So the government can simultaneously be both the contract and the contractor?Originally Posted by inudesu
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So the government can simultaneously be both the contract and the contractor?
The social contract is between individuals - we agree to respect each others rights and delegate force to a government to protect our rights. The government serves the individuals. It is not its own being and does not have the right to try to generate profit. Pragmatically after the money goes to the government (the delegate), it is the delegates job to decide how the money should be spent consistent with its moral purpose. It does not have negative rights like a security guard. It is obligated to do nothing more than protect negative rights. If it overcollected for what it needed, it needs to reimburse the individuals.
But in the previous post you suggested that the government may be a proxy for the majority. If the government does not morally have rights, then your argument must be predicated on the fact that the government stands in for the "rights or interests of the group." This implicity relies of the assumption that there could be such as thing as "collective rights." There is no such thing as collective rights. There is a philosophy referred to as collectivism (which has been embraced by many of our putrid leaders including JFK). Here is someone else's summary below:
Collectivism states that your identity as a human being comes from involuntary or voluntary membership in various groups – such as society, race, “culture” or even sexual orientation. It then states that the only or the primary recipient of one’s labor should be this group, rather than yourself. In politics, this means that “serving your country” is more important than the services your government is supposed to provide you, namely protection from the criminal elements of the world. This view was summarized by JFK as “Ask not what your country can do for you: Ask what you can do for your country.”
Both conservative and liberal presidents frequently espouse this ideal. For example, in promoting volunteerism, President George Bush said: "Citizen service is the very American idea that we meet our challenges not as isolated individuals but as members of a true community, with all of us working together. Our mission is nothing less than to spark a renewed sense of obligation, a new sense of duty, a new season of service...”
The basis of this view is that a collective of individuals is more than the sum of its parts, and that by belonging to a collective, a person can acquire special rights and obligations he would not have otherwise. The clear implication of collectivism is that the individual becomes secondary to the group, and in fact becomes its tool rather than an end in himself. Implicit in collectivism is the idea that collectives can think, benefit, and obtain rights just as individuals can. Collectives are even attributed personalities called “culture” that everyone within it is expected to embrace. Each member of a collective is responsible for its failures, and everyone is to be praised if any one person in it accomplishes something. Anyone who pursues his own “selfish” interests, or has goals that differ from the "collective's" is deemed a traitor to his society, country, race, and so on and usually faces dire consequences. Reality is rejected in favor of the consensus, and truth becomes relative to the purposes of the collective.
The opposite of collectivism is individualism. Individualism declares that each and every man may live his own life for his own happiness, as an end to himself, neither sacrificing himself to others, nor others to himself. It rejects the view that a group of men has special rights and that a “public good” exists by declaring that there is no collective stomach or a collective mind because only individuals can benefit from any good, and only individuals can think. Individualism is the idea that groups are simply a collection of individuals, and any rights claimed by them derive directly from the rights of the individuals composing such a group. As Thomas Jefferson said in the Declaration of Independence, “Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.” The only associations that an individualist values are those voluntarily chosen, not born or drafted into.
Any good stolen from a man for the sake of “society” cannot be shared with society as a whole, but must be given to other individuals, benefiting some at the expensive of others. Likewise, an invention is not the result of “collective thought” but of innovation and originality on the part of its creator. He may have built on the ideas of others, but his invention represents his own original, independent thinking, from which he has a right to profit without having to share the values the inventor receives with others. Politically, the result of such as principle is capitalism: a social system where the individual does not live by permission of others, but by inalienable right. The inevitable result of collectivism on the other hand is socialism: a system where the individual is only a tool to serve the “social good” – and because there is no such thing a collective benefit, the profit of the politically well-connected looter at the expensive of the productive worker is the inevitable result of any collectivist system.
What I always found strange was the fact many American "liberals" are so against nationalism and American pride, but many love collectivism. I always kind of thought to be a true collectivist, you must be a nationalist, am I mistaken? To be a collectivist, I would have to love my group over myself. Yet, so many "liberals" preach about being individuals with your thoughts and actions, I guess just not with your money. Or maybe many dont like what America stands for, so they believe you should be a collectivist of a subgroupl and not America as a whole.
If you want to be the least bit consistent, yes, you also should stand behind the nation. I am not trying to suggest that collectivists CAN BE consistent - the philosophy is riddled with contradictions.
Collectivism is a true philisophical construct with no basis in reality - it is a false ideal.
To be a true collectivist, you must despise yourself
Politics blur everything. "Liberals" want political power. To mobilize against "conservatives" out of power, there have to be differences between people that polarize into a large group that contend they are "HAVE NOTS." This was hinted at on an earlier thread concerning race. But the "conservatives" are normally big on militarism, so the liberals don't want you to love your country that much.
In this day, anyone who believes that our government (or our political parties) are interested in anything but power are not conscious.
It would require several nights and more than 100 bottles of beer to even pretend to reply to ALL of your above "slant"......
So I'll simply comment/question your first paragraph before I decide if it might amuse me to delve more deeply.
WHAT "social contract" between which specific individuals?
Please name ANY TWO INDIVIDUALS who have EVER agreed to HONESTLY respect each other's RIGHTS....... Or delegate ANY FORCE without a presumed personal edge.
Name ANY GOVERNMENT that has EVER even decently SERVED any majority of individuals in its alleged care.
Cite ANY GOVERNMENT that has NEVER "generated profit" (even in the guise of NATIONAL DEBT) to sustain itself.
Identify ANY GOVERNMENT throughout the varied machinations of mankind that has even come close to conducting its day to day business with so much as any honest historical "MORAL IMPERITIVE STAMP" even near its ruthless reality.
NEXT...... Please list ANY government, monarch, commie, pope, socialist, indian chief, clan elder or witch doctor, etc., who EVER obligated their reign with any fierce protection of COMMON RIGHT, or returned so much as one wampum bead to any necklace of lowly citizen security.
All too sadly in our often too bellicose society/culture......
The individual who speaks softly but rationally is often overlooked within the din of loud and sometimes often reckless clamor.
It should be intuitively obvious to even the most casual observer on this board that your only agenda here is knowledge...... And that few if any here have ever approached even some "shallow" well that might honestly quench any such sincere thirst.
Very true spin, IMO. But is that more of a mark against the screamer or his audience. (i.e. the people watching on TV). Honestly I think we created these monsters on television today by giving them an audience and at the same time shutting out the rational speaker.
Why else would a guy like Bill Maher or Rush Limbaugh have a show? People keep talking about what Maher said, and that is all he wants. I think Bill Maher is a sad individual. He seems like that guy you knew in high school who was a turd about everything and projected his miserable life onto you.
You remind me so much of Ellsworth Toohey it's funny.
The whole diatribe has to do with the ONLY moral purpose of government - I was not attempting to state historical fact. There are not very many heros in history. How we got here is not as important as HOW IT SHOULD BE, IMO.
The nature of the "specific individuals" would be reasonable, rational individuals...which from my time spent on this forum thus far seems to be a short supply.
BTW, I don't really wouldn't characterize what I said as "spin." It is in fact truth. All will be proven in the near future, so stay tuned. So far "ethics" has been presented largely without epistemological or metaphysical basis (but only because it takes so damn long to type all of this).
But he keeps asking for it. I'm afraid we'll lose people if we start from either metaphysics or epistimology, but if people argue that WE are out of touch with REALITY, I don't know what else you can do but start from the beginning.
Spinoza might also be correct in something else he said, though, in that we're being "sledgehammers" if ethics and politics are put first...
http://www.latechbbb.com/forum/showthread.php?t=39109
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