the threat thereof to enforce its rules.