While the Trump Team seems slightly more willing to murder random people (ie Mike Walz: “The first target – their top missile guy – we had positive ID of him walking into his girlfriend’s building and it’s now collapsed”), but the whole bombing Yemen thing is hardly a new policy. There’s not much daylight between what the Signal group chat is doing and what the Biden administration did.
Too many people are still smitten with the idea that the US state, or any state, can be a force for good if it’s just run by the right, good people in the right, good way, and that the state’s violence will only be used against bad people in the right, good way.
@HeavenlyPossum you do realise that a sate doesn't necessitate a global war on civilisation?
Their exist plenty of states that doesn't have the capacity for indiscriminate bombings against targets they don't like on the other side of the globe.
The foundational aspect of the state—any state—is violence.
@HeavenlyPossum I disagree. But I have been down this road before and knows it lead nowhere.
What would you call a higher order social structure that make civilisation possible, if you don't call it a state?
If you expect this to lead nowhere, then don’t engage me about it.
@HeavenlyPossum @ekg me, disagreeing with a point I didn't make, on someone else's post
Them: okay, fine,
Me: WELP, THIS IS GOING NOWHERE
@neonsnake @HeavenlyPossum no.
I said that the specific violence reference is not universal. And only a select few state has the capacity for that kind of violence.
Me saying that a debate on whatever a state necessary means violence is me ending that debate before asking an related question to the topic.
Every state, everywhere, that has ever existed, has been violent every single day of its existence.
A “capacity for that kind of violence” might be unique to a handful of states that can project force globally. That does not somehow mean that other states are not intrinsically, fundamentally, pervasively violent.
@HeavenlyPossum @neonsnake this is only true because you in part define a state as violent. Which might be appropriate, but it's not the definition I am used too.
The state is not violent because I define it that way; “the state” is a name we give to an intrinsically violent social form.
This isn’t a “he said, she said” situation. There are these things out there, these socio-political institutions of elite rule through violence, and the name we give them is “the state.”
@HeavenlyPossum @neonsnake language is restrictive. By calling these organisations for violent, or evil, it becomes harder to see them as anything else.
I don't want to dismiss all acts of what we might traditionally call state's as violent before understanding what lead to those decisions being made, and the consequence they might have.
@ekg "By calling these organisations for violent [..] it becomes harder to see them as anything else."
Well, they aren't anything else. A state is literally defined by its successful claim of a monopoly on the legitimate use of violence within a given territory. That is what makes a state a state.
@31113 the state is in part defined by it's ability to call certain kind of violence legitimate. That doesn't mean it is violent.
An organisation that successfully called all violence illegal, would still be a state.
@ekg No, it does mean it is violent.
Every border, every law, every claim of private property is enforced by state violence or the threat of state violence. If your state has laws, lawmakers, courts, law enforcement, prisons, borders, it is violent. If it doesn't have any of those, by what metric is it a state?
You can say that you like or agree with certain uses of violence (like "any person who does x should go to prison") and you'll find plenty of people agreeing with you, after all political ideologies mostly just differ on who gets to do what kind of violence upon whom and for what reason, but you cannot deny that it is violence.
@31113 what you are describing isn't violence, but institution to manage violence. With the exception of prisons, that are inheritantly violent.
But law enforcement isn't, it can be done voluntarily.
@ekg Laws and borders are threats of state violence. Everyone creating a law or drawing a border, is issuing a threat of state violence. Every court judges which person is to be subjected to which kind and severity of state violence and police, prisons, military and border patrol enact state violence.
"But law *enforcement* isn't, it can be done *voluntarily*."
Say that again, but slowly. How do you force someone to do or not do something voluntarily?
Every definition of violence out there defines it as a use of force against someone or something else. Law enforcement is in every sense of the word literally, unavoidably, inherently violent.
@31113 empathy isn't violence. Asking people to mindful of others, one of the most common way to enforce laws, is entirely voluntary. You don't have to listen to the advice.
My mom spoke about how she used this approach with kinder gardeners, literally sitting them down in a cirkel and asking how should we treat each other. Obviously with a lot of guidance.
@ekg @31113 Ok, let's see if I can make sense in a kind way...
Laws are not founded on empathy. Asking people to be kind to each other by following the law is asking people to act in a way that keeps you from sicking the state unto them.That is, you are trying to resolve a conflict *without* involving the state, outside of state supervision. When the state involves itself, the parties are brought into a court by police officers, and the parties are threatened with *punishments* if they don't comply with the state's orders.
You see the violence of the state when a person doesn't want to follow the "rules". The only option there is to force them to do that with some kind of deprivation
@ruakueqche @31113 I don't think toddlers think in those terms, nor do I think those that would hurt others do.
Reality is that crimes can be predicted and prevented with good policy. Many so called crimes are of necessity, you will never convince a starving mother not to steal food for her kids. Solution is TANIF Temporary Assistants for Needy Familys.
Their exist a small number of individuals that doesn't understand empathy, they are called psychopaths.
@ekg @31113 We agree on this point: most crimes are caused by necessity. The anarchist position is that necessity is mainly caused by domination and hierarchy in our society.
Another common point is that, if we guarantee the basics of life to everyone, then most crime will go away. So it would not be TANF so much as Permanent Access to all Human Needs, PAHN
@ruakueqche @31113 I never argued against support, I referred to support that already exist.
I support UBI but their exist no such thing I can refer to as most support programs are conditional. The world food program is probably the closet, but it's under funded.
