Change my mind about government

[dank69]

Ready, set, go!

 

[Indus]

Trumpers: Government's only objective should be to make libtards suffer!

 

[Ichinisan]

Government's only function should be to preserve our rights. Maybe ensure safety from international threats (not from each other). Our personal safety is not the responsibility of government, but punishing those who violate our rights / freedoms is the responsibility of government. Nothing more.

 

[dank69]

Government's only function should be to preserve our rights. Maybe ensure safety from international threats (not from each other). Our personal safety is not the responsibility of government, but punishing those who violate our rights / freedoms is the responsibility of government. Nothing more.

But how do we decide what rights are? IMO, we have a right to do whatever we want up to the point that we are causing someone else to suffer. At that point, it is up to society to agree whose suffering is greater. The suffering caused to someone else by my action, or the suffering I experience by not being allowed to act. This is what we call government.

 

[Moonbeam]

Suffering can't be prevented. Life wants to live. To live is to seek a livable environment and the nervous system is designed to prevent straying into one by the presence of all sorts of autonomic reactions including pain. For social animals cooperative living and finally empathy have been added to the mix. Thus we can suffer both physically and mentally.

Because of the presence of language in humans, we can add an extra dimension to suffering that animals can't. We can suffer from thinking, imagining all sorts of unpleasant thoughts associated to pain causing words and their association with past experiences that can be consciously suppressed.

This kind of suffering can be fixed. A concept reportedly original to Christ: Did you but suffer you would not suffer. Suffering is the sadness, depression, anger and rage that can be healed by the experience of real grief. Suffering is the result of the refusal to relive what happened to us as children. When we suffer to the fullest extent of our suffering we remember and that changes everything. It makes it possible to feel grief, the tender return of empathy for ones true self.

But the experience of grief is real. Everything that we love will die. No government will ever be able to change that. What a government can do is to create a system of rules that make everybody what to play by, that maximize the will to live or being joy.

That can, in my opinion, happen on two fronts. Government can create a system that functions in the transmission of wisdom to deal with life's struggles and reduces to a minimum the physical and emotional pain we will inevitably face.

 

[alien42]

Government's only function should be to preserve our rights. Maybe ensure safety from international threats (not from each other). Our personal safety is not the responsibility of government, but punishing those who violate our rights / freedoms is the responsibility of government. Nothing more.

Do governments not decide exactly what our rights are?

 

[dank69]

Suffering can't be prevented. Life wants to live. To live is to seek a livable environment and the nervous system is designed to prevent straying into one by the presence of all sorts of autonomic reactions including pain. For social animals cooperative living and finally empathy have been added to the mix. Thus we can suffer both physically and mentally.

Because of the presence of language in humans, we can add an extra dimension to suffering that animals can't. We can suffer from thinking, imagining all sorts of unpleasant thoughts associated to pain causing words and their association with past experiences that can be consciously suppressed.

This kind of suffering can be fixed. A concept reportedly original to Christ: Did you but suffer you would not suffer. Suffering is the sadness, depression, anger and rage that can be healed by the experience of real grief. Suffering is the result of the refusal to relive what happened to us as children. When we suffer to the fullest extent of our suffering we remember and that changes everything. It makes it possible to feel grief, the tender return of empathy for ones true self.

But the experience of grief is real. Everything that we love will die. No government will ever be able to change that. What a government can do is to create a system of rules that make everybody what to play by, that maximize the will to live or being joy.

That can, in my opinion, happen on two fronts. Government can create a system that functions in the transmission of wisdom to deal with life's struggles and reduces to a minimum the physical and emotional pain we will inevitably face.

Please don't confuse my statement with "government must prevent all suffering." This should be obvious. This is also not a debate about which suffering is greater in any given situation. That is why we have judges and lawyers to attempt to sort that out through all the infinite permutations as they arise.

The point is that if the government is doing anything where the ultimate goal is not to minimize suffering, then it has overstepped its purpose. I think this is 100% compatible with your final statement which is what I take to be your conclusion.

 

[Ichinisan]

But how do we decide what rights are?

They say "endowed by our creator with certain inalienable rights" specifically so it's understood that the government should never have the power to grant rights or deny them.

IMO, we have a right to do whatever we want up to the point that we are causing someone else to suffer.

