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<blockquote data-quote="Ruin Explorer" data-source="post: 7961845" data-attributes="member: 18">The rest of your argument is sound, but this is a terrible argument. &quot;Legitimacy&quot; is as valid as any number of other abstract concepts. Like any abstract concept, it is vulnerable to abuse, and is abused in the manner you describe, but it has a real and relevant meaning, that of &quot;conforming to the law or rules&quot;, and depending on the context, that can be very important. You say, apparently as an example, that all that matters to a government is competence, and this is demonstrably untrue. A &quot;government&quot; that is set up in defiance of existing law and rules of a given nation will likely have an extremely hard time convincing people to follow laws (even ideologically-aligned factions within the same nation may see it as &quot;optional&quot;, at least initially), convincing other nations to cooperate with it (ideologically-aligned and/or unscrupulous ones will make exceptions), and so on, at least until it establishes it's own &quot;rule of law&quot;, and yes, legitimacy. Usually by a matter of existing for sufficient time and having some kind of solid-seeming legal system which is fairly consistently followed (and thus has a &quot;rule of law&quot;).And yes, history is full of examples of unscrupulous nations/kingdoms/etc. unfairly accusing other governments of being &quot;illegitimate&quot; (we won't discuss which lest politics be involved, but it's gone on for a very long time), but that doesn't make the concept &quot;meaningless&quot;. It has meaning, but is vulnerable to abuse.</blockquote>

[QUOTE="Ruin Explorer, post: 7961845, member: 18"] The rest of your argument is sound, but this is a terrible argument. "Legitimacy" is as valid as any number of other abstract concepts. Like any abstract concept, it is vulnerable to abuse, and is abused in the manner you describe, but it has a real and relevant meaning, that of "conforming to the law or rules", and depending on the context, that can be very important. You say, apparently as an example, that all that matters to a government is competence, and this is demonstrably untrue. A "government" that is set up in defiance of existing law and rules of a given nation will likely have an extremely hard time convincing people to follow laws (even ideologically-aligned factions within the same nation may see it as "optional", at least initially), convincing other nations to cooperate with it (ideologically-aligned and/or unscrupulous ones will make exceptions), and so on, at least until it establishes it's own "rule of law", and yes, legitimacy. Usually by a matter of existing for sufficient time and having some kind of solid-seeming legal system which is fairly consistently followed (and thus has a "rule of law"). And yes, history is full of examples of unscrupulous nations/kingdoms/etc. unfairly accusing other governments of being "illegitimate" (we won't discuss which lest politics be involved, but it's gone on for a very long time), but that doesn't make the concept "meaningless". It has meaning, but is vulnerable to abuse. [/QUOTE]

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