1. Justice is nothing but the advantage of the stronger
2. Justice is obedience to laws
3. Justice is nothing but the advantage of another
I also love Orwell's take.
(2+2=5)
Posted on 08/23/2008 11:20:41 PM PDT by gpk9
Governments tend toward tyranny.
Governments are comprised of selfish humans with personal desires for money, job security, and increased authority over fellow citizens.
A citizen working for a government has opportunities to rule over and oppress fellow citizens, they would never have outside their government position. Therefore, government becomes a magnet for selfish power-seeking individuals.
By their sheer size and superior firepower, governments tend to overrun and ignore personal rights. The machine capriciously devours it's victims.
The Declaration of Independence declares that governments exist to protect the rights of citizens. The Constitution for the United States of America further states that government's purpose is to protect the rights of citizens.
In America today no government serves that purpose. Every government at every level seeks to rule over citizens, and cares nothing about their rights.
Governments ostensibly work to protect citizens. That is not their job in a legal sense, they really don't care about protecting citizens in a practical sense.
Their job is not to protect citizens, but to protect citizen's rights. Those are very different goals.
Protecting a citizen's rights tends toward liberty and freedom.
Protecting a citizen tends toward tyranny. Why? Because protection always comes at the expense of individual rights.
"Public safety" and "the public good" are concepts based in tyranny. They are not concepts a government protecting the rights of citizens would contemplate. They are concepts a king ruling over his subjects would contemplate.
A government protecting the rights of citizens would not care about "public safety" nor "the public good." Why? Because such a government would realize that protecting citizens is not it's job. It is citizens' job to protect their own safety, and such a government would facilitate and assist citizens in every way possible to protect their own safety, to wit:
1) Such a government would uphold and defend a citizen's right to protect themselves and their property from harm and theft with whatever means necessary, including deadly force.
2) Such a government would realize that actual or threatened harm to a citizen's rights of peaceful existence and ownership / use of property is the only thing that constitutes a crime.
3) Such a government would work to reduce the hassle a citizen must go through to obtain justice and restitution in the courts.
4) Such a government would work to insure that a citizen harmed by a criminal received full justice and restitution from the criminal.
5) Such a government would work to eliminate legal technicalities to punishing criminals.
6) Such a government would see the deterrent value of harsh public punishment of criminals.
A king ruling over his subjects would desire their well-being. It would be for selfish purposes. The king would be concerned about the well-being of his subjects in order to maintain a steady flow of taxes and tribute from them, and limit the expense of maintaining control over them.
A king would not care about his subject's rights, liberty, nor freedom. Rights, liberty, and freedom tend to diminish a king's control and diminish his flow of revenue from his subjects, so a king would not only have no interest in those things, but would tend to desire the eradication of those things.
A king's interest in punishing criminals would have nothing to do with protecting the rights of his subjects. His interest would be solely to prevent harm to revenue-generating subjects, and limit the expense of keeping order within his realm of rule.
That is exactly what we see in governments here in America today. They act like kings ruling over their subjects, to wit:
1) Like a king, they are obviously self-serving.
2) They display obvious desire for more power over, and more money from, citizens.
3) Every law they enact is designed to extend power over citizens, and / or, extract more money from citizens.
4) They enthusiastically pursue tyrannical concepts of "public safety" and "public good".
5) They define "crime" as an action against the government, or an action against the "public safety" or "public good."
6) They really care nothing about citizens, their safety, nor their property. "Public safety" and "public good" are merely cover-phrases for expanding power over citizens, extracting more money from citizens, and limiting the expense of keeping order within their realm of rule.
America is no longer the land of the free.
America has become a serfdom where citizens are used and abused by layers of selfish self-serving governments.
America's resources and citizen productivity has not been used for the benefit of Americans.
It has been used to build, support, and maintain layers of bloated selfish rapacious self-serving governments, who will eventually destroy America's resources and America's productive citizenry.
This is nothing new. Every government down through history has done the very same thing.
ping
Thanks for sharing....
L
That’s an extremely well-written piece.
I would hope the Admin Moderator would make it a sticky thread.
Thanks for sharing....
well said!
> That’s an extremely well-written piece.
It’s a pretty good piece — save only for the persisitent misuse of “it’s”.
(I hate being a grammar critic, BUT when a piece is well-written it deserves to be perfect.)
The possessive form of “it” is “its” not “it’s” (contraction for “it is”.) Possessive pronouns do not have apostrophes.
I wish more people would realize this.
1. Justice is nothing but the advantage of the stronger
2. Justice is obedience to laws
3. Justice is nothing but the advantage of another
I also love Orwell's take.
