Is Government the success or failure of man?

@xris,

xris;157091 wrote:

Sorry I did not think it was an American question.

Where ever it is you cannot change a rotten form piecemeal... Build a new form inside the old and then trash the old, if you want change; or if you do not want change but only want to seem important, then organize for change, because that will exhaust every effort toward change with politics...

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@Ali phil,

Get a Hammer and sickel and AK-47 Seems to do the job.

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@Ali phil,

Violence is not necessary...Just quit supporting the old, and take up the new...

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@Fido,

Fido;157250 wrote:

Where ever it is you cannot change a rotten form piecemeal... Build a new form inside the old and then trash the old, if you want change; or if you do not want change but only want to seem important, then organize for change, because that will exhaust every effort toward change with politics...

Whats rotten America or a system?

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@Ali phil,

In new zealand a MP tried to ban protest! But didnt get very far.

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@Ali phil,

Ali;155835 wrote:

If you look at American 'democracy' it seems to me that its not fair at all. 90% of the time the party that spends more money wins the election.
Plus Democrats and Republicans are back by the same corporate round table so who ever gets in your going to get much of the same thing, as they have to please their 'sponsers' if you like. It doesn't matter how much you say change, actions speek loader than words and in this case the actions of putting more troops into afghanistan seems to say something very different from change.
Also you say freedom, but the U.S.A is controlled by media, freedom of choice has become a delusion.
Burney Merdock is Democracy.
Money is Democracy.
Lies are Democracy.
Coruption is Democracy.
George Bush is Democracy.
Obama is Democracy, you might think that it is od to but obama in, but no matter how good his intensions are, more soldiers are being sent around the globe to spread American Imperialism. Doesnt matter whos presedent i bet you Dick Chainy (dont know how to spell his name) will get his afghan pipeline.

Absolute truth for all of the above! This is the exact message I am trying to convey! I think people are miss understanding my message regarding no government, I don't imply for a chaotic anarchy, but the current system of government is utterly flawed!

Ali;155835 wrote:

Doesnt matter whos presedent i bet you Dick Chainy (dont know how to spell his name) will get his afghan pipeline.

This is because they don't run the show, presidents are put forward to give the impression of democracy being present. Or did you think someone like George 'Mr. Danger' Bush earned his seat on the white house on his own wits? He was acquired the seat through dynasty. He was there merely for show people.

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@Ali phil,

Q: Is Government the success or failure of man?

That depends on how you look at it. There are pros and cons to civil government. For some people the pros outweigh the cons, but to others the cons outweigh the pros. Civil government is of course a result of civilization. Civilization is a result of humanity's discontent with the hunter-gatherer lifestyle. Governments first arose in order to protect the property of the elite. Man then became discontent with the nature of the state, so he changed it. Now, in the post-enlightenment era, state governments are meant to protect the equal liberties of all its citizens. However, man's discontent was not to stop there. In the new democratic republics, two political perspectives began to emerge. This dichotomy came to be known as left-right politics. The left, when taken to its logical extreme, believes that progressive political policies will inevitably lead to our political contentment. The right, when taken to its logical extreme, believes that government should only serve to protect the rights of its citizens from coercion with a minimal amount of coercion and that this will lead to our political contentment. When things go wrong, the blame game begins and the political cycle turns. And so the political ferris wheel goes around and around and reminds its followers of their discontent with government and politics.

I am reminded of Freud's Civilization and Its Discontents upon this reflection. Freud argued that governments create laws that inhibit the natural inclinations of human beings and that these laws actually instill perpetual feelings of discontent among its citizens.

And so the primary con is that civilization and government, born of discontentment, thus creates another type of discontentment. The pro is that civil government makes us more comfortable. However, I am skeptical of the notion that comfort equates with contentment.

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@Ali phil,

Hue man... Civilization is the result of humanity's discontent with the hunter gather system??? I would bet you could hit the moon better with a dart than you hit the mark with that line... Try again, and think about it first...

For a hint, consider that to the Germans, culture is the same as civilization is to us... Consider also that people have always had some culture for culture is knowledge, and as soon as culture could be expressed in language civilization as we know it became inevitable... So what if humanity has always been discontented... We are not less contented than they, and are perhaps a great deal more lonely... What characterizes all civilizations is conquest... When people quit eating their captives and instead enlsaved them civilization was a given because wealth, even human wealth could be accumulated... Civilization is a form of relationship as canibalism is not, and it is in the laying down of laws for subject peoples that all people became subjugated...People eat up their produce and no one works harder than is necessary, so wealth accumulaton for primitives was slight...Only when a person could be denied their own products, and diriven far beyond their capacity and desire could the state begin to grow on a portion of the acccumulated wealth...

