Government is evil by its very nature

So, sure. The government may be evil, depending on your definition.

But what's the alternative?

 

You are given a chance to consent, or dissent, in your vote. If you do not vote your consent does not matter. It has no moral persuasion. If you do not like the result roll up your sleeves and work to reverse the result, of find enough like minded folk and rise in revolt. It is a stupid concept to pretend not voting gives moral authority to whine about he result. You also forget that things like elections and basic governance in a democracy is bound by the rule of law (in healthy democracies. Places like Argentina are what happens when the elected folk are not bound by law)

 

200 years ago our government did not allow women to vote but allowed slavery. I guess your view of what constitutes "free people" and "tyranny" are different than mine. But then again this makes a case for your thread title too.

 

I thought a quote from Jefferson supporting your first claim would be in order.

One of the primary beliefs of the founders was also separation of Church and State. This goes part and parcel with limited government because as soon as folks start using religion to justify laws you get a lot of laws.

A few more quotes to show what the founders to justify this claim.

Both Red and Blue have been happily trashing the constitution. The left wants to make laws using what I call fallacious utilitarianism. Utilitarianism seeks to justify laws on the basis of what maximizes happiness for the collective and completely ignores individual rights and freedoms.

How many time have we heard ridiculously stupid arguments that sound good on the surface such as "If it saves one life".

Sounds good, doesn't it. Who does not want to save lives but is this a sound justification for making law ?

If so then we better ban skiing. Would this not save lives ? Get rid of boating for sure, what a dangerous sport that is. Ban Cars ? absolutely !
In fact one should probably not get out of bed in the morning as one might fall and break neck.

The GOP has also started to use utilitarian arguments but they also try to make laws based on religious belief.

Either way both Red and Blue love to trash the constitution.

The reason for many of the rights and freedoms in the constitution (privacy, arbitrary detainment search and seizure for starters) is not to protect the people from Bin Laden. They are to protect the people from the Government and the Police.

When making laws there seems to be an inherent assumption that Government and Police are "generally good people with our best interest at hearts and will be so for ever"

This is C R A Z Y. People are generally not good. They are selfish, self centered, myopic, ignorant and easily corrupted in general . Guess what... Politicians and Police are people.

Give them too much power and abuse is guaranteed. (For the naysayers - how many examples would you like ?)

Now the Government is violating our right to privacy by spying on us. What is worse is that they did this in secret. (That damned Snowden).

The justification... Let me quote Obama "If we want increased Security we have to give a little"

Compare to Benjamin Franklin "Those who would give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety"

What happened ? Where did we go wrong. What is this threat that is so large that we are willing to give up the freedoms our soldiers have given their lives for over the last 200 years ?

"Terrorism" ohhhh yeah ... scary stuff. But wait ? Terrorism has been on the decline since records started being kept in the 70s. A US citizen has never been safer in the homeland.


The risk of harm from terrorism to a US citizen is 400 times less than the risk of harm from walking. God forbid you drive a car to work as the risk is thousands of times higher than the risk of terrorism.

(and you thought the raging masses were not ignorant). Unfortunately we do not teach Philosophy (logic, logical fallacy, what constitutes a valid argument) to our children so folks just to not have the tools in general sort through the daily dose of BS fed to them by politicians and the media.

So .. over this miniscule and insignificant risk we are going to just throw away our rights and freedoms. No one is saying our spooks can not spy on potential terrorists and deal with terrorists abroad. What does this have to do with spying on all of us in general ?

Using fear of a foreign threat to take away the rights of citizens is nothing new. Stalin was not the first but pretty much wrote the textbook ... he called his program "Security for the Motherland" protect good ol Mother Russia.

Hitler did the same calling it "Fatherland Security"

Bush used the exact same tried and true justification (fear of a foreign threat to take away rights an set up a police state). He did not even bother to make up a new name. "Homeland Security".

Obama is lock step with the Bush doctrine ... and the beat goes on.

 

It is not working. We are heading for economic collapse. We are heading toward illegal aliens being swing voters. We are heading deeper into soft tyranny. Our government is fascistic. It controls businesses and us through its massive, and unconstitutional regulatory state. Have you heard the story of the man who was swept by the wind off a very tall building? As he was on his way down someone yelled to him, "how do you feel?" "Good, so far."

When it comes the collapse will come very quickly.

 

Of course government is evil. It's the socially acceptable use of force, at times deadly force. Nationalist and statist are the only kind of people who would argue otherwise.

 

A government run by honorable people and limited by a written Constitution. In my opinion too many of the 20K people who rule us lack honor. And each president builds upon the Constitutional breaches of the presidents before him.

We have one Constitutional opportunity to restore lawfulness to the nation. It is an Article V Convention of States to propose amendments to the Constitution. If we fail to act while we can individual liberty will be extinguished and none of us shall see its return.

