[Osborn F Enready]

Fangrim said: Not necessarily. If they feel themselves to be that antagonistic for the direction or ideas of the majority, they may bind with other people who share more similar ideals and form their own societies.

Ok, what is a society for the purpose of this thread? A soverign nation?

How many soverign nations do you know that will "tolerate" their nation being divided on this premise?

Fangrim said: Each individuals' will comes together to form a collective will, yes.

A collective will is like a vague poll. You say you are ok with the "government" or "society" sacrificing lives at the will of the majority, to please the will of the majority, at the expense and cost of minority lives?

I would rather die, and would intend to take as many of those oppressors with me as possible on my way out.

Fangrim said: Individuals are only "forced under the treads" of the general people's will if they disagree with that will.

They have the right to disagree, naturally and legally(in the U.S.), and I, like many, would make the "majority" pay a VERY steep price in lives for such types of action.

The collective will takes no precedence over individual will, or rights, certainly by nature, and assuredly in our laws.

Fangrim said: It is no fault of the majority if the minority dislike those policies.

It is no fault of the majority, if that well armed minority wipes them out in their path to oppression by force, by ever means necessary, up to and including guerilla war, terror and mass bombings.

“It only stands to reason that where there's sacrifice, there's someone collecting the sacrificial offerings. Where there's service, there is someone being served. The man who speaks to you of sacrifice is speaking of slaves and masters, and intends to be the master.”
-Ayn Rand

Fangrim said: Whatever role the people wish it to play. Government is simply an extension of humanity. It is a tool that should be used as the people wish it to be used; not limited based on arbitrary systems of rights set down by the intelligentsia, by those who think themselves more fit to decide what each individual wants than those individuals themselves.

That sounds like "fuzzy logic". Without objective, defined justice, there can be no respect nor representation of the individual. Many people, myself included, view all the rights enumerated, as well as others, as "non-negotiable" and requisites to a satisfying life.

If a person tries to remove those rights, they are in essence trying to remove my ability to live a satisfying life, which makes me directly value their life, much less, and would put them directly at risk by the abject threat of force against me, my liberty, my rights.

In summation....

The retallitory use of force requires objective rules of evidence to establish that a crime has been committed and to prove who committed it, as well as objective rules to define punishments and enforcement procedures. Men who attempt to prosecute crimes, without such rules, are a lynch mob. If a society left the retalitory use of force in the hands of individual citizens, it would degenerate into mob rule, lynch law and an endless series of bloody private feuds or vendettas.

If physical force is to be barred from social relationships, men need an institution charged with the task of protecting their rights under an objective code of rules, or law.

THIS is the task of a government- of a proper government- as its basic task, its only moral justification and the reason why men do need a government at all.

A government is the means of placing the retallitory use of physical force under objective control-i.e. under objectively defined laws.

Fangrim said: The collective derives its power from the will of each individual, correct. But in participating in government, the individual concedes that his own will is equal to the will of any other individual, and that if the majority of the people contradict his own wishes, the majority rules. It is the exchange he pays for participating in society and gaining all of its benefits. The individual gains political power in a more direct voting process, and all the benefits of social interaction.

This is all only valid if by mutual conscent, and if agreed to. What if man chooses "not to participate" in society, yet refuses to leave?

Fangrim said: No one can decide the people's will except the people themselves. Why decide for them what only they should decide?

Have you ever seen a lynch mob?
Do you value "pure democracy", and how is it different, if you think it is, than populism?

Fangrim said: If they decide they want government to provide only a minimal amount of protection for ensure their survival and happiness, then that's fine. If, however, they want a strong, bigger, and more active government, all the better. Government is an extension of the people's will: if the people will it to do something, it should.

I disagree, as the people have no right to use force of government to claim rights they themselves don't possess.

By allowing the government to use force against the minority, to appease the majority, is to directly use government force to claim rights of the unwilling, by those who have no valid claim or intrest in those rights other than self betterment, at the direct expense of others.(AKA, a violent thief)

Under what moral pretense would such a system find a shelter from public opinion?

Fangrim said: Under libertarian style government, the government is restricted in what it does in ways that can contradict the people's will.

The peoples will is limited to what they have natural right to control, and no more.

Fangrim said: Correct.

Well, thanks for agreeing. Now you understand why I see populism in its pure form as the worst, most vile form of intellectual, and political trash to ever inhabit a trash can, or a mind.

Fangrim said: Why is there such ease in the environment of localism for such laws?

Local is easy to control by population, but also easy to repel by individuals. State and Federal are like behemoths that are in this day and age, beyond adequate "reigning in" by the people collectively, or the individuals.

The main thing is, rights are sacred, and can only be sacrificed by conscent unless you infringe the rights of another, at which time "objective law" takes over to bring about "objective justice", based on facts, evidence, testimony and reason.

Fangrim said: It then merely becomes a more localized tyranny of the majority. You STILL have the situation of the majority deciding for even the dissenting individual. "Best fit those affected"? Are you a national libertarian, but a local populist? Sounds like it.

No, you just don't seem to have a full grasp of libertarianism.

Fangrim said: And even if that's true? You're already assuming what each individual has a right to take! That itself would be decided by popular vote.

LOL, maybe, if you started over, erased history, erased memories and common sense. Good luck with that.

Fangrim said: Then this is an inherent contradiction. You are a national libertarian but a local populist.

LOL, no, as I said, you just don't understand what you are arguing against.