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Comment by luckylion | Hacker News Reader

> Only the last step involves the threat or at the very end, the use of force.

The use of force is certainly the last step, but the threat of force is present at any step. If the government sends you a letter asking you to do something, they're not "asking" you like your neighbor or your friend might ask you. They are telling you to do something, and it's clear to everyone that, if you don't convince them or a court otherwise, they absolutely will use force if you don't comply.

I don't mind the monopoly on violence (though I do believe that the state must enforce it much more: it can absolutely not tolerate challenges to that monopoly, and it must absolutely crush any violence against citizens), but it's not helpful to pretend that, there isn't a gun at the end of the line that gives the nicely worded letter its weight.

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> but it's not helpful to pretend that, there isn't a gun at the end of the line that gives the nicely worded letter its weight.

I also believe that the monopoly on violence is the least worst option we have for not having a society at war with itself.

But it's also blindingly obvious that it is the backstop for everything, not just enforcing weapons bans, but even things as mundane as speed limits. When the sign says max speed 55mph, that's asking. When the highway patrol pulls you over to give you a ticket - that's fining you. If you don't stop and they need to run you off the road and arrest you - that's the violence stage.

It's also sitting there behind every right we enjoy in free societies. Everything from property rights to civil rights are backstopped by the monopoly on violence. However, that doesn't mean we bring the visceral threat of violence into every property or civil rights dispute.

Just as important as the underlying threat of the use of the monopoly on violence is the judicious and restrained use of it only in the cases where it truly is proportional to the situation it is facing. Otherwise we get situations like the murder of George Floyd for merely using a counterfeit bill for payment at a convenience store.

> When the sign says max speed 55mph, that's asking. When the highway patrol pulls you over to give you a ticket - that's fining you. If you don't stop and they need to run you off the road and arrest you - that's the violence stage.

The "asking" implied "we will give you a fine if you don't", and the fine implies "and we will come to your house and get you if you don't pay".

> However, that doesn't mean we bring the visceral threat of violence into every property or civil rights dispute.

Of course we do, we just do it via the state. I sue you with the knowledge that, if the court rules in my favor, the state will make you accept that ruling.

There is no pacifist society, and hiding the violence under a veil will do us no good. It's useful to be aware of reality, to know how the sausage is made, because it's much too easy to decide things if you close your eyes to these facts. Similar to starting a war that will not be fought by your children, deciding on a policy that will "ask" people to do something, adding "it's not like we're going to kick their door in..." is a problem: because that's exactly what is going to happen if they don't "voluntarily" comply. It's "hey, could you do me a favor? Please move your car, or else..."

> There is no pacifist society, and hiding the violence under a veil will do us no good

I never suggested hiding violence under a veil, or claimed that there is a pacifist society, and I agree that we would all do well to understand the concept of the monopoly of violence and how it is the least bad way we know of to backstop all the rights we enjoy.

What I said is that we shouldn't start the process of day-to-day law enforcement with the use of violence, unless the individual being apprehended is demonstrably violent or threatening to be violent. I'm talking about the actual procedure of law enforcement, not debating theories about pacifism.

Actual violence should be reserved as a last resort only, not just for unarmed black men like George Floyd, but even for the people who refuse to surrender illegal firearms. They should all be given a chance to comply with the law without escalating things to an actually dangerous situation.

And this needn't be a partisan issue by the way. Sen Rand Paul(R) has introduced legislation to ban no-knock warrants [1], which are prime example of how police often use violence upfront in circumstances that don't require it.

1. https://www.politico.com/news/2020/06/11/rand-paul-bill-end-...

> and the fine implies "and we will come to your house and get you if you don't pay".

Well, it depends. Maybe you've declared bankruptcy in the mean time, and the fine might be wiped out as a result. And if you're unwilling to declare bankruptcy, doesn't that mean you have some valuable property in your name? So the state is exerting violence on your behalf just as much, by enforcing your rights to that property.

