the state maintains that this is a moral and legitimate use of force: that it has the authority to do this.
I don’t necessarily agree with “moral”. In western democracies laws and use of force doesn’t legitimize itself by a call to morality usually. Just using some kind of authority, doesn’t make a government authoritarian by any common definition of the word.
I don’t necessarily agree with “moral”. In western democracies laws and use of force doesn’t legitimize itself by a call to morality usually. Just using some kind of authority, doesn’t make a government authoritarian by any common definition of the word.
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Yes, but very indirectly. We don’t have a “moral police”, but one that enforces laws which are, as you say, legitimized by the people as a sovereign.
So you don’t see police stopping people on “moral grounds” in some vague interpretation.
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