Not exactly. Up to the point where we infringe on another person's right to pursue happiness.

At that point, it is up to society to agree whose suffering is greater. The suffering caused to someone else by my action, or the suffering I experience by not being allowed to act. This is what we call government.

I disagree. Government should only protect us from outside threats and give us absolute freedom that ends where we violate the freedom / property of another -- and punish those who do violate the rights and freedoms of others.

 

[Ichinisan]

Do governments not decide exactly what our rights are?

No. See my post above.

Granting the government the ability to define rights also grants it the ability to remove / deny / redefine them.

But how do we decide what rights are?

They say "endowed by our creator with certain inalienable rights" specifically so it's understood that the government should never have the power to grant rights or deny them.
...

...whether-or-not you believe in a God / creator, this wording is meant to restrict the power of government -- hopefully to prevent or discourage a gradual creep toward totalitarianism.

 

[dank69]

They say "endowed by our creator with certain inalienable rights" specifically so it's understood that the government should never have the power to grant rights or deny them.

This is not a thread about what is or is not, it is about what I think should be at this particular moment until someone changes my mind. If someone can provide an example of some other goal that government should strive for that does not boil down to minimizing suffering then I will concede defeat and adjust my view.

Not exactly. Up to the point where we infringe on another person's right to pursue happiness.

Infringing on someone's right to pursue happiness qualifies as causing suffering. This should be obvious but feel free to attempt to argue this point.

I disagree. Government should only protect us from outside threats

Provide an example of a threat that does not cause suffering.

and give us absolute freedom that ends where we violate the freedom / property of another

Provide an example of limiting a freedom that does not cause suffering.

-- and punish those who do violate the rights and freedoms of others.

This is where I 100% disagree. The government, and no human should be in the business of punishing another. The proper solution, IMO, is to remove only the freedoms necessary to prevent someone from continuing to violate the rights and freedoms of others, because that causes suffering.

 

[Moonbeam]

Please don't confuse my statement with "government must prevent all suffering." This should be obvious. This is also not a debate about which suffering is greater in any given situation. That is why we have judges and lawyers to attempt to sort that out through all the infinite permutations as they arise.

The point is that if the government is doing anything where the ultimate goal is not to minimize suffering, then it has overstepped its purpose. I think this is 100% compatible with your final statement which is what I take to be your conclusion.

I think that at least for the purposes of our government, they were expressed when we declared independence:

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 whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.

So one could say that the purpose of government is to preserve the right of people to express themselves on matters of reducing suffering as the communally understand that to be, how we self define, life, liberty and happiness.

Furthermore, as an aside, we have in place now a government that does not correspond to the majority of the people and therefore will not stand. Our conscious understanding of the inalienable rights we are entitled to is evolving through time.

 

[glenn1]

For most people suffering is caused by themselves (by their own free will actions, inactions, attitudes, or priorities). Thus your idea what government supposed to be sounds like it sucks honestly. A government whose mission is to save people from themselves sounds like a dystopian nightmare. And “suffering” can also be prevented by government proactively in ways you might dislike (for example killing someone with cancer before it gets to a later stage when the suffering really ramps up).

 

[ecogen]

For most people suffering is caused by themselves (by their own free will actions, inactions, attitudes, or priorities). Thus your idea what government supposed to be sounds like it sucks honestly. A government whose mission is to save people from themselves sounds like a dystopian nightmare. And “suffering” can also be prevented by government proactively in ways you might dislike (for example killing someone with cancer before it gets to a later stage when the suffering really ramps up).

Was wondering when this garbage would show up, didn't take long.

 

[Ichinisan]

...

This is where I 100% disagree. The government, and no human should be in the business of punishing another. The proper solution, IMO, is to remove only the freedoms necessary to prevent someone from continuing to violate the rights and freedoms of others, because that causes suffering.

So...no penalty for deliberately causing suffering to another? What will deter sociopaths from doing as they please?

Check my sig. As your post basically demonstrates, you CANNOT have 100% safety without giving up 100% of your freedom. That's the trade off. Then the powerful people in government get to exploit you when you have no freedom. There's literally nothing stopping the first bad-guy in power from abusing it. I choose freedom over safety. Period. Easiest decision ever.

