@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.

@ekg @neonsnake

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.

@neonsnake @ekg

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.

@neonsnake @ekg

Not everything every state does is violent. But every state is, fundamentally and pervasively and continuously, violent. Violent in service of elite rule and exploitation.

I do not struggle to “see them as anything else” by correctly identifying and assessing the state.

@HeavenlyPossum @neonsnake okay, that doesn't mean that it doesn't makes it harder.

I truly want to give every subject as much benefit of the doubt as possible.