Citizens and Government - Responsibility (new poll!)

[patches70]

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It's true in any version of social contract theory. If the existence of a State is worse than the anarchic state of nature, then people would not naturally establish a State.

I don't know Mets. People will band together voluntarily into small tribes but The State? Every State that has ever existed on this blue ball The Earth was created through force. Through violence and through war.

Name a single State that wasn't.

I don't know if people naturally establish a State or if it's created through force of arms. That's less of a natural thing and more of specific individuals being highly ambitious and succeeding. And if the State is created through force of arms, then there is nothing voluntary by being inducted into something at the point of a bayonet.

People gravitate into small groups and some group starts taking over other groups by force and you end up with The State. Then this idea of the social contract is created to make everyone feel better about being conquered and to head off any new ideas about making a new State...

Not a bad con, very clever. But it's still a con, IMO.

But, to each his own.

[Metsfanmax]

People gravitate into small groups and some group starts taking over other groups by force and you end up with The State. Then this idea of the social contract is created to make everyone feel better about being conquered and to head off any new ideas about making a new State...

The assumption one must accept is that the use of force is inevitable. If those other groups weren't trying to co-opt you to join their group, they'd be killing you and taking your stuff. At least with the State, they're taking your stuff and leaving you alive (most of the time).

[mrswdk]

I believe in individualism and reject collectivist thought.

Okay, cool. That doesn't change the fact that you are funding those acts. Where do governments get the money to operate drones or give international aid? Answer: taxes (including yours)!

Nice reasoning though. 'I'm part of a group, so you can't hold me responsible'.

Who is responsible for the example I provided of the 15 wedding goers killed for no reason other than "opps"? Something you and Mets claim you are responsible for

No I don't. The only government receiving money from me at the moment is the Chinese government, and I fully agree with anyone who says that my financial contribution to the Chinese government counts as material support for the Chinese government and whatever it does.

Anyone who gives money to the American government in the knowledge that some of their money will be spent on drones is complicit in the use of said drones. They can shout that they don't like it as much as they want, but they're still supporting it.

The concept of the group makes it easy to deflect responsibility.

Indeed. By making the group so big that it contains over 300m people you have managed to claim that you are bereft of any responsibility whatsoever.

I didn't say you were one, only that you are sounding like one.