It's totally true that a constitution could declare the state is not capable of murder, and if the governed agree to that then it's not really unjust for the government to murder people. Yes. The idea is that people would not agree to that.
(That's in the political philosophy sense. You can argue that there's a universal moral sense above that and that's fine, but that's not what we're talking about when we're talking about the just-ness of government actions. It's totally possible to have a morally-wrong constitution, and it's on the governed to change it.)
The US government has this relationship with the murder of enemy combatants right now.
Re:Coinbase and the IRS
by lacampbell on Sunday January 15, 2017 @07:13PM
(#13407366)
That's in the political philosophy sense. You can argue that there's a universal moral sense above that and that's fine, but that's not what we're talking about when we're talking about the just-ness of government actions.
I am pretty sure people are talking in the philosophical sense when they say "taxation is theft". I don't know what it accomplishes to simply state "a democratic state has instituted it, therefore it's not a crime" - you could see how this would fall apart for other things we would consider crimes like murder.
Do you make the same argument for the death penalty? If it's legally sanctioned for the state to terminate a prisoners life, then it is morally OK too
Doesn't this line of thought lead to the rather unpleasant consequence that the state is incapable of murder? I mean by definition, a legally sanctioned state killing of a person or group of people cannot be extrajudicial.