Replies

To be perfectly honest, the thing that people fundamentally want it safety, security, and (to a lesser degree) happiness for their family and friends. This is why, throughout history, people abandoned the well documented freedom (and relative leisure) of a hunter-gatherer existence for what was essentially the slavery of civilization and cities. Civilization and cities provided much more safety and security (and sometimes happiness) than the unpredictable life of freedom but little safety or security in the wilderness.

Liberty, capitalism, democracy, the rule of law, natural rights, etc. are all evaluated as means to that end. When people believe that liberty, capitalism, democracy, the rule of law, natural rights, etc. are detrimental to their safety, security, and (to a lesser degree) personal happiness, they will jettison those things in favor of something that promises more safety, security, or happiness. This may be foolish to many here but it is the moral calculus that most people evaluate government actions by.

I agree, although I may not be able to articulate the idea as well as you.

Society, as a whole, has to give up some rights to be safe, secure and happy. No laws means anarchy, which surely is not conducive to a healthy society. Hence, the immortal words from the Declaration of Indepenence -

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed"

That's why we have government, fellow freepers. To secure our rights. We must be ever vigilant, however, that we have enough, but not too much, government.

All part of the healthy give and take of our democracy.

Good day to all, and God bless.

This may be foolish to many here but it is the moral calculus that most people evaluate government actions by.

Never have I heard anyone articulate this phenomena as you have. I've usually just stated that I don't care about laws being obeyed explicitely, under certain circumstances, but that the end result was most important. Now I have something concrete to mutter to my "libertarian" friends.

Many times the discussion revolves around Congressman Ron Paul and his anti war stance. He says the US moved into Iraq against the constitution because "congress" did not declare war.