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That's completely different. Police authority can be measured; it has limits and specific levels which are all written and confirmed by the Constitution. The citizen has authority as well and you can see and measure the back and forth flow.

The power of legitimization is much murkier than that.

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Such things are not as objective as all that. Authority is always given, regardless of what those in authority say. It is either accepted or not; it is assumed because of the gun and thus not willingly assumed, but coerced. Therefore it is illegitimate for those who value freedom.

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Yes, authority is given by the consent of the governed and measured in the US by the Constitution.

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And every individual can judge whether that Authority is legitimate and decide whether to obey or not as in going to war or taking a mandated injection or paying taxes. That's what freedom is, unfortunately, coercive police force effectively destroys freedom. We are so used to obeying that we do so automatically without thought, therefore we are not a free people as we like to believe.

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To be fair, though, he had a cane which is a dangerous weapon and was at an anti-government rally. That fits the definition of a domestic terrorist.

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I think if we had a hand counted, paper only ballot ballot system things would be a lot different!

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Whenever things get complex there is room for error and also manipulation. You'd think that the vote would be important enough to put in the extra work to hand count and ignore the media's need for a quick result and the need of those in power to manipulate those results.

With all the complexity the people just can't trust the results - which is extremely important as it gives legitimacy.

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