This is a sample of a premium episode. Sign up to listen to the entire episode. patreon.com/wetwired Cops, laws, prisons, and the military are political violence. Crackdowns on strikers and protesters are political violence. Poverty, hunger, and crime are all political violence. The state's will is not enforced with good vibes and polite suggestions. Its defining feature is its monopoly of violence within its borders. “Political violence” as seen on TV just lacks state sanction and operates outside the monopoly of violence of the state. The state’s policies may be determined without violent force, which is where liberals and conservatives can superficially separate themselves from political violence, by confining the term to the extracurricular activities of non-state actors.  “There is no place for violence,” and “violence is never the answer,” aren’t aphorisms from pacifist monks, sweeping the ground as they walk to save the lives of would-be squashed bugs. It’s only the pejorative “political violence” when it’s not blessed by the state and the ideology of the speaker. This framing obscures the role of violence in all political activity. It may not be outright dishonesty or hypocrisy when talking heads and heads of state are clutching their pearls after some kind of public violence, it’s just a terrible model of reality that confuses how violence is really valued in a liberal democracy. There’s an Irish aphorism, “Is minic a bhris béal duine a shorn.” Many a time a man's mouth broke his nose. Anyway, Charlie Kirk got shot last week.