Taking a break from the blogging break to post this. I’m reading through Orson Scott Card’s Ender quintet series, currently on Speaker for the Dead (read for free here). Here’s a quote from one of the characters, who gives away the secret weapon (heh) of governments.
“My beloved father, this has always been the way of things between the secular
authority and the religious. We must be patient, if for no other reason than this:
They have all the guns.”
The “they” pronoun refers to the Starways Congress, the governing authority in the book. That’s the difference between the state and every other human entity: a gun. Fictional characters don’t speak for their authors most of the time, but I thought the insight was interesting seeing as Card is not a libertarian.