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Politics : Just the Facts, Ma'am: A Compendium of Liberal Fiction -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: TimF who wrote (45191)	2/10/2006 8:03:12 PM
From: Solon	Respond to of 90947

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To: TimF who wrote (45191)	2/10/2006 8:29:19 PM
From: TimF	Respond to of 90947

To put things another way I don't fully buy in to the idea of sovereignty I believe its proper to respect the law but I don't give government institutions (democratic or not) some special superior moral standing. I recognize that governments have power and going against that power is likely to be harmful (most likely to me, but even if I was powerful enough to defeat the governments attempt to impose its power the process of doing so would do great harm. I think the governments are sovereign in a practical sense (they do in fact rule), and in a legal sense (they do or at least should rule through law, and their sovereignty is recognized by legal tradition and by the conventions and agreements (both formal and unstated/informal) between various countries. But I don't think they are morally sovereign in the sense that they have some right to rule either a "divine right", or a right through contract (the social contract being something that has no real existence). We should think carefully before violating laws in any but the most petty ways (and perhaps even in petty ways if either the law is not to intrusive or if the problems that the violation would cause for me or for others are great. The standard default position should be that we should respect the law. ------------------------ Sovereignty "Jean Bodin (1530-1596) is considered to be the modern initiator of the concept of sovereignty, with his 1576 treatise Six Books on the Republic which described the sovereign as a ruler beyond human law and subject only to the divine or natural law. He thus predefined the scope of the divine right of kings, stating that : "Sovereignty is a Republic's absolute and perpetual power". Sovereingty is absolute, thus indivisible, but not without any limits: it exercises itself only in the public sphere, not in the private sphere; it is perpetual, because it doesn't expire with its holder (as auctoritas). In other words, sovereignty is no one's property: by essence, it is inalienable. These characters would decisively shape the concept of sovereignty, which we can find again in the social contract theories, for example, in Rousseau's (1712-1778) definition of popular sovereignty, which only differs on that the people is the legitimate sovereign. Likewise, it is inalienable - Rousseau condemned the distinction between the origin and the exercise of sovereignty, a distinction upon which constitutional monarchy or representative democracy are founded. Machiavelli, Hobbes, Locke and Montesquieu are also key figures of the unfolding of the concept of sovereignty." en.wikipedia.org The social contract Popular sovereignty is an idea that dates to the social contract school (mid-1600s to mid 1700s), represented by Thomas Hobbes (1588-1679), John Locke (1632-1704) and Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778). The central tenet is that legitimacy of rule or of law is based on the consent of the governed. Popular sovereignty is thus a basic tenet of most democracies. Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau were the most influential thinkers of this school, all postulating that individuals choose to enter into a social contract with one another, thus voluntarily giving up some rights in return for protection from the dangers and hazards of a state of nature. A parallel development of a theory of popular sovereignty can be found among the School of Salamanca (see e.g. Francisco de Vitoria (1483–1546) or Francisco Suárez (1548–1617)), who (like the theorists of the divine right of kings) saw sovereignty as emanating originally from God, but (unlike those theorists) passing from God to all people equally, not only to monarchs. Most republics and many constitutional monarchies are theoretically based on popular sovereignty. However, a legalistic notion of popular sovereignty does not necessarily imply an effective, functioning democracy: a party or even an individual dictator may claim to represent the will of the people, and rule in its name, pretending to detain auctoritas. In U.S. history, the terms popular sovereignty and the equivalent but more disparaging squatter sovereignty refer generally to the right claimed by the squatters, or actual residents, of a territory of the United States to make their own laws, and in particular to the idea championed by Stephen A. Douglas that the residents of each territory were allowed to determine whether it would accept or reject the practice of slavery. en.wikipedia.org

To: TimF who wrote (45191)	2/10/2006 8:46:38 PM
From: Solon	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 90947

"and the attitude that any violation of any law or regulation is immoral, is itself more harmful to society than speeding by a few miles an hour or drinking moderately during prohibition or other similar harmless actions." One last word. I said I would entertain the question of whether or not attacking social structure (as was done during prohibition) was necessarily a bad thing. Rather than admit the obvious facts that have been put before you in great detail, you slip this red herring in about the morality of attacking society by speeding--or by drinking during prohibition. After all the painstaking picking of teeth I did with you to get you to admit that there was no disagreement on the fact that laws are not perfect and that they may be improved--you intentionally attempt to obscure the current issue of fact (namely that an attack against any rule undermines society--whether that be for good or ill being the question I offered to discuss with you) by conflating it with extraneous and irrelevant issues. I close with what is simple fact and not argument. You know it to be fact. You can acknowledge it or not. The essence of this society is the rule of law and the equal application of the law to all citizens. It is irrelevant to this statement of fact that society is imperfect. That does not alter the fact that any violation of any rule of law is an undermining of that principle and of that society. It is irrelevant whether the particular law is of major or minor importance. It is irrelevant whether harm from the violation is severe or whether the harm is relatively innocuous--or even whether benefit ultimately accrues. It does not matter whether the undermining of the rule of law results in a better law or whether it does not. It does not matter that the law is rational or moral, or that it is not. These are all irrelevancies and red herrings, and I am tired of being insulted by your intentional bad faith in conflating your responses in this fashion. Whether the violation of the rule of law results in good or in bad--all this is irrelevant to the simple fact to which I have wasted several posts in giving you the benefit of ignorance rather than of deceit. It is obviously just a game for you, so have fun. Pretend that violating the rules of society is not an offense against society. Pretend that a democracy channels input from all citizens through all appropriate channels to the eventual enacting of a law because there is no purported reason for the law and no offense against society when it is violated???? Pretend that people can violate the democratic principle of equality before the law without offending that very principle. Pretend, pretend, pretend. But don't even bother giving me one of your phoney responses where you conflate this point with straw men and red herrings. Just have fun, as I said..