> If you don't stop and they need to run you off the road and arrest you - we are at the violence stage.

If you're speeding and won't even stop when police tries to pull you over, you're putting other users of the road at severe risk. From those other users' POV, you were being violent to them, and running you off the road is the lesser evil.

> Everything from property rights to civil rights are backstopped by the monopoly on violence.

Even that is not so clear to me. ISTM that humans have an inherent desire to defend their possession of whatever they regard as their property, as well as the social standing ("civil rights") of people they care about - including by force. So even the basic government function of managing and enforcing property rights need not involve any initiation of violence, compared to the possibly-chaotic and unregulated violence that was already inherent in the basic notion of property, or civil standing/honor, or whatever.

> running you off the road is the lesser evil.

I think we're in agreement here: the use of violence must be proportional to the actual threat, so running you off the road is justified here. If we're not agreeing, then please explain what I'm missing.

You two are in agreement, but have different levels of trust in the government. One of you feels that the government will use proportional levels of violence to reduce the number of firearms in this country, and the other thinks the government won't. One of you is envisioning an Australian gun buyback, and the other is thinking Waco/Ruby Ridge.

Not at all. The government could fine you for having a gun. Don't pay the fine? Maybe it's the same as an unpaid parking ticket. Or they could ask you to hand it in if you have a license. Same thing occurs.

Or they could simply add a charge to your conviction if you shoot someone, because guns would be illegal.

Just because they're illegal doesn't suddenly mean they'll be taken by force. That is such a huge mental jump.

> Not at all. The government could fine you for having a gun.

What do you think happens when you don't pay that fine?

More fines? When not paid, confiscation of financial assets, deduction from your pay, loss of access to government benefits. There's a lot of ways to encourage compliance with the law without a sworn officer pointing a gun at you.

If you don't pay fines, if you don't pay the government-deemed-appropriate deductions on your paycheck, you will be arrested.

You will be jailed for whatever you want to want to call it -- contempt of court, tax fraud, whatever, but EOD, if you don't pay the cash, you end up in jail. And putting you in jail (if you do not wish to comply) will be armed police.

I don't understand how this is complicated.

Right, right, and if you don't comply, what happens? This feels like "hey, that's meat, you know where that comes from, right?" - "yeah, from the fridge" - "no, I mean, before that" - "The Supermarket?"

At some point you'd have to start understanding that not complying is the cause of your problems...

You're right, but I think it actually reinforces the OP's point.

How do you make the adamantly noncompliant comply? You can ask nicely, you can threaten, you can stomp your feet, and if that doesn't work...then what?

I hear you but... nothing. We can't force drug users to not own drugs. If you have a gun, keep it, don't comply, rebel! There's no need to force it from you. Forceful removing comes up a lot but gun control isn't about eradication, like polio!

The point about gun control is that it's not owning the gun, it's _using_ the gun. There'd be additional penalties if you shot someone!

>We can't force drug users to not own drugs

Sure you can, and we do all the time, we lock them in cages.

I have no idea what your point is. The monopoly of violence stands behind literally every law on the books. Going down the rabbit hole on the particular example of fines is missing the forest for the trees. If you have an issue with the monopoly on violence being behind ultimately behind the government fines, then you have an issue with organized society itself.

But we have a whole set of other measures - fines, penalties, negotiations, loss of benefits - and institutions to enforce them before ever calling upon the actual violence provided by the monopoly for a reason: so that most common societal infractions never need to escalate to the point of violence.

You're fighting against a lifetime of upbringing, indoctrination, redefinition of meanings and conditioning. It allows us humans to exist in a state where something as simple as "do not take from others" can be made so very different to "pay up or go to jail" just because.

The brain gets wired to accept and try make some sense of the contradictions , where there are none. That is why we argue about every single little thing in the public sphere: Because there is no base set of morals or axioms that we can use to derive more complex ones to address complex situations.

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