Government as coercision and violence.

[Razgovory]

Last week I an interesting discussion on Facebook with a libertarian (at least I think he was libertarian.  He decried Democracy as a mob rule and used Bitcoin as an avatar so he was somewhere on the libertarian spectrum. Perhaps he was more Rothbardian  then anything else, but whatever.).  He was a friend of of TES, so I didn't know him personally.  I shocked him by saying that government is coercion and legal violence and that isn't a bad thing.  The state uses violence against people who break laws, typically by imprisoning them, and the threat that violence is used to keep order.  I claimed that "deterrence" is just a form of coercion.  He responded that if this was true police would be coercing people at all times, which I said is true.  People who want to engage in unlawful activities are less likely to do so when a cop is looking straight at that.  Their actions are being altered by the implicit threats of violence thus is a form of coercion.

Now while I simplify a bit, and admit I'm not a legal scholar like Grumber, I wonder what the rest of you thought.  Was I basically correct or dead wrong?

[Caliga]

It is the government's job to maintain order (among other things) and violence or the threat of violence is one tool by which to maintain that order, yes.

I agree with the other dude that democracy is mob rule which is why I'm glad we don't live in a democracy.

[Valmy]

I think you are basically right and at the end of the day human civilization requires coercion and violence to some extent for it to exist.  As somebody smart once said 'if all men were angels there would be no need for government'.

[Valmy]

It is the government's job to maintain order (among other things) and violence or the threat of violence is one tool by which to maintain that order, yes.

I agree with the other dude that democracy is mob rule which is why I'm glad we don't live in a democracy.

We live in a Democracy by the modern definition but not by the 18th century definition. 

[Ideologue]

I think you're right.  Force is the fundamental basis of all jurisprudence.  The best-reasoned laws and judicial decisions are nothing but words without the will and power to make them reality.

That said, democratic structures, welfare states, and other activities that legitimize the government on external moral grounds reduce the need for force.

If your pseudo-friend believes this isn't the case, he isn't a libertarian--even they believe in compulsion to a certain extent, namely to enforce contracts and to prevent theft--he's an anarchist.

[Admiral Yi]

That said, democratic structures, welfare states, and other activities that legitimize the government on external moral grounds reduce the need for force.

[Ideologue]

[Admiral Yi]

Free money legitimizes government?  Really?

[grumbler]

We live in a Democracy by the modern definition but not by the 18th century definition.

We live in a democracy by the 18th century definition, as well.  Some 18th C philisophes distrusted democracy, but they would recognize all modern western states as democracies (rule by the people).

We just don't live, by and large, in direct democracies. 

[grumbler]

Free money legitimizes government?  Really?

Really?  "Free money?"  Who is arguing that "free money legitimizes government?"

[Ideologue]

Free money legitimizes government?  Really?

Programs which suggest the government doesn't want people to starve in the street legitimizes government, yes.

[Ed Anger]

I only buy Dogecoins.

[Drakken]

Last week I an interesting discussion on Facebook with a libertarian (at least I think he was libertarian.  He decried Democracy as a mob rule and used Bitcoin as an avatar so he was somewhere on the libertarian spectrum. Perhaps he was more Rothbardian  then anything else, but whatever.).  He was a friend of of TES, so I didn't know him personally.  I shocked him by saying that government is coercion and legal violence and that isn't a bad thing.  The state uses violence against people who break laws, typically by imprisoning them, and the threat that violence is used to keep order.  I claimed that "deterrence" is just a form of coercion.  He responded that if this was true police would be coercing people at all times, which I said is true.  People who want to engage in unlawful activities are less likely to do so when a cop is looking straight at that.  Their actions are being altered by the implicit threats of violence thus is a form of coercion.

Now while I simplify a bit, and admit I'm not a legal scholar like Grumber, I wonder what the rest of you thought.  Was I basically correct or dead wrong?

You are basically correct.

The police coerces people all the time, just by being there. The mere fact that you and I, even though we are doing nothing wrong, have to stop if a policeman orders us to do so, is an expression of coercion: if we don't we'll have the law thrown down our ass. That said, we do have rights and policemen have limitations on that use of coercion. For instance, we can leave at any time, if we are stopped by the said policeman, as soon as he is forced to recognize one way or another that he has no grounds for detaining us.

At its core, the modern State is the expression of a monopoly on legitimate violence in a given society; in political science this is the minimalist definition of a 'modern State'. As it exists since the Early Modern Era, it deprives other factions, bodies, or people outside of its control of legally using violence or coercion against its fellow men without being accountable for it. If it hadn't to, society would return to a multipolar system of powers akind to the Middle-Ages, and presumably to a Hobbesian, 'man is a wolf for other men' world, a sort of thuggish turf war because legitimate violence would be spreaded among several parallel, independent, and presumably competitive actors that would use violence or the threat of for self-interested aims.

[Drakken]

I think you're right.  Force is the fundamental basis of all jurisprudence.  The best-reasoned laws and judicial decisions are nothing but words without the will and power to make them reality.

Otto von Bismarck, Adolf Hitler, and Hans Morgenthau would all agree with you. 

[Ideologue]

So would John Marshall, Andrew Jackson and all those poor fuckers the latter sent to Oklahoma.

Edit: I think I misremembered or never learned something in the first place.