[quote]Chushin wrote:
orion wrote:
Chushin wrote:
So, clearly, Austrians are morally superior to Americans, right? And all this time I thought that people pretty much had the same weaknesses everywhere, and pretty much did whatever they could get away with… How foolish of me.
Do not despair I`ll repeat it as often as possible-
Small government, good-
Big government, bad to very, very bad…
Austria, small country, therefore relatively little (in absolute terms) government.
USA, big country + Americans that are easily manipulated and do not give a shit+ plus MIC = murdering, torturing Leviathan.
Gee, Orion, what on earth should all of us who were cursed enough to be born in a big country – no, even worse: a “murdering, torturing Leviathan!” – do, then?
Please, can’t you give us some advice?
[/quote]
You could get rid of your aristocratic ruling class and build a union of states where the federal government only has the authority to do what is explicitly mentioned in, what we could call a “constitution”.
Thomas here has experimented with a few ideas to give you a sense of the general direction.
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
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. (Note: the original hand-written text ended on the phrase “the pursuit of property” rather than “the pursuit of Happiness”[citation needed] but the phrase was changed in subsequent copies in part because it was broader. The latter phrase is used today).
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. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.
Some of the things Thomas thinks are worth mentioning:
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil Power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences:
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to complete the works of death, desolation, and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & Perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince, whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people. .