A. Barton Hinkle: From Russia to America, Government Power Rests on Violence

“Ukrainian events have demonstrated,” writes
Maria Snegovaya in The New Republic, “that control of
violence is still at the very essence of the state.” She says
Vladimir Putin’s aggression proves that Max Weber’s definition of
the state—an entity with a monopoly on the legitimate use of
force—is still relevant, even though we in the West “tend to think
of the ‘monopoly on violence’ as a metaphor.”

We do? That would be news to the relatives of Kelly Thomas, a
homeless California man beaten to death last year by police
officers, who were later acquitted, writes A. Barton Hinkle. And to
the relatives of Amadou Diallo, an unarmed man who was shot to
death by New York City police officers (who were also acquitted).
It would be news to a lot of black and Hispanic men who have been
stopped and frisked in the streets of New York—or bent over the
hood of a squad car anywhere in America.

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