There’s a little wine shop in downtown Ballston Spa, New York with rainbow-colored bottles lining the shop’s front window. The village is small, about 5,000 people, and attracts tourists from all around the world.
Last summer, the owner of the wine shop, Jes Rich, noticed a group of masked men in the street. “As soon as I saw them I ran out the door,” said Rich, who is openly queer and sees her shop as a safe and welcoming space for other queer people.
The men in the street were wearing black and yellow face coverings and T-shirts identifying themselves as members of the Proud Boys, a violent, far-right extremist group. A yellow truck drove alongside the group, blasting the provocative country song “Try That in a Small Town.”
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State - An organized group of people who claim exclusive acceptable use of violence within a claimed geographic region and use violence to ensure this monopoly continues.
Within a state most self-defense or community-defense is denigrated as “vigilante justice”.
A government typically is also a state but it’s not necessary for a polity that is focused on say community coordination to claim exclusive legality to the use of violence.