When to Abolish your Government
Mar 26, 2013 5:56:11 GMT -5
Post by Michael Downing on Mar 26, 2013 5:56:11 GMT -5
www.bob-owens.com/2013/03/when-is-a-citizenry-justified-in-deposing-its-government/
When is a citizenry justified in deposing its government?
Human beings are social creatures; we form and dissolve bonds as insignificant as marketplace transactions to bonds as formal as constitutions, laws, and treaties between tribes and nations. All people belonging to a group have accepted a social contract to live within the laws of their group, tribe, or nation… but what if the nation’s governors no longer acts within the bonds they has set for the nation? What should a people do, when the government has become irrevocably compromised, or corrupted, or tyrannical?
The answer is simple, clear, and morally just: the people have not just the right, but the obligation to dissolve that government. This is the right of revolution that is the right of all men, everywhere.
It is a right of cultural preservation. It is a right of self-preservation. It is the right that says no group, however “official,” has the right to take the property not rights of another by force. It is right for the sheepdogs and rams turn on a shepherd that has turned mad and who has determined to harm the flock.
The people of Cyprus have the right to revolt against their government for this outright theft. They may protest peacefully. They may protest violently. They may even wage an insurrection if it comes to it, and they would be morally justified in doing so.
The government of Cyprus failed in its stewardship of the nation’s finances, and they failed to be good trustees. When a trust fails, it is right that it be dissolved.
If those who failed in the public’s trust did so with intent, it is the right of the people to bring them to justice. Of course, in a nation where the government itself is illegitimate, who has the authority to pass sentence on the government itself? The people reserve that right for themselves, and while that right is sometimes exercised in unpleasant, it is still their right.
Every government, in every nation, would be wise to remember that truth.
When is a citizenry justified in deposing its government?
Human beings are social creatures; we form and dissolve bonds as insignificant as marketplace transactions to bonds as formal as constitutions, laws, and treaties between tribes and nations. All people belonging to a group have accepted a social contract to live within the laws of their group, tribe, or nation… but what if the nation’s governors no longer acts within the bonds they has set for the nation? What should a people do, when the government has become irrevocably compromised, or corrupted, or tyrannical?
The answer is simple, clear, and morally just: the people have not just the right, but the obligation to dissolve that government. This is the right of revolution that is the right of all men, everywhere.
It is a right of cultural preservation. It is a right of self-preservation. It is the right that says no group, however “official,” has the right to take the property not rights of another by force. It is right for the sheepdogs and rams turn on a shepherd that has turned mad and who has determined to harm the flock.
The people of Cyprus have the right to revolt against their government for this outright theft. They may protest peacefully. They may protest violently. They may even wage an insurrection if it comes to it, and they would be morally justified in doing so.
The government of Cyprus failed in its stewardship of the nation’s finances, and they failed to be good trustees. When a trust fails, it is right that it be dissolved.
If those who failed in the public’s trust did so with intent, it is the right of the people to bring them to justice. Of course, in a nation where the government itself is illegitimate, who has the authority to pass sentence on the government itself? The people reserve that right for themselves, and while that right is sometimes exercised in unpleasant, it is still their right.
Every government, in every nation, would be wise to remember that truth.