[marron]

The rights to self-preservation and justice belong to every person, individually. We delegate that right to government, to police and judges, who act as our agents, but in so delegating we do not give up those rights. When government fails to carry out its responsibilities, we have the right obviously to replace it with another, but we also retain the ultimate right to both defend ourselves, and to extract justice.

The policeman, the judge, is our agent; we are not his.

[G. Stolyarov II]

Yes, this was precisely Locke's contribution to social theory. Thank you for your post.

In the world of absolute monarchial domination that he faced, Locke's theory was ground-shattering, and also preventive of arbitrary exertions of government intervention into the lives of the governed. "And hence it is that he who attempts to get another man into his absolute power does thereby put himself into a state of war with him; it being to be understood as a declaration of design upon his life. For I have reason to conclude that he who would get me into his power without my consent would use me as he pleased when he had got me there, and destroy me too, when he had a fancy for it; for nobody can desire to have me in his absolute power unless it be to compel me by force to that which is against the right of my freedom- i.e. make me a slave."