re: #358 Obdicut

Why do you keep bringing in the analogy of war? Why do you think that’s relevant? Do you think you could defend the police shelling an apartment complex with the excuse of “Well, there was a murderer there, so it’s justified”?

Is this a literal shelling, with actual artillery?

All kidding aside, the maintenance of law and order within a region is gthe internal analogue of the defense of the nation-state beyond its borders. In both cases, it is the distinction between the permissible and the inpermissible, the friend and the enemy.

You see, the element of crime, especially homicide, destroys the internal cohesion of the state by attacking the state at its most fundamental unit - the individual. Given that the individual may be required to give his or her life for the defense of the commonweal, it is not unreasonable to expect, as a term of such a theoretical sacrifice, that the state be willing to exact a similar price in the event of that individual’s loss through the malicious act of another.