1. I believe in community effort and I believe its needed to have people work together to improved quality of life but to think nation states have been built on any other spine other then pure power acquisition ia uneducated and naive. So whats our job? Our job is to try and get the power brokers to do whats right now and again and try to avoid the fall out when they try to pull a fast one on us. Oh and by the way, one of the first rules of power brokering is to convince those you want to rule that its their choice and that you are doing them a favor when in fact its anything but. So why do I think its not a good idea to protect those who rule over me without a real honest choice otherwise? Becuase I know better.
2. People who lie should be held accountable. NOT the people who believed the lie. [this is restating a point from another post that I just feel is needed to say as many times as I possibily can even if its not in context]
3. Its also clear to me that you have formulated your own view on what Jefferson said which means you fully understood the context of my take on the quote and for whatever reason you decided to act like you didnt understand my take.
p.s. "my country" is a phrase that makes my hair stand on end. We dont own this country, we used to own a bit more of it (like the radio waves and TV waves) but even in the past it mostly owns us
SEANMCAD
1. Nations develop because organization is needed and it creates efficiency, the people give power to the rulers because efficiency is increased when a few people call the shots, and nations give people rights and privledges because it encourages loyalty and because the common people are the lifeblood of a nation. It's a mutually beneficial relationship. The formation of governments has little to do with the pursuit of power, because power is meaningless without civilization. Being king of yourself means nothing. The pursuit of power is a human trait, but it has its place, it is not necessarily evil, because government in general has no concept of evil, simply of logic. I'm not speaking specifically about the United States, but civilization in general. When you're a citizen of a country, you make the agreement of service for prosperity. You can criticize that system all you want, but it's responsible for all of human development and it is an engrained part of human psychology. In most countries for most of history, when a government falls out of favor with people, people change it, usually through force. The United States was built on the idea of democracy, that because such changes are inevitable, provisions should be made to change the government through a non-violent means. As the preamble of the constitution states, if government does not meet expectations it is the right of the people to "alter or abolish" it. 2. I absolutely agree that the government should be held accountable when it lies to the people. In a liberal democracy such as the Untied States, honesty and transparency in government is something that is always sought. People have every right to question when the government wants to send them off to war, but a good citizen does not disobey laws that they do not agree with; instead they seek to change or abolish those laws. As i've repeatedly stated in this thread, when you are a citizen of a country and reap the benefits of living there, it is not morally or logically acceptable to abandon the country when it's time for you to uphold your end of the bargain. No country, nor any of the advantages of government, can survive with that kind of mentality. In essence, we go back to the stone age if no one follows the law.
3. I wasn't sure how Jefferson's quote fit into your argument, and i'm still not. It's a moot point whether we own the country or it owns us. Everyone in a country has a stake in it, whether they know or approve of it or not.
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