States legally commit crimes to preserve their own rule of law

Evidence

In her influential account of the trial of Adolf Eichmann, subtitled A Report on the Banality of Evil, Hannah Arendt (1964) ties modern genocide to the way that nation-states place themselves above the rules they impose on their citizens; states can thus legally commit crimes in order to preserve the rule of law - and their own existence (Arendt, 1964:288, 291). — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 257

Categorization

• XREF: Connects directly to the standout paradox of sacrificial violence in ‘On Sacrifice’ — institutions legitimating lethal acts to preserve their own coherence.
• DEEPTHINKING: Arendt’s paradox — lawfully committing crimes to preserve the rule of law — is paradigm-shifting in its inversion of the legal state’s self-image.
• corroborated: 2 independent passages support this claim — David Theo Goldberg, John Solomos, A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies, 257