Of course violence is legal. Laws themselves carry no weight if they aren't backed by a credible threat of violence.

Violence by the state is legal. Violence otherwise tends not to be.

apothegm 37 minutes ago | parent | next [-]

Not all violence by the state is legal. In a properly functioning democracy, the state cannot carry out arbitrary violence with impunity, only that which is consistent with the powers granted to it by the constitution and laws written and passed in accordance with that constitution. That was the case in the US for long stretches of its existence.

But under an authoritarian regime, it doesn’t matter whether what the state does runs contrary to statute or constitution because there is no one who has both the will and the ability to enforce any restrictions against the state.

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3 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

[deleted]

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yfw 4 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

See ICE murders.

	▲	culi 3 hours ago \| parent \| next [-]
		that's violence by the state though. That's exactly the kind of violence GP said are legal (in my reading, no moral stance was taken about this state of matters)
	▲	krapp 4 hours ago \| parent \| prev [-]
		Or American police in general.