On May 12, 2013, at 4:54 AM, Bill Bartlett wrote:
>
> The very definition of the state in modern times is its monopoly on
> the use of force. A state which cannot achieve such a monopoly is
> pretty much a failed state.
>
> Not sure how to deal with anyone who doesn't accept that. Perhaps
> you believe that individuals should have the right to possess
> nuclear weapons as well? [Or Death Stars?]
The US, however, has always had the right of the *people* to be armed as both its basic law and living social practice. Every state, modern or ancient, claims the sole right to use violence for social purposes (the will of the property-owning class expressed through its hierarchical structures). And every revolutionary, Marxist or ancient, counterposes to that right the collective right of the people to resist violence violently.
Shane Mage "Thunderbolt steers all things." Herakleitos of Ephesos, fr. 64