Topic: Counter to "Why Bitcoin is dropping ...buying." AMA format / doomsday debunked (Read 5604 times)

You got that backwards.  The people granted the the state the right to use violence.  Lrn 2 history, lrn 2 civilized society, lrn 2 civilization


"Defining characteristic" means just that--a characteristic that defines the term.  I live in a state which does not have a monopoly on violence, allowing me to defend my person (and, in many states, property) with violence.

The people have given their states similar rights.
When you try to steal from the state, as you admitted to doing by taking the taxpayer's money and wasting it, the state defends itself by putting your ass in jail.  If, at the time the party van arrives at your door to take you to jail, you chose to use violence against the jackbooted thugs, the jackbooted thugs have been granted the right to use violence on you.  Fair's fair
What is it that you still don't understand?

Of course.  It is delegated.  Because you can do that in the USA because thet violence monopolist there allows you to do so.  If you do that in most European countries, you are facing 20 years of tjail or something.  So the end decider is the one with the biggest gun: the violence monopolist.  The state makes the rules, also those that tell who may use violence in what circumstances.

Power comes out of the barrel of a gun.  The state is the ultimate power after all.  It can take all belongings.  It can put you in a cage.  It can decide by what rules people have to live.  Modern states have mechanisms where this decision process is somewhat diffused amongstte several decision makers, which themselves have to get elective mandates and so on, and that makes that a modern state has more difficulties in applying directly, immediately and totally arbitrarily any measures according to his whims, than its absolute predecessors.  Which is a good thing.  There is some friction and some brakes put on the modern state's ways to extort and exploit its country, as compared to its absolute predecessors.  But it only goes slower and more subtler, the nature of the beast doesn't change: a wasteful elite messing around with other people's efforts and imposing their pet rules on people.


What part of "the defining characteristic" don't you understand ?

Imagine that I define a ball as the 3-dimensional object with the highest volume-to-surface ratio.
Now you can look up "ball" on wiki and not find any reference to volume or surface there, but rather something with a radius and so on.
That doesn't make my definition "insane".  It is a perfectly coherent way to define "ball" that way.  It might be an original view. 
However, if Britannica gives "violence monopoly" as the DEFINING CHARACTERISTIC of the modern state, then I would think that it is not totally insane to use that as a definition for "state" even if you find another definition on Wiki, right ?

Yes.  Did you read that if you break into my house, I can take my gun and legally cap your ass?  Do you not consider that violence?

Further, you have once again given me a link to "monopoly on violence.  That's the definition of Monopoly On Violence, not the definition of "state"

Read "the defining characteristic of the modern state" in Britannica ?

Gah!

I have given you the disambiguation link to "state," here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State
Not a single instance of the word "violence."
Here is the definition of what I think you mean when you say "state," "sovereign state," here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sovereign_state
Again, not a single instance of the word "violence."
Those are the definitions of "state."
It is further conceivable to have a state which does not have a monopoly on violence.  Such as a sovereign state where one could protect his person and/or property by violent means.
Or where one could get bitchslapped by persons other than a member of teh ruling elite.

How is it you still claim that state "the state's the violence monopolist (by definition)"?

I accepted that that was not a sufficient proof of MY statement, which is why I completed it with a university paper.
However, it was absolutely no indication of YOUR statement (that any such definition would be insane).

I will even add another one:
Britannica:

http://global.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/1916738/state-monopoly-on-violence


Insane, right.

No.
You tried to establish that state=violence, "by definition."
You quoted Weber's page on wikip to validate them lulz.
I pointed out that the wikip page you have linked is not the definition of "state," but Max Weber's  definition of "Monopoly on violence."
I further pointed out that wikip psge does not validate, but merely delineates Max Weber's view on the subject.

I'm not trying to prove that Weber's a nut, merely that having a page on wikip doesn't preclude his being a nutter.
Why is this so difficult 4u to grasp?

Still catching my breath after reading just a portion of this debate!  Page six was delightful.  So was Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche right?

You still fail in your logic.  No matter how much analogy you can find with flat earth, that is no proof that Weber's ideas are as insane as flat earth, which is YOUR statement, namely that any definition that equates the state to the violence monopolist is insane.

You have not given one single inch of a proof.

If everything with a wiki page on it, and other sources on it, is then an insane idea because flat earth also has a wiki page and other sources, then the only things that are not insane have no sources and no wiki page on them :-)

However, my question was: do you find many recent UNIVERSITY PAPERS trying to poke holes in the "flat earth theory" ?

And if you do so, does that mean that everything on which a university paper is written, is also an insane idea ?

