« 6TH POPE Home | Email msg. | Reply to msg. | Post new | Board info. Previous | Home | Next

Re: The Moral Calculus of a Death Lottery 

By: Decomposed in 6TH POPE | Recommend this post (3)
Wed, 16 Mar 22 10:19 PM | 51 view(s)
Boardmark this board | 6th Edition Pope Board
Msg. 30465 of 58731
(This msg. is a reply to 30459 by fizzy)

Jump:
Jump to board:
Jump to msg. #

fizzy:

Re: “they [the elected government officials] are neither our servants, agents, attorneys, nor representatives …”
No, I think they are representatives. Not of *ME*, but of voters as a whole.

The issue, I think, is that most of them have tours of duty that run much too long. Perhaps if Representatives were elected for two months, and Senators for one year, it would be better.

Once upon a time, Congress met for just a short period each year. Most Congressmen had to get back to their farms, after all. In that short period, and with their minuscule budget, there was limited damage that they could do.

Today, Congress acts nearly full time, implementing grand plans with staggering budgets with lightning speed. I really don't think anyone in Congress has the time or interest to understand the Big Picture of everything Congress does, so lots of costly, painful, huge mistakes (and intentionals) result.

It's a problem.








Avatar

Gold is $1,581/oz today. When it hits $2,000, it will be up 26.5%. Let's see how long that takes. - De 3/11/2013 - ANSWER: 7 Years, 5 Months


- - - - -
View Replies (2) »



» You can also:
- - - - -
The above is a reply to the following message:
Re: The Moral Calculus of a Death Lottery
By: fizzy
in 6TH POPE
Wed, 16 Mar 22 4:43 PM
Msg. 30459 of 58731

'...any Jews murdered by the democratically elected Nazi government were not murdered, but only "voluntarily committed suicide"' (Rothbard was Jewish, so he's allowed to think critically)

https://mises.org/library/state-versus-liberty

It is also contended that, in democratic governments, the act of voting makes the government and all its works and powers truly "voluntary." Again, there are many fallacies with this popular argument. In the first place, even if the majority of the public specifically endorsed each and every particular act of the government, this would simply be majority tyranny rather than a voluntary act undergone by every person in the country.

Murder is murder, theft is theft, whether undertaken by one man against another, or by a group, or even by the majority of people within a given territorial area. The fact that a majority might support or condone an act of theft does not diminish the criminal essence of the act or its grave injustice. Otherwise, we would have to say, for example, that any Jews murdered by the democratically elected Nazi government were not murdered, but only "voluntarily committed suicide"—surely, the grotesque but logical implication of the "democracy as voluntary" doctrine.

Secondly, in a republic as contrasted to a direct democracy, people vote not for specific measures but for "representatives" in a package deal; the representatives then wreak their will for a fixed length of time. In no legal sense, of course, are they truly "representatives" since, in a free society, the principal hires his agent or representative individually and can fire him at will. As the great anarchist political theorist and constitutional lawyer, Lysander Spooner, wrote:

they [the elected government officials] are neither our servants, agents, attorneys, nor representatives … [for] we do not make ourselves responsible for their acts. If a man is my servant, agent, or attorney, I necessarily make myself responsible for all his acts done within the limits of the power I have intrusted to him. If I have intrusted him, as my agent, with either absolute power, or any power at all, over the persons or properties of other men than myself, I thereby necessarily make myself responsible to those other persons for any injuries he may do them, so long as he acts within the limits of the power I have granted him....


« 6TH POPE Home | Email msg. | Reply to msg. | Post new | Board info. Previous | Home | Next