 

Give us a bit more context. In all of history, in all places, where did women vote?

If the Framers had not compromised on slavery do you believe there would have been a United States? Do you believe two or more countries, one free and one slave-holding would have been preferable?

It is clear that we have different views about what constitutes freedom and tyranny.

 

What are the actual words?

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; ​

There cannot be a Baptist Church of the United States. Given that there can be no religious tests required to hold office.

Given that we have had a separation of church and state how did we get the hundreds of thousands of laws, rules and regulations?

 

That's a big question.... did you mean religious based laws or laws in general.

 

If you can't get congress to agree on any amendments you certainly are not going to get the states to agree either.

What makes you think it would be different?

 

America 200 years ago.

What is the point of speculating?

 

is there any societies that have survived without a government

a society without a government is one that gets taken over by a society with a government

.

 

If by that you mean that tribes have been conquered by stronger civilizations the answer is of course. I don't know what your point is though. As I've said government is evil because it is the socially acceptable use of force.

Which is why our government was founded on the idea that it exist solely to protect the right of the citizens, had its power divided up, and institutions like the military, and police, are ultimately under the control civilian authority. Nevertheless even our government has been oppressive at times. It's the nature of power, that we constantly must deal with because utopia is impossible.

 

Agreed. Government is neither good nor evil. Only sentient beings have that capacity. It is people who choose to use government authority to committ evil acts.

 

as long as your not saying the answer is to get rid of our government, I agree with you, when we catch coruption, it needs to be punished... bad cops and politicians getting a hand slap with pay is a example of what needs to be addressed

 

All societies need a system of governance in which there is an accepted lawful mechanism for the resolution of disputes. There is nothing evil about having such a system.

However, a system in which one person (or group) may legally initiate aggression against others (such as we have now) is certainly evil.

 

"What are the actual words?

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof;​

There cannot be a Baptist Church of the United States. Given that there can be no religious tests required to hold office.

Given that we have had a separation of church and state how did we get the hundreds of thousands of laws, rules and regulations?"

The bolded part makes that clear. We have nearly 500 independent agencies who make laws, enforce laws and judge laws. They are, on their face, tyrannical. They are also unconstitutional. They have nothing whatsoever to do with religious based laws unless one views authoritarian statism as a religion.

So how did we get to this state of soft tyranny?

 

"Government, even in its best state, is but a necessary evil; in its worst state, an intolerable one."
Thomas Paine

I side with T. Paine.

There is a very great evil in organized, legal plunder carried out by suing laws against the citizens. This is where we find ourselves today.

 

Failure? According to who?

Govt= Tyranny, period.

 

Omit Congress from your thinking. They were a substantial part of the reason we are no longer a Constitutional Republic. The Framers anticipated this. According to Mark Levin, in his book The Liberty Amendments we can thank George Mason for a way to restore the Constitution through the state legislatures rather than relying upon the instrument of tyranny, the Congress.

Is your counter argument simply to accept your position of servitude to a national government? I reject that. Thirty-four states must petition Congress for a Convention of States to propose amendments. Once that has happened the Congress "shall call a convention for proposing Amendments".

We know what went wrong beginning with the Progressive's victory in eliminating state power at the national level over one hundred years ago. We can reverse, by amendment, that error (the direct election of senators by the people). We can develop mechanisms for the states to overturn supreme court decisions and congressional laws. The work is well underway already. Some states have already petitioned the Congress. The best guess is that by the end of 2015 one-half of the states will have petitioned the Congress.

Is it easy? No. There are many defeatists who believe we must simply accept our fate.

If we do not succeed then the solution will be determined by the force of arms in some future generation.

 

I just shake my head.

"If the Framers had not compromised on slavery do you believe there would have been a United States? Do you believe two or more countries, one free and one slave-holding would have been preferable?"

The unexamined life is not worth living. Examine your unstated assumptions. You may find they are deeply flawed.

 

Who, in your opinion, is arguing for no government?

Do you recognize the difference between a government that is limited in what it may do and one that can do to its citizens whatever it chooses to do? In the former the citizens retain substantial freedoms of choice. In the latter the citizens are mere subjects, chattel for politicians to dispose of as they wish. Thee is a path to liberty and there is a road to serfdom. Unlimited governments always choose the road to serfdom.

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oops. Corrected.

 

In 50 years your kids will be saying "the old order gave all the power to nation states and minimal power to the global Federal government, and it was leading to the destruction of world peace on so many levels. This is why regional, then global government was created and given sovereignty"

And you'll be the conservative telling "them damn globalist kids" to stay off your lawn

 

Doing just fine? Several near revolts by the Army because the government had no means of paying them and a crippling debt and inflation cycle because of war loans that the government had no means of paying off is "doing just fine"?