• Hegar@fedia.io
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    1 day ago

    Bearing arms against it’s citizens is literally the entire point of a government. The state is just a monopoly on the legitimate use of violence. The only time a government is not bearing arms against it’s citizens is when the threat of bearing arms against it’s citizens is enough to get what it wants.

    • starlinguk@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      The point of a government is looking after its citizens.

      I’m socialist that way. Although, am I? Even in the middle ages when a lord didn’t look after his people he was in deep shit.

    • Mortoc@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      What a hopeless take. A governments role is literally to do things that individuals can’t - roads, schools, moon landings, etc.

      Use of force against its own people is self harm and should not be something a government does.

      • chicken@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        22 hours ago

        It’s not quite the same thing as deploying soldiers against protesters, but technically all of those things are done ultimately through the use of coercive and violent force. Don’t want to go to school? Your parents will make you, because if they don’t they could be imprisoned. Slightly inconvenience drivers by walking across a busy street not at a crosswalk? Could be fined or arrested for jaywalking. Pose a hazard to rocket launches by flying a makeshift aircraft in federal airspace with no flight plan? You know the drill. That’s not to mention the funding for all those things, the violence inherent in which doesn’t stop at taxes, but also is a central factor in maintaining the value of a currency in a variety of different ways.

      • Hegar@fedia.io
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        20 hours ago

        Securing the resources to spend on communal projects that benefit the state is one of the many reasons that state employs violence against its citizens, yep.

        Roads are a great example because across the world, major road projects were always built to speed up the military getting to and putting down rebellious provinces - bearing arms against their subjects.

        All states are instruments of violence, that’s their sole function. Anything they do that makes our lives easier is just the velvet glove over that iron fist. It’s easy to pretend otherwise when the state hasn’t turned its violence on you yet.