So now I come to you, and ask you what is then YOUR definition of "state" ?  And puleeze, no wiki pages, no other sources, and no university papers, because that is also the case with flat earth :-)

Lol, so you think more sources & modern examples=not insane?
Here, buddy: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modern_flat_Earth_societies
Elaborately annotated

Batshit crazy is batshit crazy

Again, your logic is flawed.  

My statement was: the definition of the state is the violence monopolist.

Your statement was that such is not a sane definition of the concept of state.

I pointed you to a Wiki page indicating that that was Weber's definition since 1919.

You said that there are also Wiki pages on flat earth, so it is not because there's a wiki page that that proves its validity.  Now, that argument would hold if *the only source* of Weber's definition were a wiki page.  However, I next showed you a university study of 2009, where Weber's definition is taken as the standard view on "state" and then this was challenged in international context, where a state is not "sole source of violence".

So although you are right that JUST the existence of a wiki page on a concept doesn't prove that that concept is the actually accepted standard, it certainly doesn't prove the opposite (which is your claim: namely that that definition is INSANE by any standard).  Moreover, giving you OTHER sources (such as a university study from 2009) where the same view taken as the standard view is challenged, is rather a proof that that view is NOT generally considered insane.

So in the end, you consider it demonstrated that Weber's view is an insane because there's a wiki page on it, even if it is hotly debated in recent university papers.

Even your flawed logic of "there are examples of insane ideas that satisfy your proofs, hence the concept you are talking about must also be insane" which is by itself flawed, doesn't even hold.

Your analogy between "there's a wiki page on Weber's definition" - yes but there's also a wiki page on Flat earth, so everything with a wiki page on it is just as insane as Flat earth

doesn't even work for "there are hotly debated university papers on it recently", which is why I raised the question of where are the hotly debated papers of recent origin fighting the flat earth hypothesis.

Guys.. you cannot go to jail for failure to pay taxes.. we don't have debtor's prison here like they did in Europe hundreds of years ago lol

If you don't lie, file taxes but cannot or do not pay, then you will not go to jail.  They can garnish wages and what not but you cannot go to jail.  This is a fact, not something that can be argued.

I'm going out of town for about 10 days but will checkin on thread once I get back!

No.
You tried to suggest that state=violence, by definition, by citing a wikip page on Max Weber.
I pointed out that the existence of such a page does not validate Max Weber's views any more than the Flat Earth page validates the notion that the Earth is flat.
That's all.  Simply pointing out the flaws in your thinking--not trying to prove that Flat Earth is a hotly debated topic

Alright.  http://www.wulf-herbert.de/ACPACS-occ-paper9.pdf

Now, try to find other university studies after 2000 which bother trying to show that the earth is not flat :-)

To go more into detail: assuming - as you try to do - that Weber's definition of the state as violence monopolist is "not a sane definition" and is äs ridiculous as flat earth theory" no university would even argue against that position, if it were so generally accepted as unsane, no ?

So the very fact that a university study tries to counter this view in 2009, means that it has at least some elements of sanity to it.  Otherwise, nobody would bother writing a paper against it in 2009, no ?  And even there, Weber's view as the STANDARD view on a state is accepted.

So again, your logic fails terribly.

Not at all, my young friend.  Wikipedia also has a page on Flat Earth, here:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flat_Earth .
This by no means implies that the Earth is flat, or that it is sane to continue believing that it is.
It merely means that once upon a time, there were people who thought that the Earth was flat.  And that to this day, there are batshit crazies who contend that it is.
So now you know

Again, your logic fails on you.  Your claim was that the statement "the state is the violence monopolist" is NOT "any sane definition".

I gave you one:

Now, this is the definition of a state as the violence monopolist by Weber in 1919.  I can presume that if that definition is taken over on wiki about 100 years later, it must have some elements of sanity to it.

By which your statement that no such sane definition exists, is contradicted.  QED.

BTW, don't try to take me on logic.  I have a very high degree of Spock in me :-)

Lol, that's Max Weber's  definition of "Monopoly on violence."  For the definition of "state," start with disambiguation here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State
It is you who wished to grant the state such monopoly--to enforce your exclusive right to land that was neither yours nor the state's.


I'm afraid we've reached an impasse.  You continue insisting that you're a little tea pot, short and stout, even after I've pointed out you have neither a handle nor a spout

It is.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monopoly_on_violence


Not by any logic.

>the state's the violence monopolist (by definition).
No.  Or, rather, not by any sane definition.

>you are relatively cheering for taxes.
No.  I am pointing out that your arguments are intrinsically flawed.

It is, but the government itself was not responsible for that force so no laws need to be on the books. That's the ticket! Shirking responsibility since 1776. This is how the US gets around a lot of shit like this: third-party van parties.