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Auros's avatar

"I, in my bones, do not recognize legitimacy, I see the banner of law as, of at most, pragmatic interest. Sometimes that pragmatic interest is strong -- we should aim to avoid civil war and the idea of legitimacy helps with that."

This statement is making my head hurt.

Because on the one hand, I agree that it is clearly possible for the State to "legalize" unjust actions that a moral person has a duty to resist / impede. So we can't say that it's a universal rule that one should submit to "legitimate" (legally-sanctioned) force.

On the other hand, the idea that the concept of the State's monopoly on the acceptable use of violence is merely a pragmatic convenience... Like, I agree that it is not a "first principle", you have to derive it _from_ the more general problem of liberalism -- agreeing to all share the world and not kill each other any time we have a disagreement about religion, who wants what bit of land, etc. But, "it's better to settle our differences by way of courts and voting, rather than murdering each other" is pretty damn close to a first principle. At most it's one step removed, flowing _directly_ from the idea that life is valuable and killing each other is bad.

I think where I come down is that I _do_ believe in the distinction of legitimate vs illegitimate violence. I just don't believe that _mere process_ can be what grants the color of legitimacy. The process can be corrupted in a way that removes the legitimacy of the state. Even if Congress votes for a law that says Donald Trump can order the National Guard to shoot protestors, and six Justices say, "Yep, our twisted reading of the Constitution agrees," we are still within our rights to disagree, and to obstruct or even fight back; and the moral obligation of the Guardsmen in question is to refuse the order.

Or, to put it more elegantly:

We hold these truths to be self-evident:

--That all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.

--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.

--That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it.

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Isaac King's avatar

Why aren't you responsible for deaths in the same way as Brian due to your choices not to donate the maximum amount of money you can?

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