To help those that don't have the time to go back and find them, threads do get buried very quickly, I will summarize and get it started again.
Here is the start of it. From the "Again, raw food raid" thread.
The initial disagreement was that I was saying the government over stepped it's authority and what it does now is in violation of Natural rights and the founding of this country and that at some point we violated the original intent. You are suggesting I am wrong and do not know history.Lanval wrote: My point in the "history lesson" is that you are incorrect, and Washington, Hamilton, etc. (the guys who created the gov't you speak of) proved it by their actions and statements. Sorry, you're wrong.
The rule of a just law according to the will of the people was always, and has always, been the end goal of the American democratic experiment. You are not allowed to do whatever you want, nor is the gov't forbidden from enforcing the rules as passed by the legitimate representatives of the people ~ the state and federal legislative bodies.
The issue of the revolution was not "freedom" as you seem to think, but the justness of Authoritarian, monarchical rule. Remember "No taxation without representation"? Did you notice it wasn't just "No taxation"? The Founding Fathers NEVER questioned the right of the gov't to tax; it only questioned the right of the gov't to tax without representation.
The simple fact is that the Founding Fathers always understood the need to govern my majority rule, not by absolutism. The individual rights you argue for were always subject to the needs of representative democracy, in which the needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.
Mike
I proceeded to state how there are limitations on what the government can do.
Looking at things in a chronological order there is the Declaration of Independence.
This was written to the King of England and also sent to the colonies, posted and in many cases read out loud to the public. It is the document that the colonies and or peasants saw and read. It would be what they went to war for. It is what told them why they should fight the King. It is probably safe to say most humans who fought against the King of England did so under the guise of what the Declaration said.
I have asserted how the Declaration of Independence is what the humans living here at that time had to go by to show them what we were fighting for. It says things like-
According to what I posted from the Declaration of Independence governments are instituted among men deriving their powers from the consent of the governed to protect self-evident, unalienable Rights, among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.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. — 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,
I suggested that we start here, seeing how this the document that we used to show both the King and the colonist why we were fighting. I suggest we clarify what this means, and then proceed to the next document, and then move on from there.
