[quote]NickViar wrote:
Condition number one of sexmachine’s contract is, “The conditions of the social contract must be consistent with the preservation of natural rights.”
How can something be consistent with the preservation of something that it takes?
Being allowed to continue living in exchange for giving up my rights to liberty and property doesn’t really sound like a contract…it sounds kind of like the conditions of a robbery or kidnapping! That’s all I want…for people to acknowledge that instead of sugarcoating it.
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Dude, you keep making it into an all or nothing proposition and I really have no idea why.
It can’t be an all or nothing proposition. Otherwise having full natural rights would mean that I have the right to steal another’s property, and vice versa.
THESE are the types of rights that you surrender under the concept of social contract. You can certainly make the argument that our current government takes away too many rights, but the basic idea is that our natural rights that happen to infringe upon others or otherwise can be used to harm others are “taken” from us (in the form of laws that illegalize them). This has an effect of protecting many of our rights, including right to property.
You’re obviously pissed off about taxation, if I recall from previous posts I’ve seen from you. IIRC, you stated that the very act of taxation means that we don’t have our right to property. Again though, it’s not an all or nothing proposition. Just because the government takes some of our property doesn’t make us slaves. There is a balance. And, again, you can certainly argue that the government is currently tipping that balance in their favor.
The ultimate point is that it’s not an all or nothing situation. Just because we have some of our rights taken, doesn’t mean that we’re slaves. Just because we have some of our property taken, doesn’t mean that we’re slaves.
And the concept of social contract postulates that the rights taken allow us to pursue other rights freely. The property taken allows us to utilize our remaining property in a better and more efficient manner, vice versa.
Imagine if you lived in a completely open, lawless land. Your property can be taken at any moment by someone who is stronger than you, and you have absolutely no legal recourse to remedy the situation. The state is supposed to act as the ultimate arbitrator who can help you in that kind of situations. First by making theft illegal, thus protecting your property, and by assisting you in retrieving the stolen property, which helps to protect your rights.
Yes, you need to give some of your property to the state so that the state can actually work these functions. But you are doing so willingly.
And if you don’t like what the state takes from you, then you just work to elect representatives who will act in the manner you desire.