Sociopath:

 

[ivwshane]

The job of our government is laid out in the constitution and its to promote and ensure the general welfare of its citizens. That includes protecting people from foreign and domestic threats. Its mentioned in the preamble and again in article 1 section 8 and just in case people forget, section 8 describes many of the duties and goals of Congress:

1: The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;

2: To borrow Money on the credit of the United States;

3: To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes;

4: To establish an uniform Rule of Naturalization, and uniform Laws on the subject of Bankruptcies throughout the United States;

5: To coin Money, regulate the Value thereof, and of foreign Coin, and fix the Standard of Weights and Measures;

6: To provide for the Punishment of counterfeiting the Securities and current Coin of the United States;

7: To establish Post Offices and post Roads;

8: To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries; Would you look at that, tell me if Congress has been doing their duty with regards to that one.

9: To constitute Tribunals inferior to the supreme Court;

10: To define and punish Piracies and Felonies committed on the high Seas, and Offences against the Law of Nations;

11: To declare War, grant Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and make Rules concerning Captures on Land and Water;

12: To raise and support Armies, but no Appropriation of Money to that Use shall be for a longer Term than two Years;

13: To provide and maintain a Navy;

14: To make Rules for the Government and Regulation of the land and naval Forces;

15: To provide for calling forth the Militia to execute the Laws of the Union, suppress Insurrections and repel Invasions;

16: To provide for organizing, arming, and disciplining, the Militia, and for governing such Part of them as may be employed in the Service of the United States, reserving to the States respectively, the Appointment of the Officers, and the Authority of training the Militia according to the discipline prescribed by Congress;

17: To exercise exclusive Legislation in all Cases whatsoever, over such District (not exceeding ten Miles square) as may, by Cession of particular States, and the Acceptance of Congress, become the Seat of the Government of the United States, and to exercise like Authority over all Places purchased by the Consent of the Legislature of the State in which the Same shall be, for the Erection of Forts, Magazines, Arsenals, dock-Yards, and other needful Buildings;—And

18: To make all Laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into Execution the foregoing Powers, and all other Powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any Department or Officer thereof.

I don't think there is any ambiguity in what the job of government is. How they do that job is what the discussion should be about.

 

[SlowSpyder]

Government's job is the protect our rights and our borders.

 

[Moonbeam]

The job of our government is laid out in the constitution and its to promote and ensure the general welfare of its citizens. That includes protecting people from foreign and domestic threats. Its mentioned in the preamble and again in article 1 section 8 and just in case people forget, section 8 describes many of the duties and goals of Congress:



I don't think there is any ambiguity in what the job of government is. How they do that job is what the discussion should be about.

Yes, well, but then you have people like glenn 1 above who really seem confused about that, who, when they say things like:

"For most people suffering is caused by themselves (by their own free will actions, inactions, attitudes, or priorities). Thus your idea what government supposed to be sounds like it sucks honestly. A government whose mission is to save people from themselves sounds like a dystopian nightmare."

are talking about their own mental illness and how terrified they would be to lose it were the government to offer any help. This is what happens when you have been conditioned from childhood to believe every deviant action that displeased your parents, guardians, or authority figures you needed to love you, threatened to deny you that love if you didn't behave exactly as they wished you to, while offering you nothing but a state of terror because you could never know ahead of time what they would demand next. When you have been molded by guilt and fear of your own sinfulness, the result, in order to escape the pain is to sympathize with victims, or become, like conservatives, victims of Stockholm syndrome.

 

[fskimospy]

They say "endowed by our creator with certain inalienable rights" specifically so it's understood that the government should never have the power to grant rights or deny them.

But surely in practice you know that it is exactly the government that does that. Our rights didn’t come from a magical man in the sky, they came from the fact that we created a government that protects them.

Not exactly. Up to the point where we infringe on another person's right to pursue happiness.

I disagree. Government should only protect us from outside threats and give us absolute freedom that ends where we violate the freedom / property of another -- and punish those who do violate the rights and freedoms of others.

So you oppose road building and public schools? Those seem to have been pretty great uses of government despite not being about external threats.

 

[Perknose]

Government's only function should be to preserve our rights.