(2+2=5)
“Persistent” use of “it’s”? I counted two. You’re right, it should be “its”.
If you wrote something this well I’d be focusing on what you’re saying. I wouldn’t even worry about your little technical grammar errors, nor do I suspect anyone else would.
> “Persistent” use of “it’s”? I counted two. You’re right, it should be “its”.
It’s persisitent in that it’s never used correctly in the entire piece. This indicates to me that the correct apostrophe use is likely misunderstood by the writer.
I felt a polite correction was not out of place, in that context.
> If you wrote something this well I’d be focusing on what you’re saying.
If I wrote something for the FRee Republic as a Vanity I would do my best to get my grammar right, or suffer the consequences when someone hauled me up on it.
Annoying grammatical mistakes detract unnecessarily from the piece and subtract Credibility from the author needlessly.
The “grammar-doesn’t-matter-the-content-does” school of thought is an unpleasant modern trend. I find it unpleasant.
> I wouldn’t even worry about your little technical grammar errors, nor do I suspect anyone else would.
Perhaps you don’t speak for everyone else? I’ve noted that the FRee Republic tends to maintain a fairly high standard of English and even higher expectations of pieces that are posted here. It’s one of the things that makes the FRee Republic a pleasant place to be.
It looks like a Vanity, and it reads like a Vanity, and according to the Posting Guidelines it would be a Vanity. It's a pretty good Vanity, so far as Vanities go. You feel it is something other than a Vanity: I'd be interested to know what you feel it is, and why.
> 2) I really doubt misuse of "its" in two spots detracts from the piece to the average person reading it. I suspect the average person wouldn't even notice it.
I'm an average person and I noticed it. And yes, it does detract from your piece: it's a glaring mistake that stands out like dog's bollix, and is the first tell-tale clue that the piece has been nowhere near an Editor or subjected to any critical thought by anyone other than its author.
(Thus, it has more in common with a Vanity than a credible Op/Ed piece.)
> 3) FreeRepublic doesn't maintain ANY standard of grammar. I've seen pieces here written by major journalists with more grammar errors than mine.
Bollix. Even if that were true, it's no excuse for poor grammar. Luckily, it isn't true. From the posting guidelines:
>> Do lead by example - Nothing improves a forum more than posters who reason sharply, write well, and have some perspective about it all. Be one of them.
and: >> Do keep "vanity" posts to a minimum - Free Republic is primarily a place to discuss news, articles, and editorials. Vanity posts, creations of the poster him or herself, should meet a high standard of quality before one is even considered worthy of posting. Often a relevant current thread or general announcement, catch-all thread is a much better choice for a brief question or comment.
(emphasis mine -- DHTH)
> If you want to discuss the substance of the piece I'll be happy to engage you, but take your petty little arguments somewhere else.
Hey mate -- I'm not arguing anything, petty or otherwise. If you can't handle a legitimate (and polite) correction on your grade-school-level grammatical error, then you're way too fragile to handle a critique on the substance of your grade-school-level Vanity article.
The not so funny thing is up until the 17th century our English cousins were required to maintain arms. The generally accepted belief was a well armed Englishman was the model of a free man.
That got changed around with a bit of applied papist pressure which ultimately ended in Civil war.
The extremely truncated version of the history of that time has the Monarchists and parliamentarians alike noticing they were outgunned by Commoners. It didn’t take long for their sense of self-preservation to kick in and they started first collecting the weapons around London and it’s suburbs.
After Cromwell took charge, the program was expanded with orders to...
search for and seize all arms, in the custody and possession of any popish recusant, or other person that hath been in arms against the Parliament, or that have adhered to the enemies thereof, or any other person whom the Commissioners shall judge dangerous to the peace of this Commonwealth.
One of the first, if not the first, recorded instances of increased crime committed against disarmed citizens was documented by James II’s military commandant of Ireland.
About a month after receiving James’ orders to disarm the English colonists in Ireland, they became such a target for the Irish criminal element, the Comandant sent written notice to James of the increased bandit activity.
Eventual adoption of their Bill of Rights included the defined right of the individual to bear arms, form a citizens militia and place limits on a standing army . A lesson our forefathers learned well.
http://www.committeesofsafety.com/Committees_of_Safety/Home.html isn’t a history page but does offer a plan that could help eliminate the worry of living under the control of an all too powerful government that no longer functions as designed.
Libertarian ping! To be added or removed freepmail me or post a message here.
This is a must read!
Good post! Thanks.
Notice the overwhelming size of the Proles vs. the Inner and Outer Parties.
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