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@Ali phil,

Russia, China and USA have very different kinds of goverments, that also goes for the rest of the world, though they share many similarities, they all have different values.

In ancient Rome they also had a goverment, the senate, but it was plauged by favoritism, comradery ..etc.

So excatly of what compared to what?

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@Fido,

Fido;158041 wrote:

For a hint, consider that to the Germans, culture is the same as civilization is to us... Consider also that people have always had some culture for culture is knowledge, and as soon as culture could be expressed in language civilization as we know it became inevitable... So what if humanity has always been discontented... We are not less contented than they, and are perhaps a great deal more lonely... What characterizes all civilizations is conquest... When people quit eating their captives and instead enlsaved them civilization was a given because wealth, even human wealth could be accumulated... Civilization is a form of relationship as canibalism is not, and it is in the laying down of laws for subject peoples that all people became subjugated...People eat up their produce and no one works harder than is necessary, so wealth accumulaton for primitives was slight...Only when a person could be denied their own products, and diriven far beyond their capacity and desire could the state begin to grow on a portion of the acccumulated wealth...

Let's try and narrow down the definition of the word civilization. The definition of the word civilization is not synonymous with knowledge, and I don't give a damn what the Germans considered civilization to be. When social scientists use the word civilization, this is what they mean:

"A civilization is a relatively high level of the development of a human society.[1] A civilized society is often characterized by advanced agriculture, long-distance trade, occupational specialization, and urbanism. Aside from these core elements, civilization is often marked by any combination of a number of secondary elements, including a developed transportation system, writing, standards of measurement (currency, etc.), contract and tort-based legal systems, great art style, monumental architecture, mathematics, sophisticated metallurgy, and astronomy."

I'm not talking about culture or knowledge when I say civilization. When I say civilization, I'm talking about a distinct type of societal structure.

Now that we've hopefully clarified what I meant by civilization, let's move on to another well thought out statement you made.

Fido;158041 wrote:

Hue man... Civilization is the result of humanity's discontent with the hunter gather system??? I would bet you could hit the moon better with a dart than you hit the mark with that line... Try again, and think about it first...

So civilization is not a result of the fact that human beings wanted more stable and comfortable lives? Is that what you're telling me?

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@hue-man,

hue-man;158063 wrote:

Let's try and narrow down the definition of the word civilization. The definition of the word civilization is not synonymous with knowledge, and I don't give a damn what the Germans considered civilization to be. When social scientists use the word civilization, this is what they mean:

"A civilization is a relatively high level of the development of a human society.[1] A civilized society is often characterized by advanced agriculture, long-distance trade, occupational specialization, and urbanism. Aside from these core elements, civilization is often marked by any combination of a number of secondary elements, including a developed transportation system, writing, standards of measurement (currency, etc.), contract and tort-based legal systems, great art style, monumental architecture, mathematics, sophisticated metallurgy, and astronomy."

I'm not talking about culture or knowledge when I say civilization. When I say civilization, I'm talking about a distinct type of societal structure.

Now that we've hopefully clarified what I meant by civilization, let's move on to another well thought out statement you made.

So civilization is not a result of the fact that human beings wanted more stable and comfortable lives? Is that what you're telling me?

What do you want, that you do not know of... The changes from hunter gatheres to civilized took hundred if not thousands of years and first people had to become raiders and conquerors...Now, do you think the first people who planted a seed knew what would grow out of it???

If you do not think of culture as knowledge what do you consider your own knowledge to be???, What do you consider your culture to be removed from the sum of your knowledge??? What would you consider cultured to be compared to uncultured??? The difference between civilizations and savages or barbarians is one of knowledge, of pottery, of building, of agriculature, of writing and mathematics, and even of government, and war...

But how is it that history is full of barbarians hordes overrunning civilizations when clearly the civilized have so much more of culture???It is because with their slaves and inequality, that the conquerers, excepting the chiefs become slaves themselves, or fat and lazy, and corrupt, in a word, civilized, and the chiefs, distrusting their own hire mercenaries who cannot be relied upon for anything but to take over, or run away...

The Mongols were never defeated until they became civilized, and then they were swept away... The possessed ones, the Mamaluks of Egypt handed the Mongols their first defeat, were quickly civilized and so destroyed in the lands of their conquests...

One of our biggest exports is knowledge, and our next biggest export is capital; so our days are numbered as a world power...With justice goes strength, no matter what knowledge one has..

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@Fido,

"Is Government the Success or Failure of Man?"
Well it is both isn't it?