List them, every single one, please, so the rest of us can know exactly what you mean when you say this is "government's only function."

 

[JEDIYoda]

I find this thread to be interesting based on how disfunctional our current government has become!
This is one of those subjects where there can be no consensus, because we each have different ideas and a lot of our ideas only account for our own self-preservation!
A good example in my opinion would be -- In America we have families that have little to no food and are starving and the parents are doing their best! In some parts of the Appalacian`s it is a real concern!
We are not talking about those who have a new car and a new home and diamond rings !! We are talking about legitimate poor people!
Yet -- until the rich have to go without and until it affects your own familys and children nothing will be done!

 

[dank69]

Was wondering when this garbage would show up, didn't take long.

Easy, big fella.

For most people suffering is caused by themselves (by their own free will actions, inactions, attitudes, or priorities).

I fully agree, at least in most cases, that the government should not prevent suffering people cause for themselves, either purposely or through ignorance. I think it is important for people to learn from their own mistakes. However, I do think it is important for government to prevent people from taking advantage of people's ignorance, and thus causing suffering. I think that is a just use of government. Do you disagree?

Thus your idea what government supposed to be sounds like it sucks honestly. A government whose mission is to save people from themselves sounds like a dystopian nightmare.

I don't think you have an accurate assessment of what my idea of government should be. Hopefully my statement above clarifies this a bit for you.

And “suffering” can also be prevented by government proactively in ways you might dislike (for example killing someone with cancer before it gets to a later stage when the suffering really ramps up).

I agree, but this is an example of deciding which suffering is worse than another, which is outside the scope of this thread. Please keep in mind, the goal should be to minimize suffering, not prevent all suffering. If a proposed policy does reduce suffering without causing other suffering to a point that we decide the policy causes more harm than it solves, then the policy is shit and should be adjusted or abandoned.

 

[JEDIYoda]

For most people suffering is caused by themselves (by their own free will actions, inactions, attitudes, or priorities). Thus your idea what government supposed to be sounds like it sucks honestly. A government whose mission is to save people from themselves sounds like a dystopian nightmare. And “suffering” can also be prevented by government proactively in ways you might dislike (for example killing someone with cancer before it gets to a later stage when the suffering really ramps up).

The above is total bull shit and shows a person with a callous heart!
Suffering is a subject in and of itself!
As in what constitutes suffering?
Personal suffering? Those who are affected by your suffering?
Is one persons suffering more important than the next persons suffering?
The list keeps on going....

 

[dank69]

So...no penalty for deliberately causing suffering to another? What will deter sociopaths from doing as they please?

Check my sig. As your post basically demonstrates, you CANNOT have 100% safety without giving up 100% of your freedom. That's the trade off. Then the powerful people in government get to exploit you when you have no freedom. There's literally nothing stopping the first bad-guy in power from abusing it. I choose freedom over safety. Period. Easiest decision ever.

Sociopath:

First of all, I would like to say something I should have said in my first response to you: that I am glad you found this topic interesting enough to participate. I enjoy reading your perspective and would not be upset to see you participating in this forum more than you do already. I also wish your brother well even though I probably do not agree with any of his thoughts on politics. How is he doing? I don't see him posting as I mostly stick to P&N and can understand why he probably does not enjoy P&N, haha.

Anyway, to address your point, I did not say no penalty. I specifically said government should remove rights from people who demonstrate the inability to not harm others. However, I think when choosing which rights to remove, we should not choose based on punishment. After all, that would be the opposite of what I think government should be, actually causing more suffering than it prevents. No. The choice should be limited to the rights necessary to remove only to prevent more damage, and thus, prevent more suffering. Lifetime imprisonment, for example.

 

[dank69]

The job of our government is laid out in the constitution and its to promote and ensure the general welfare of its citizens. That includes protecting people from foreign and domestic threats. Its mentioned in the preamble and again in article 1 section 8 and just in case people forget, section 8 describes many of the duties and goals of Congress:



I don't think there is any ambiguity in what the job of government is. How they do that job is what the discussion should be about.

Again, I am discussing what the government should be, not what it currently is. However, I do not think anything in the Constitution conflicts with my premise. Do you disagree? Do you have an example?

 

[dank69]

Government's job is the protect our rights and our borders.

To what end?