What Makes Government So Special?

Discussion in 'Political Opinions & Beliefs' started by LibertarianFTW, Jul 3, 2012.

  1. LibertarianFTW

    LibertarianFTW Well-Known Member

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    The government is granted special privileges in society. They can commit mass theft and call it "taxation." They can commit mass murder and call it "war." They can commit mass slavery and call it "conscription." They can even kidnap and cage people for consuming something that the government does not approve of or not wearing what the government desires them to wear in public.

    My question is: what gives the government these special privileges? Why can I not label myself government and do the same things they do?

    If the answer is "democracy": that is, the majority decided that this group is permitted to do such acts and it is therefore legitimate, then certainly two rapists on an island have the right to rape the sole woman on the same island.
     
  2. Iriemon

    Iriemon Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Your last sentence is a non sequitur. A government based on majority rule does not equate to two guys raping a woman.
     
  3. Montoya

    Montoya Banned

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    Nobody said the libertarian ideology wasn't extreme...
     
  4. Beevee

    Beevee Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Short answer - your vote. And if you don't vote you have no say in what government does as much as you have a say having voted. Either way, once the vote is cast, your job is done and as far as politicians are concerned, so are you.
     
  5. LibertarianFTW

    LibertarianFTW Well-Known Member

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    According to democratic theory, the two men have the right to rape the woman due to majority rule.

    Democrats must also support Nazism, seeing as Hitler was democratically elected.
     
  6. akphidelt2007

    akphidelt2007 New Member Past Donor

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    Who says you are not allowed to label yourself your own government and try to do the same things they do? Go out there, gather all your tin foiler friends and start your own country and wage war against America. You have the freedom to do that. If you don't like our rules, don't live here, or vote. You are part of a society... I vote to keep people like you from infringing on my rights as a member of this society. Including indecent exposure, cooking meth in your backyard, selling drugs and getting kids addicted to them, and I agree that we should pay for the things we use, such as infrastructure, military, etc. I have no clue why you guys want all the benefits of living in this society yet don't want to live by any of it's rules or pay for any of it. It makes no sense. Go in the woods and start your own country. Then you can rape and pillage whoever you want unless someone bigger and stronger locks you up.
     
  7. Daybreaker

    Daybreaker Well-Known Member

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    I can kind of see what he means. Rape, or at least what we now think of as rape, has certainly been legally permitted by a lot of governments, including democratic ones. It wasn't that long ago that it was simply assumed that a husband had the right to have sex with his wife, regardless of her feelings on the matter.
     
  8. Daybreaker

    Daybreaker Well-Known Member

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    I hate to say it, but in a practical sense, it's a question of martial leverage. The government, or rather "the political entity that claims the territory in which you reside," is capable of inflicting its will upon you, and you are not capable of inflicting your will upon it, which makes it the government and you the governed.

    Humanity has tried endlessly to work its way around this, to find some sort of justice in government, but in the end that's what it comes down to.

    Might does not make right. But might does establish the laws.
     
  9. Zosiasmom

    Zosiasmom New Member Past Donor

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    We are in the "our" that you purport. It is not your rules, but our rules. It is not your government, but our government. The government exists only by a mandate of the people, not the other way around. That people like you have forgotten this and then resort to ad hominem attacks on those who attempt to remind others of the founding principles of these United States of America is an omen of an ill future for the country.
     
  10. RiseAgainst

    RiseAgainst Banned

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    They have bigger guns than you do.

    That's a pretty special deal.
     
  11. akphidelt2007

    akphidelt2007 New Member Past Donor

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    I never said you weren't. And I never said it's my Govt. I'm simply saying the individuals that we have voted in to represent us have made laws and rules for OUR society. You are the one disassociating yourself from the Govt. If you don't like the rules than vote in someone that will change them. Unfortunately for you enough people like the rules, that they will not vote the man you want in to change them. Tough luck for you guys! So instead of playing by the rules you guys are trying to go above the law and claim that you truly know what the Constitution says and that you know what's best for America. You are exactly what we made the Constitution for in the first place. A group of people who think they know how life should be lived.
     