"The essence of Government is power; and power, lodged as it must be in human hands, will ever be liable to abuse."
"If all men were angels there would be no need for government" James Madison

"Nothing appears more surprising to those who consider affairs with a philosophical eye, than the ease with which the many are governed by the few".
- David Hume, First Principles of Government

"Democracy is the worst form of government except for all those others that have been tried".
- Winston Churchill

Let us take Africe for a start. A Large country geographically, rich in natural resources and in human resources. Possibly the poorest area making the least progress in the entire world. Why? Bad government for the most part. You can blame it on colonialism and exploitation but the truth is ethnic strife, instability, and violence (all symptoms of ineffective and bad government). The failure of man.

Countries which have adopted representative forms of government and at least partially market driven economies on the other hand have flourished in comparison. Gernerating wealth, stable governments, internal security and improved freedoms, choices and lifestyles for their populations. The choice should be clear on the basis of experience.

There are still those who espose everything should be equal and everything should be fair. A state of conditions which is not compatible with human nature or with the state of nature itself. The best one can hope for is equality of opportunity and the meeting of the most basic of human requirements. Using government to make everything equall, fair and safe requires such intrusive management of the society as to constitute tyranny itself.

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@prothero,

prothero;158137 wrote:

"Is Government the Success or Failure of Man?"
Well it is both isn't it?

"The essence of Government is power; and power, lodged as it must be in human hands, will ever be liable to abuse."
"If all men were angels there would be no need for government" James Madison

"Nothing appears more surprising to those who consider affairs with a philosophical eye, than the ease with which the many are governed by the few".
- David Hume, First Principles of Government

"Democracy is the worst form of government except for all those others that have been tried".
- Winston Churchill

Let us take Africe for a start. A Large country geographically, rich in natural resources and in human resources. Possibly the poorest area making the least progress in the entire world. Why? Bad government for the most part. You can blame it on colonialism and exploitation but the truth is ethnic strife, instability, and violence (all symptoms of ineffective and bad government). The failure of man.

Countries which have adopted representative forms of government and at least partially market driven economies on the other hand have flourished in comparison. Gernerating wealth, stable governments, internal security and improved freedoms, choices and lifestyles for their populations. The choice should be clear on the basis of experience.

There are still those who espose everything should be equal and everything should be fair. A state of conditions which is not compatible with human nature or with the state of nature itself. The best one can hope for is equality of opportunity and the meeting of the most basic of human requirements. Using government to make everything equall, fair and safe requires such intrusive management of the society as to constitute tyranny itself.

As you said, Government is power, and to date, that has been because most power has been alienated from the people and government has been some sort of ruling of them... I have just been reading about the twelve Caesars and what is remarkable is that a guy like Augustus could leave the Empire such a mess, and that his rule could be so imperminent when he had such control over events, and played the Senate like a game of Chess...He could not do it alone... He had to cut knights in as never before, and freedmen; and even the Senators who he weeded out occasionally like a garden...In the process he did like the Eastern potentates and made himself a God, as Julius had done before him and with more success...It was no wonder people were encouraged to devote themselves to his Genius... And yet, were his powers absolute he could not have managed better the problems the vast differences that wealth and status made for him...

A people ruling themselves, using government to heal their differences, and to foresee problems and react with alacrity to them would have had an easier time of it...Such true governments, self rule have the cure for injustice always at hand in that equality with which no democracy can long endure...

Great disparities of wealth doomed the democracy of the Senate, and of the whole people, whom it corrupted...Consider even, that Augustus whittled down the Senate from a thousand to six hundred when our country with far greater population does not have in the Senate and the house that many members...How can we invest such power in so few without inviting corruption??? And this corruption, which the people share puts government in a headlock, and keeps it far from the legitimate goals it has set for itself, and more than that,, it averts its eyes from the future, so that it can only react to what is past, and not to what lies ahead...It is because no political equality is possible when economic equality has went by the boards...

People are equal by identity, since within our identity we are all different by degrees, and unless economic equality is forced, no political equality will remain, and though this is difficult, it may be done, and it has been done, by social agreement and organization...

The only technology that primitives had that was superior to our own was government, self government, and social control... They would not let wealth destroy their unity and cohesion; and until people began to raid, and to hold their wealth from their societies by force of arms, the unity and safety of the people was assured... To protect peace, wealth had to be protected, and when wealth had the protection justice once enjoyed, there was no more justice, and wealth and government became the property of the few, and so those societies were splendid, and already destroyed from within...Their life became only a matter of historical moments...

It was not only Augustus who left a legacy of impermanence, but the whole people, and were it not for a legacy of megalythic structures meant to demonstrate their invincibility and immortality, we would know little about them... Everything about Rome said we are here forever, and they were already doomed...

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@Ali phil,

I don't see in what sense it can be a failure, it is plagued by the human traits, such as incompetence, greed, selfness, ignorence, stupidity, mental illness ..etc, I can only see it not-so-much-as-a-success ..but as a great benefit.

