I often have to use a phrase like this in arguments with impenetrable estatists:

“By supporting the state, you are initiating violence, including against me, therefore the Doctrine of Deterrence (DD) will be applied to you until you stop!”

Could you write a post on this topic, arguing why this is exactly the case?

Bitarch

Allow me two quotes. The first is from the movie “Brother 2”: “Strength is in truth”. The second is from Mikhail Svetov: “You can be a thousand times right, but what’s the point if you are powerless?”

At the same time, the character who uttered the first tirade preferred to assert his truth through the use of force, while the author of the second statement limits himself exclusively to conveying his truth to people in verbal form. Both, despite the apparent contradiction between word and deed, succeeded in their endeavors.

What is this supposed to tell us? That—and here I will bring in a third quote, whose author is traditionally Al Capone: “You can achieve much more with a kind word and a gun than with a kind word alone”.

Now then. When you threaten an estatist with the doctrine of deterrence, you are essentially saying to him: “dude, I have a gun, therefore I am right.” Meanwhile, he is convinced that strength is in truth, and the truth is that he personally did not initiate aggression against you, but merely verbally supported the state. In other words, you are threatening a person with retribution for words, and with rather vague claims at that, since anything can be declared as support for the state. For instance, many Ukrainians accuse Russians of supporting Russian aggression in Ukraine simply by the fact of Russian citizenship (and the incorrect use of prepositions, of course).

As a result, the estatist gets tense and looks for a way to deal with you, for example, through the state. And, I suspect, it will be especially frustrating for you if he manages to find a way to deal with you, but you cannot do the same to him. In other words, not only did you threaten a person with a gun, but it was a gun you didn’t even have. And here I will allow myself a fourth quote, a quite insulting one, from a character in the comedy “Spizdili”: “Just as a brainless dick should—you don’t understand the situation, and now you’re starting to shrink, and your little balls are starting to shrink along with you—and that’s because on the side of your gun it says—TOY, and on the side of my gun it says DESERT EAGLE .50”.

In order for an estatist, if not to side with you, to at least recognize your right to criticize the state, you first need to demonstrate exactly how it has wronged you. Moreover, complaints in the vein of “I may be evading taxes, but VAT is still included in the price of some goods I buy” are, of course, unconvincing to him. Similarly, pointing out that your grandfather was shot under Stalin will only serve as a supporting argument: first, it didn’t happen to you, but to a person you didn’t even know personally, and second, one can always claim it was a different state. The ideal approach would be to find a story where the state infringed specifically upon your rights, and did so lawlessly, in violation of its own laws, and where no truth could be found through other state agencies. “I was picked up at an unauthorized rally and had my leg broken”—again, this fits poorly unless you are Konstantin Konovalov—for him, this is a perfect case: he had nothing to do with the action, was detained three hours before it began in violation of the police law, suffered bodily injuries—and to top it all off, the court fined him. If you can find something equally convincing, the estatist’s sympathies will, of course, be on your side. To start with, it is important for you to demonstrate that the state is not just a bandit, but a lawless bandit who does not play by the rules.

Next, it would be a good idea to say something like “you understand it all perfectly yourself, I’m sure similar shit has happened to you too,” and let him tell something from his own experience. In Russia, it is customary to play the victim and complain about life, so the interlocutor will likely feel awkward if it turns out that the state’s boot overlooked him, and he will either make something up, or remember something that happened to acquaintances or leaked into the press.

And only then does it make sense to lead the interlocutor to the thought that if a bandit does not play by the rules, then what right does he have to demand that people treat him according to the rules. Therefore, hiding money from him is a virtue, and helping others who have been crushed lawlessly is a good cause, and those who support these thugs are shameful bastards.

And for dessert, you can savor stories about how people are fined for improving their own neighborhoods, how punks repair playgrounds, how the founder of Vimpelcom funded science only to be declared a foreign agent—in short, lead the former estatist to the thought that state people only know how to cut ribbons, while in fact, people provide all the benefits for themselves, and are even forced to bypass the traps set by those very state people.

There are no impenetrable estatists. At least not in Russia.