I think we're actually more in agreement than you're seeing. I think my speaking in more of an abstract sense is muddying the water though.
But yes ultimately it is a libertarian perspective. I believe very strongly in the enlightenment era views of the sanctity and primacy of the individual over the state.
I guess what I'm ultimately saying is that a gov't that is unwilling or unable to use power to enforce an edict, itsn't much of a gov't. At the same time, use of that power, by definition, is an infringment of the liberties of the individual because you are forcing someone to do or not do something.
My view is that use of that power has to come from a properly constituted legal authority, and must have a just cause behind it, and in my mind the only real just cause is the protection of the individual and their liberties and/or striking the balance of those between two individuals.
Most of what you're saying, I agree with in principle. You may make a libertarian out of me yet!
Except in our case, we're going the opposite direction in many ways. We just had a grandmother arrested in IL and will probably serve time because she dared to buy cold medication for her grandchildren, in violation of anti-meth laws.
Ultimately whats driving these changes in large part is the influence of police, an arm of the gov't, on the actions of gov't. The more things that can be made illegal, the more "crime" there is and the more money and manpower must be spent on law enforcement. Its a vicious self feeding cycle which politicians are more than happy to go along with because they don't want to be seen as soft on crime.
The Police, technically aren't an 'arm' of government in the strictest sense. The modern Criminal Justice System is designed to be independent from the legislative and executive. While the legislature passes laws for the Police to enforce, a Police Officer is under no obligation to enforce such rules. That's where the whole 'discretionary' theme comes into play, which is the dominant feature of the Justice system.
Whilst that works less in practice than in theory, I thought this was an interesting example:
Drivers' delight: Police boycott fines indefinitely - ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)
When politicians pass new draconian laws regarding criminal offences, they probably know that the Police aren't going to explicitly enforce that legislation, rather, it's just on the books to make the community "feel better". Although that raises many problems in itself.
It's also interesting to note that such legislation regarding morality offences have rapidly progressed in recent years. Homosexuality for example, was decriminalised over 20 years ago across Australia, as with prostitution in some jurisdictions. I think morality offences pose the greatest threat to individual freedom, because after all, who gets to decide morality?
Drug laws is another important issue too. Something like cannabis usage, probably shouldn't be against the law. Or at the very most, be a Civil Offence, where the main objective is rehabilitation. More serious drugs, like Meth or example, should still be controlled, considering the wide-ranging social and economic problems it causes.
Moreover, simply locking up drug offenders isn't going to help at all, rehabilitation, should be the dominant strategy.
Germany did start out as a republic, but it is the exception.
I'm not saying that all gov'ts are tyrannical, just that they easily have the potential to be that and its a thin line that separates a good gov't from a bad gov't. With the acquisition of more power and people in charge who are willing to ignore the rule of law, a liberal democracy can slip into a dictatorship in a proverbial heartbeat
I disagree with that statement. Today, it is quite difficult, if not impossible, for a government in a Liberal Democracy to easily flout the rule of law. Even the Government are held accountable to several bodies, wither it being the people, the High Court or Opposition parties.
With the separation of powers, delegated to both local bodies and the states, it makes it quite difficult for a Federal or State government to disobey the rule of law and impose a dictatorship. Unless there was some kind of agreement between these all these governmental entities, something which is, almost impossible.
Let's not forget social institutions, such as the Mass Media. They do a good job of keeping Governments in check. The Washington Post basically helped in the downfall of the Nixon administration after Watergate. In Australia, the Courier Mail and the ABC almost single handedly brought down the National parties hold on power in Queensland after a report in 1989, into Police and political corruption.
Regardless of what you may think, people do not enter politics in order to acquire supreme power over the people at large, there is a good lot of people there who seek to improve the lives of the population, and those who wish to promote the cause of social justice.
So it's not exactly easy for a government to impose a dictatorship on it's people. And just because they theoretically can, doesn't necessarily they will. For example, any one of us could go out and murder someone tonight if we really wanted to. Do we do it though? Of course not, we're aware of the negative consequences of such actions. The same is true with the government (Those consequences being what I wrote above).
Lets look at what some non-totalarian gov'ts have done as well though.
We here in the US were using concentration camps with the Japanese at the same time Hitler was doing it with the Jews. Then there's our wonderful history on enslaving people due to the color of their skin.
That's quite a weak comparison. The Japanese weren't being systematically slaughtered, nor were they being purposely worked and starved to death in those internment camps.
Even you Aussies with the "stolen generations" taking children wholesale from their families because they were of mixed race.
Yes, and that forms a dark part of our history.
That formed part of a prevailing view in the community at that time. Being, "Aboriginal parents can't take proper care of their children, so we [White people] will take care of them". In the 1960's, that view may of had some legitimacy to it, considering the horrid social and economic conditions that Indigenous Australian's endured [Which, obviously wasn't their fault].
Successive governments have also tried to mend the wound left in Indigenous Australians, because of that policy. In 2008, the Prime Minister formally apologised on behalf of the Australian people to the hurt and suffering caused by that policy.
At the moment, many government programs exist to assist Indigenous Australian's who are disadvantaged. My point being, the government can actually do some good.
Most of the incidents have happened in recent history, but remember that the role and expectations of government are constantly evolving. It's easy to decry the past actions of others, but remember that 50-100 years ago, the people had a completely different perception and expectation of their government.
All of those were horrible violations of the rights of the individual and all were perpetrated with a gov't accountable to the electorate, essentially cases of the proverbial "tyranny of the majority."
My point ultimately being that we need to be far more careful than we currently are in giving more power to gov't to reign in other "evil" institutions because we could very easily end up with a far worse evil thats far harder to get rid of.
Everyone can agree that there are big problems in governments, but I would assert that the system remains relatively sound. I think it's better to most of the alternatives out there, it just needs significant reform.