  12. webrockk

    webrockk Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    A combination of the inherently "self-interested, least resitance, greedy, authoritarian, needy and weak willed" aspects of the human condition....

    our flaws, as it were...
     
  13. BleedingHeadKen

    BleedingHeadKen Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    You can. If you and your fellows can become strong enough to either prevent the current organization declaring jurisdiction over your life and property from exercising it's power against you, or to take over that organization, then you will become the "legitimate" government. Might is right and your right to rule is incumbent only in others not being able to knock you off your throne.

    That, or it's all illegitimate.
     
  14. BleedingHeadKen

    BleedingHeadKen Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    So, then, what makes those laws legitimate? I under subjection and submission, but those acts do not imply legitimacy, only a level of acceptance necessary for survival or more.
     
  15. Zosiasmom

    Zosiasmom New Member Past Donor

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    Just because your apathy has infected the nation doesn't mean that I have given up reason and free will for a daily hit of status quo. Just because you represent the majority doesn't make you right, nor your position valid.

    There are many popular ideas that are immoral and unkind and I would not forsake my own soul and my own integrity for some ridiculous notion that a vote for a lesser of two evils is appropriate and necessary.

    It takes virtually no character to go with the flow, it takes a lot of character to do the right thing when everyone else is against you.
     
  16. akphidelt2007

    akphidelt2007 New Member Past Donor

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    I don't see the evil in any of these two candidates. Maybe if one of the candidates wanted to legalize murder, I would vote for someone else. That is how it works. You guys simply just have this ideology in your head that you know how life should be lived and you know the correct way for a Government to govern. Sorry Kimosabe, you have to wait in line with the rest of us. Your only one vote and we can vote whoever we want in and we can vote for whatever we like. Just so happens that majority of people in this society do not think like you. This does not mean we are right and you are wrong or you are right and we are wrong... it simply means we set the rules. If you break them and get caught, have fun in jail!
     
  17. Daybreaker

    Daybreaker Well-Known Member

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    William Wallace: Never in my whole life did I swear allegiance to him.
    King's Executioner: It matters not -- he is your king.

    I don't know if laws are legitimate at all. It's really just a practical matter that you have to deal with people that are going to do their best to make you act like they're legitimate.

    Maybe you could say that legitimacy springs from your acceptance of the laws? If you agree to them, then even if they're still not legitimate, they're as close as they can be.

    In America we tell ourselves that government relies on the consent of the governed, but I've never met anybody in America that consents to all of the laws. The best we can do is try to establish the laws democratically, by people that have to live under the law themselves. It is, shall we say, an extremely imperfect process. But it's (arguably) the best process anyone has come up with so far.
     
  18. Daybreaker

    Daybreaker Well-Known Member

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  19. RiseAgainst

    RiseAgainst Banned

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    excellent!

    Although knowing your positions I do believe I have to tell you to move daybreaker. ;)
     
  20. Zosiasmom

    Zosiasmom New Member Past Donor

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    I find your post not only unmeasured and nonsensical, but also completely irrelevant to my post. I have yet to tell you who to vote for, only that I refuse any logic or will other than my own.

    I do not dance to the tune of public opinion.
     
  21. akphidelt2007

    akphidelt2007 New Member Past Donor

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    And that's your opinion. I don't get persuaded by public opinion to vote either. I simply vote for the candidate I think best represents my ideas. Unfortunately for you, my way of thinking is common amongst the majority of citizens. You can sit back and think you know what's best for the country all you want, but you aren't any more right than any of us.

    And Libertarian's typically find anything dealing with logical nonsensical. They don't know how to process ideas outside of their own.
     
  22. Object227

    Object227 Well-Known Member

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    The majority doesn't have to sanction rape but, theoretically, it can. The question is what will restrain the majority from sanctioning rape?
     
  23. akphidelt2007

    akphidelt2007 New Member Past Donor

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    The majority
     
  24. Object227

    Object227 Well-Known Member

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    Why would the majority restrain itself?
     
  25. akphidelt2007

    akphidelt2007 New Member Past Donor

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    Why wouldn't it?
     

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