[hayst4ck]

A police officer is a position of power. In many parts of the world, someone in this position of power will use that power to acquire resources via bribes or extortion. This person with authority of the state has a right to violence that you do not have. This person has determined they have a right to your money and a "justification" (The law of nature: I have more power) to take it.

If you give the money there is no 'harm,' yet you have been harmed with the threat of violence. If you need that money to feed yourself or get medical care for your child, it might literally result in death.

If you fight the police officer, others will come after you. If you gather your friends to fight the police officers, you have now subverted the government, created your own government (because you are now an agent of enforcement of your own set of "laws"), and now started a very small scale war (revolution) out of your desire to not be harmed.

If you don't think people would self enrich at the cost of others, I have some very bad news for you. Just because a person hasn't been physically damaged, doesn't mean they haven't been harmed.

If there was a button that gave you a million dollars but would kill a person you have never met, I think you vastly underestimate the number of people who would press it, and those that do press it, would probably be happy to press it many times.

The way you use the word harm is what prevents you from making sense of the problem.

Confusion is not the result of understanding. Sadness is.

[dredmorbius]

The state's monopoly, qua Max Weber, is on the claim to the legitimate use of violence. That is, the right and legitimacy of that right, is restricted to the state, or an entity acting in the effective capacity of a state, whatever it happens to call itself.

Absent this, one of three conditions exist;

1. There is no monopoly. In which case violence is widespread, and there is no state.

2. There is no legitimacy. In which case violence is capricious. This is your condition of tyranny (unaccountable power).

3. Some non-state power or agent assumes the monopoly on legitimate violence. In which case it becomes, by definition The State.

The state's claim is to legitimacy. A capricious exercise would be an abrogation of legitimacy

Weber, Max (1978). Roth, Guenther; Wittich, Claus (eds.). Economy and Society. Berkeley: U. California Press. p. 54.

<https://archive.org/details/economysociety00webe/page/54/mod...>

There's an excellent explanation of the common misunderstanding in this episode of the Talking Politics podcast: <https://play.acast.com/s/history-of-ideas/weberonleadership>

The misleading and abbreviated form that's frequently found online seems to have originated with Rothbard in the 1960s, and was further popularised by Nozick in the 1970s. It's now falsely accepted as a truth when in fact it is a gross misrepresentation and obscures the core principles Weber advanced.

In your comment, what you confuse is capacity for violence (inherent in all actors, state, individual, corporate, or non-governmental institutional, with numerous extant examples of each) with the Weberian definition of a monopoly on the legitimate claim to violence. In practice, enacting violence on virtually any actor will engender some counterveiling response, though the effectiveness will vary greatly depending on the comparative power and/or disinhibition of the entity responding.

[systemvoltage]

We grant government the monopoly of violence in return for protecting individual rights. That's the idea.

[blaser-waffle]

We don't grant a government the monopoly of violence -- they are the government because they hold the monopoly of violence.

The monopoly of violence is disconnected from issues of legitimacy and authority. You don't have to agree with the government, and plenty of folks don't -- hence insurgencies and rebellions all over the world. But unless you can usurp that monopoly of violence from the existing government your feelings about their legitimacy and authority are moot. Lots of governments don't give a damn about your rights, and never will.

[pharke]

> all over the world

> Lots of governments

It seems like you're misconstruing what the other person said to be a general statement about all governments when it is only applicable to democratically elected ones. Yes, you can disagree with the government but that doesn't mean they are in the wrong if they have the support of the majority of the population. If you don't like something about your government then vote, either with a ballot or with your feet.

[systemvoltage]

You have a very contrived and negative view towards Police and government. While it is good to have skepticism of powerful structures, it is also important to see the facts. Most police officers are courteous, professional and protect citizens (and their rights).

[hayst4ck]

I don't think you are skeptic enough about police officers. While most fit that description, most will also cover for officers who are being unethical rather than uphold the law themselves. I've run into (American) people who have quit the force they were a part of because they stated it was just too corrupt. That means there is a culture problem which is more than just a couple bad police officers. When a police officer does something bad, that's one cop being bad, but when a police officer is bad and the department doesn't do a good faith investigation and protects them, that is ACAB.

There was national civil unrest over police not holding themselves accountable. Some cases are clearly rotten and only get justice due to national coverage. That would not happen if many departments were not rotten to the core. That isn't just the police officer, but their peers, their management, the DA, judges, etc who all play a part in preventing justice when a cop does something bad.

Some police forces in the US like in San Francisco don't seem able to perform their function at even a basic level. Other police departments like Seattle's have been subjected to a consent decree over use of force. Every friend I have who has used a bike in San Francisco has had at least one bike stolen. I've had 2 bikes stolen in that city, and 2 friends who had phones yanked out of their hands. All that and I've seen San Francisco cops ticketing jaywalkers. Half of the people I know in Seattle or San Francisco have had their car window smashed at least once, mines been smashed twice. I had a bike stolen, which required breaking and entering to get, for which there was video, for which the cop knew who the perpetrator was, and yet I did not get my bike back, nor did I hear of any prosecution taking place.

Police themselves have often flown a thin blue line flag, further separating the idea of us (the thin blue line) and them ("civilians"). Us vs them is a clear culture problem.

Add to that that police forces seek out tech like drones and stingrays (electronic surveillance), deals with corporations to attain data that would otherwise require a warrant, and frequently use chemical weapons...

That's all barely touching on differential ethnic enforcement or crack downs on labor.

Then the very top of our justice system has declared war on stare decisis which is the death of supreme court legitimacy. Civil asset forfeiture and qualified immunity? Laws that cities within 100 miles of a coast don't have specific constitutional protections. For profit prisons? Police unions?

Police in America will unapologetically ruin your life over drugs or alcohol, but in other countries they take you home.

I don't feel safe around American cops, but I've been in countries where I feel safer around cops.

Cops identifying with the dirty cop rather than their victims tells you everything you need to know.

Until I see cops angry that cops aren't being held accountable and the thin blue line flag go away, I will continue to feel righteously skeptic.

[systemvoltage]

My experience and every person I know who has had positive experience with police in America. This is a progressive narrative to destroy law and order and institute a desolate, dystopian and rotting policies that we see in cities like LA and SF. I am sorry, I don't buy your narrative or the mainstream progressive one.

[hayst4ck]

To a liberal person, this response just reads like someone with privilege.

You're telling me that that I have an agenda meant to destroy law and order so I can live in a desolate dystopia (not even bothering to try to create a good faith explanation for why I believe what I believe), while I think you are a hapless victim of conservative media incapable of critically thinking, failing to understand that you are not supporting policy that is in your own best interest.

I wish it were possible to see eye to eye or understand each other, but clearly the schism between us is too great.

The irony is you believe I am under a delusion, and I believe you are under a delusion, and our opinions are irreconcilable. The end result (scaled across the population) can only be uneasy peace and a completely dysfunctional government or Civil War II and a balkanized America.

If you had read my post rather than jumping straight to "ridiculous liberal person," you'd see I've lived in SF and am quite unhappy with the policing there. So your assertion that I want to create an SF like environment doesn't make a lot of sense when I am simultaneously complaining about the SF environment.

[dTal]

>If there was a button that gave you a million dollars but would kill a person you have never met, I think you vastly underestimate the number of people who would press it, and those that do press it, would probably be happy to press it many times.

I have heard this thought experiment strikingly followed up with "Jeff Bezos is effectively a man who has built a machine to push the button as fast as is physically possible."