Obama Makes a Startling Admission!!!

[BuddyRey]

Bear with it for a minute, because he makes an incredible statement at the very end of the video. I can't believe he just came right out and said this!!! :eek:

YouTube - Barack Obama tells the....truth! (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yOZI1jSJW2Y&feature=sub)

[BuddyRey]

Anybody else think this is an extraordinary statement coming from a U.S. President, or is it just me?

[BenIsForRon]

I don't see the problem. We set up the state in the constitution to carry out defense and law enforcement. No other organization can legally enforce the law, or carry out national defense (at least until recently). So yes, I think the state monopoly on violence is sanctioned in the constitution.

[tremendoustie]

Anybody else think this is an extraordinary statement coming from a U.S. President, or is it just me?

Yeah, the first time I heard this, I was startled too. Score one point for those arguing many in government are evil, and not just ignorant.

[tremendoustie]

I don't see the problem. We set up the state in the constitution to carry out defense and law enforcement. No other organization can legally enforce the law, or carry out national defense (at least until recently). So yes, I think the state monopoly on violence is sanctioned in the constitution.

Don't you see a problem with this? If we're talking about aggressive violence, isn't that immoral? And if we're talking about defensive violence, shouldn't everyone have a right to defend themselves and innocents?

This one organization will use violence against anyone who would try to do the same things the organization itself does every day.

How could what is immoral for anyone else, be moral for this particular group of people? Is this not implicitly contradictory with the notion of equal human rights, and consistent moral principles? If their behavior is moral, they should not prevent others from behaving in the same way. If their behavior is immoral, they should not do it.

[BuddyRey]

Yeah, the first time I heard this, I was startled too. Score one point for those arguing many in government are evil, and not just ignorant.

Yeah, it definitely seems to lend additional credence to the idea that politicians aren't just 'well-meaning screw-ups" but people with a genuinely megalomaniacal drive for power.

[BenIsForRon]

Basically I was saying that in general, we're supposed to leave law enforcement up to the police, and defense up to the military. Keyword: supposed to. Of course, both military and law enforcement have stepped outside of their constitutional bounds.

On the subject Obama is discussing, if we're going to be battling the Taliban in where ever, that should be done exclusively by the US and NATO troops. Private military contractors are part of for profit corporations, and should have no place in combat related to the foreign policy of the United States. No one else should be able to participate in that violence, unless some militia really feels like paying their own way to go over there.

[BuddyRey]

Shameless self-bump!

[noxagol]

I don't see the problem. We set up the state in the constitution to carry out defense and law enforcement. No other organization can legally enforce the law, or carry out national defense (at least until recently). So yes, I think the state monopoly on violence is sanctioned in the constitution.

That piece of paper can go to hell. It is precisely that monopoly on violence that allows governments to become tyranical. A contract is useless if one side of a party can't enforce the terms, which is precisely what the constitution does. It gives ZERO REAL recourse for the people, or a subset of the people.

The constitution is a sham.

[STAND-or-fall]

Actually Nox, The Constitution DOES in fact give us remedy andd recourse. Go back and read the second amendment again.

[fisharmor]

Yeah, it gives us three remedies... the soap box, the ballot box, and the cartridge box.
Whether they were ever really effective is another question.

[RCA]

OP, please type a brief summation of what Obama said. I have a slow internet connection at work. Thanks.

[BuddyRey]

OP, please type a brief summation of what Obama said. I have a slow internet connection at work. Thanks.

He said that he disagrees with private contractors being used to fight foreign wars (on which he and I are in agreement), but then slipped up by admitting that what separates them (private entities) from nation-states is that the latter has "the monopoly on violence."

[tremendoustie]

"I think you are privatizing something that is essentially what sets a nation state apart, which is the monopoly on violence"

[nandnor]

nvm

[RCA]

He said that he disagrees with private contractors being used to fight foreign wars (on which he and I are in agreement), but then slipped up by admitting that what separates them (private entities) from nation-states is that the latter has "the monopoly on violence."

Thanks!

[BuddyRey]

Looks like Obama's been reading some Rothbard.. Perhaps he's a closet an-cap?

How cool would that be, if Obama really turned out to be a Rothbardian 'double-agent" who was playing up to the elites just long enough to crash their system? There's no way it's true, but that would make a kickass political novel or piece of libertarian fan fiction! :D

[nandnor]

nvm

[BuddyRey]

Why? Blackwater does way more bang for buck than the public army

Yes, but they're being used to fight immoral wars for the state, not actually in competition with it. Plus, they've killed a lot of innocent people.

[TinCanToNA]

Yeah, the first time I heard this, I was startled too. Score one point for those arguing many in government are evil, and not just ignorant.

Not sure I follow what you're saying. That violence is linked to evil? Because that would be pretty damn hard (read: impossible) to prove. If not that, then what?

[iddo]

Looks like Obama's been reading some Rothbard.. Perhaps he's a closet an-cap?

No, he learned it from his Marxist professors... Obama is quoting Max Weber, who said that irreducible property of the state is a monopoly on the legitimate use of violence.

[Bruehound]

I've heard this from him before and all he is doing is simply using that specific phrase to try to give the impression that he has intellectually considered that philosophy but his elitist/marxist ideology has convinced him as long as the correct people control the levers it is okay.

Some animals are more equal than others, I guess.

[erowe1]

Actually Nox, The Constitution DOES in fact give us remedy andd recourse. Go back and read the second amendment again.

