Lew: The city declared, afterwards, that “the conduct of the police officers was appropriate under the circumstances.” The city had no other choice in the matter. Government is defined as “an institution with a monopoly on the use of violence within a given territory.” As such, to suggest that political systems are subject to some higher standard than whatever government officials want to do, is a denial of this monopoly; it is to suggest what would be fatal to every state system: that there are limits to their authority. This is why the United States will never prosecute members of the Bush administration for war crimes: successive administrations – and congress – want to hang onto the propositions central to Bush’s regime, namely (1) “I am the decider,” and (2) “the constitution is just a damned piece of paper.” In the end, the state always ends up confirming Anthony de Jasay’s observation that there is nothing to prevent any sizeable number of people from doing whatever they want to do.

The Best of Butler Shaffer