Craig <[email protected]> wrote:
> > The Constitution. And common law. I mean that. > > So your ancestors got together and decided they had this authority? This > is an argument for authority -- from authority. > Exactly right! You have hit the nail on the head. This is how all government works, and all other social institutions. We inherit the machinery of government just as we inherit the machinery of electric power generation, and our houses, and our schools. We cannot wave a magic wand and rebuild these things overnight. We do not know how else to live. We are -- to some extent -- slaves to tradition, just as we are slaves to technology. I am politically conservative, meaning I do not believe we should change our institutions without careful consideration, even though we see problems in them. Changes often make institutions worse. Our ancestors set things up the way they are for good reasons. In some cases we have forgotten the reasons. As Jefferson put it: "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." In Japan, starting in 1868 (the Meiji era) people changed their way of living in countless ways. They adapted new health laws, new banking, a new education system, a new military, and finally, a new form of government. They even changed the clothes they wore. They could do this because they had successful working models in western countries. They could see what worked. They could pick and choose new institutions from existing models. They sent experts to England to learn how to build a navy, and to the U.S. to devise an education system. We do not have a working model of the utopia you want to build, where taxes are optional. All we have are places like China, where anyone making over $50,000 does not have to pay taxes. Based on these models, I say it is better for us to use the threat of lawful force to compel people to pay taxes, obey speed limits, install indoor plumbing and so on. I agree with you that it is a shame we must retain the threat of force, but it is much better than the alternative. - Jed