No, the Constitution does not give us a remedy in the 2nd Amendment or anywhere else. The 2nd Amendment, even according to its own verbage, doesn't give us anything, but merely recognizes an already existing right that owes nothing whatsoever to the Constitution for its existence.

[erowe1]

Count me with those who see nothing the slightest bit surprising about this. What? Is it supposed to be a secret that the Constitution is not an anarchist document, and Obama accidentally let the cat out of the bag?

[Pericles]

I don't see the problem. We set up the state in the constitution to carry out defense and law enforcement. No other organization can legally enforce the law, or carry out national defense (at least until recently). So yes, I think the state monopoly on violence is sanctioned in the constitution.

Except for calling forth the militia - which can be done at any level, down to community defense.

[LibertyWorker]

in my opinion the goverment can do nothing without first using violence and intimidation.thats why everything it dose is immoral.

[jmdrake]

Anybody else think this is an extraordinary statement coming from a U.S. President, or is it just me?

I seem to recall someone in the Bush administration talking about the need for the PLO to have a "monopoly on violence" in the occupied territory or the "government" of Iraq to have a "monopoly on violence". This is the first time I've heard that term applied directly to the U.S.

[Anti Federalist]

He said that he disagrees with private contractors being used to fight foreign wars (on which he and I are in agreement), but then slipped up by admitting that what separates them (private entities) from nation-states is that the latter has "the monopoly on violence."

I recall similar language in UN arms control policies, that private citizens with arms "threatens the legitimate power monopoly of the state".

[furface]

Obama has the ideological depth of an average high school Facebook group. No state has a legal monopoly on violence. Every state I can think of allows for some form of violence for immediate self defense. What Obama is talking about is a monopoly on aggression, i.e. either violence in response to non-violent behaviors or preemptive violence to counter future imagined violence.

[tropicangela]

Said the guy who accepted the Nobel Peace Prize.

[puppetmaster]

I recall similar language in UN arms control policies, that private citizens with arms "threatens the legitimate power monopoly of the state".

so true.....:)

[tremendoustie]

Not sure I follow what you're saying. That violence is linked to evil? Because that would be pretty damn hard (read: impossible) to prove. If not that, then what?

Aggressive violence is evil, and prohibiting others from using just defensive violence is also evil. If the government is enforcing a monopoly on violence, that means they are doing at least one of the two. Either they are reserving only for themselves acts which others have a right to do, or they are permitting to themselves acts which no one has a right to do.

In general, enforcing a monopoly for yourself by threat of violence, is evil. People are equal, and have equal rights, and liberties. Acts are not moral for certain individuals or groups, but not for others.

[tremendoustie]

No, the Constitution does not give us a remedy in the 2nd Amendment or anywhere else. The 2nd Amendment, even according to its own verbage, doesn't give us anything, but merely recognizes an already existing right that owes nothing whatsoever to the Constitution for its existence.

Exactly right.

[Anti Federalist]

aggressive violence is evil, and prohibiting others from using just defensive violence is also evil. If the government is enforcing a monopoly on violence, that means they are doing at least one of the two.

In general, enforcing a monopoly for yourself by threat of violence, is evil. People are equal, and have equal rights, and liberties. Acts are not moral for certain individuals or groups, but not for others.

qft

[mczerone]

The problem is that the government has no more right to use violence than you or I, namely as a proportionate defense against imminent harm. Because they monopolize the justice system however, they can excuse only their own aggressions, and not yours or mine.

For instance, I find the act of reading the NY Times to be 100 times more annoying and a million times more of a threat to the social welfare than the act of ingesting cannabis. But if I try to stop someone from doing the former, I'd be the criminal, while they excuse themselves from stopping and punishing the latter with their <i>claimed</i> monopoly of aggression.

Taxes are illegitimate if you or I try to collect them. They are just as illegitimate when the govt collects them, because the govt is just a group of people like us, but they accept the use of aggression to accomplish their goals, sometimes pointing to some incantations on parchment if that can act as their excuse.

[brandon]

Do us working folks a favor and type the statement out so we know wtf u are talking about. thanks :)

[BuddyRey]

Do us working folks a favor and type the statement out so we know wtf u are talking about. thanks :)

I think there's a description up there somewhere.

[tropicangela]

The statement:

"what essentially sets a nation-state apart (from the private sector), is a monopoly on violence."

I found these articles interesting.

Part I
http://www.examiner.com/examiner/x-17122-SF-Muslim-Examiner~y2010m1d4-My-political-agnosticism

Part II
http://www.examiner.com/x-17122-SF-Muslim-Examiner~y2010m1d7-A-monopoly-on-violence

[fj45lvr]

Basically I was saying that in general, we're supposed to leave law enforcement up to the police, and defense up to the military. .

That is totally false (maybe that's what the State wants of the people today but not the way things were and are legally). Albert Nock uses this as one example of people extinguishing their rightful excercise of power and letting the state's power increase when he wrote in 1935:

"Moreover, it follows that with any exercise of State power, not only the exercise of social power in the same direction, but the disposition to exercise it in that direction, tends to dwindle. Mayor Gaynor astonished the whole of New York when he pointed out to a correspondent who had been complaining about the inefficiency of the police, that any citizen has the right to arrest a malefactor and bring him before a magistrate. “The law of England and of this country,” he wrote, “has been very careful to confer no more right in that respect upon policemen and constables than it confers on every citizen.” State exercise of that right through a police force had gone on so steadily that not only were citizens indisposed to exercise it, but probably not one in ten thousand knew he had it."
as far as defense the feds keep a standing army but the states have their right to militia and each inidividuals duty as expressed in the Declaration to throw off tyrannical government (even their own).