State terrorism is a contradiction in terms. Legally, terrorism is violence carried out by a group that is not recognized as a state internationally. States cannot do terrorism, the term exists to protect their monopoly on legal violence. George Washington was a terrorist until the British empire recognized and began doing business with the constitutional United States. We see a similar change occurring with Taliban members and the present government of Afghanistan.
More importantly, though. You claim liberal democracy is fundamentally incompatible with authoritarianism, yet if we dig into the present and recent past of the United States, we find policies that match the list you have provided.
The Lavender Scare and Hoover’s FBI, the Red Scare and COINTELPRO, the police response to Kent State anti-war protests in 1970, the police response Columbia’s anti-genocide protests last year, the ongoing existence of privately run labor camps and prison farms.
lmmarsano@lemmynsfw.com 1 day ago
Nope
The violations mentioned before are illegitimate exertions of authority to repress inherent human rights & liberties. Legal authority isn’t always legitimate authority. Violence against nonviolent dissidents (for political/ideological aims) is unjust.
Nope, reread:
I don’t know about labor camps, but none of that has any bearing on a moral & political philosophy.
Moreover, the fact we know it & discuss it openly puts that government far beyond repressive governments that suppress & deny their failures ever happen.
Like all governments, liberal democratic governments lapse into illegitimate authority. More importantly, however, they correct their lapses due to the people exercising their inherent liberties to induce reforms. That’s the design lacking from authoritarian governments like communist states: transparency & accountability to the people exercising their liberties to induce reform. Nothing short of a revolution or dissolution keeps communist states accountable to the people: they repress such liberties & send critics to labor camps as anti-revolutionaries.