The "Social Contract".

[BlueStreak]

Originally Posted by d-ray657

The social contract is not an explicit document or well-defined law. It is a theory concerning the most just and effective way to live together in a society. It is assumed that one will give up some freedom to act according to the law of the jungle when he receives some implicit promise of security in return. We are presumed to prefer social order over a life that is "nasty, cruel, brutish and short."

The ruler in Ghana is the type of person who the social contract is presumably designed to protect us from - one who asserts power by violence. Tyranny is not accepted as part of the social contract, and the conduct in Ghanna is unquestionably tyrannical.

In our own "more civilized" countries, we will differ over the degree to which society needs to exert authority to assure some social order. Some of us would see the conduct of the robber barons during the industrial revolution as a type of tyranny which would be rejected under the social contract. Some of us might see that any sort of excessive use of wealth to assert power is outside of the social contract. Others, of course, will see the regulation designed to prevent financial tyranny as in itself tyrannical, because it is an assertion of greater influence than that to which we have implicitly consented. Simply because the range of political opinions can run from anarchy to dictatorship, does not mean that an implicit social contract does not exist in that range between the extremes.

Regards,

D-Ray

Once my feeble and weary mind successfully navigated the mouse-in-a-maze-like mental gymnastics required to understand your lawyer-speak..............I'd have to say this is a most excellent post.

Bravo, Counselor!

Dave

[BlueStreak]

Originally Posted by piece-itpete

Then why on earth would an employer want to unionize?
Of course they don't, never have, never will.

Why did Toyota crush the UAW?
Cuz it's cheaper to do without?

The founders understood the need for something like the thought behind the social contract, which is why they said repeatedly (whether they were true belivers or not) that our form of gov't was only workable for a Christian society and encouraged it at every turn.
Why would it "only be workable for a Christian society"? Because it's easier to keep the populace docile when you have the church doing all of the brainwashing for you? Perhaps it takes some of the burden of sheephearding off of the politicians? Just wonderin' aloud. I'll have to ponder this for a while.......Okay, I'm done. Pretty sure that's what it is on both counts.

Karl, Jefferson believed that every generation had the right to write their own Constitution....

Pete

Now, that last one was interesting....................

Dave

[merrylander]

Pete, you may be smart enough to adjust the press but if they let you do it then every other pressman would feel entitled to do it, regardless of competency. End result is a lot of expensive machinery buggered about.

[piece-itpete]

I've worked many jobs were I kept my own machine running, adjustments, setups, minor repairs....

In union shops you're not allowed to tweak setups because it's someone elses' job. It is (or was anyway, don't know about now) taken very seriously.

Blue, not to make people docile, old King George would've gotten a huge laugh out of that! (Or cry maybe) It's the 'social contract' thing. How's that working out in an athiest society?

Jefferson is something of a nut. He has a point though - we are living under a set of rules we had nothing to do with. So how can it be with the 'consent of the governed'?

Originally Posted by JCricket

?
That is a new one to me. I have not heard or read this before. I'll google, but do you have a source I can look at too?
MArk

My last computer crash wiped out my bookmarks. When you look be careful - there are false quotes for it, and there are also false negatives, where some site says a quote is fake just to discredit it. The internet is wonderful It's so politically charged.

I'm not going to get in another quote war. The best way is to read what they said. But just the same consider:

"The highest glory of the American Revolution was this; it connected in one indissoluble bond the principles of civil government with the principles of Christianity." - John Quincy Adams;

"The Christian religion, in its purity, is the basis and the source of all genuine freedom in government....I am persuaded that no civil government of a republican form can exist and be durable, in which the principles of Christianity have not a controlling influence." - James Madison;

"Of all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensable supports..Let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion...Reason and experience both forbid us to expect that National morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle." -George Washington;

"We have staked the future of American civilization upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves according to the Ten Commandments of God." -James Madison;

"Every civil government is based upon some religion or philosophy of life. Education in a nation will propagate the religion of that nation. In America, the foundational religion was Christianity. And it was sown in the hearts of Americans through the home and private and public schools for centuries. Our liberty, growth, and prosperity was the result of a Biblical philosophy of life. Our continued freedom and success is dependent on our educating the youth of America in the principles of Christianity." - Noah Webster;

""We have no government armed with power capable of contending with human passions unbridled by morality and religion...Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other." -John Adams.

Pete

[merrylander]

Hmm, were these the same highly moral christians that gave us the crusades and the inqusition?

[piece-itpete]

No, those were a different bunch of highly moral christians

Pete

[d-ray657]

Originally Posted by piece-itpete

No, those were a different bunch of highly moral christians

Pete

Nice Christian attitude committing adultery with a slave (which, by the way, was against the law at the time), not to mention that most Christian act of owning other human beings.

Regards,

D-Ray

[painter]

Originally Posted by BlueStreak

So, society is not to move forward unless each and every individual gives his or her full consent? How is that even possible?

Dave

Good point.

I thought about it and maybe the concent is considered given when our children are born ( a SSI number is issued at that time).
So we WILLINGLY accept FOR our children all the issues that follow.

Dunno...just saying...

[BlueStreak]

See. Very little has changed in the last 240 years. Human nature being the one constant, and all.

And, regarding King George, and virtually every other European Monarch;
Weren't they often referred to as "His/Her Christian Majesty" and even considered by some to be descendants of Christ himself by way of "Royal Bloodline"?

IMHO---Organized Religion isn't there to protect anyone from being manipulated. It is manipulation. The earliest form of government. And, if you really think about it,------the tightest. Secular governments can make people fear punishment or death, but how many have people believing they'll suffer eternally it the flaming pits of Hell?

(I can see it now, The POTUS on t.v....."Guys, If you don't use the curly cue light bulb, you will be cast into eternal damnation.")

Most organized religions do contain some awesome and inspiring stuff though, I will give them that. And being familiar with Judeo-Christianity, Hindi and Bhuddism, all three do contain their version of the "social contract" as I think of it. You did touch on something there, Pete.

Dave

[piece-itpete]

Thanks. It appears we've traded in our contract for - nothing.

Better get on those light bulbs

Pete