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@Ali phil,

Hex... What is true of government as a social form is true of all social forms, that they are ours, and all tests of will as well as being vehicles of survival... It does not matter how large a form is, every relationship within it is one on one... We all have an individual relationship with the Pope, or the President; but some people have greater power by their very nature and personality, for better or worse, to turn and control the direction of the relationship... Shakespeare said that when two people ride a horse some one has to sit in front, and this is always true; but it does not matter if the goal for each is the same....And so this is a good matphore for relationships and it tells why even the best of form in time begins to fail...Peoples conception of their self interest is driven by their moral sense, and even their moral sense is a form of relationship... If they have no moral sense, but seem to, they can do great damage to their forms in the course of their lives...

It does not matter, for example, if a person makes millions out of their relatiionships, and leaves them all to their children- if in the process they have undercut the meaning of all money...Again, for an example, Look at Lincoln, in the Gettysburg address, when the form of our government was already growing decrepit, and trying to find in it some deeper meaning to justify all the carnage before him, and turning to a still older form outlined in the Declaration of Independence, where, incidentally, forms are discussed...

The life of any form of relationship is the meaning, and that is what we see leave as social forms begin to die... We see this in the life styles of the Romans, in their infidelity, their abortions, their bleeding, wanton killings, going from table to vomitoriums, and back again, and their suicides...Christianity found a society empty of meaning and had a bag full...

So, it is true that every form of relationship is doomed and more doomed the bigger they are, and the more resistent to change...Many social forms like marriage die with one of the members... Governments do not, and consequently they suffer generation after generations of people trying to turn their meaning into a portable and personal value... But governments to work must be meaningful to all, and with the meaning sucked out of them and turned to money or power, as other forms, serve no one and must be killed off if they will not kill the whole people...

Where are the Romans and Athenians??? They were destroyed by the failed forms of their relationships...What does it matter now who was the richest, the most powerful, of beautiful, or who was on top of the heap across the board...If a people desires to survive, they must design their forms to die, and allow for new ideas and new forms to have life...

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@Soul Brother,

Soul Brother;157974 wrote:

Absolute truth for all of the above! This is the exact message I am trying to convey! I think people are miss understanding my message regarding no government, I don't imply for a chaotic anarchy, but the current system of government is utterly flawed!

This is because they don't run the show, presidents are put forward to give the impression of democracy being present. Or did you think someone like George 'Mr. Danger' Bush earned his seat on the white house on his own wits? He was acquired the seat through dynasty. He was there merely for show people.

Haha Love it (:

Democracy is wonderful in theory but doesn't work in practice.
It anoys me that this is used against socialism but i think it accualy has more relavence to capatilism.

1 Reply

@Ali phil,

Ali;158352 wrote:

Haha Love it (:

Democracy is wonderful in theory but doesn't work in practice.
It anoys me that this is used against socialism but i think it accualy has more relavence to capatilism.

Just the opposite: It seems impossible in theory, but it is the only form of true government and it was universal when people had nothing but the desire to survive... Democracy is the political equivalent of a socialist economy... It is wealth that destroys democracy and it is inequality of wealth that destroys socialism...

As soon as inequality of wealth and privilage becomes evident democracy is doomed...It cannot be destroyed from without short of the destruction of the whole people, and that is its purpose... Democracy is defensive...It makes every man a general, and it brings every person to the defense of their rights... It is not the numbers involved that make democracy unwieldy, because that is is easily managed... It is the inequality of wealth and resources that pit one group against another, and which hamstrings the process until finally, to accomplish anything, majority rule is accepted, and that is not democracy but the dirty end of democracy which in its natural state demand consensus...

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@Fido,

You all seem to me to be stating irrelevent and somewhat dismal facts. Those of you who are intellegent enough to see what the question was really asking are miskenskewing it and eventually either turning it into a history lesson or saying that one form of goverment is superior to another.

The earlier posts put it best in saying that they belive goverment is the inevebility of man. What they dont realize is that eventually all goverment will fail.

History is made by the individual, not goverments. A goverment is nothing without the individual, and just like in Rome before us, the goverment will fall with the mortality of its people.

I belive that goverment is an essential step to allowing us all to become an individual. Economies always fail, Goverment always fail, people always fail. We all need to learn not to give two shits about the person next to us and must take control of the supreme goverment which is ultimately, your phsycky.

If you have questions on this theory please ask. It is not anarchy, it is not objectivism, and is neither conservative nor liberal. I dont care if you disagree but goverment is the greatest misconception of man and war is its ultimate buaety.

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Is Government the success or failure of man?

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