5 ms·

Your argument only makes sense if you assume that: government == society

• mcv 11y ago
  Government is not the same as society, but in a functioning democracy, government should be the tool through which society organizes itself. If government exists completely separate and independent of society, something is wrong.
  • crusso 11y ago
    Another assumption: our government == functioning democracy Our government's apparent interests and the interests of the population are only loosely correlated in most instances and diametrically opposed to the interests of the population in way too many instances. Consider: copyright and other IP laws, the current voting systems, the power of lobbyists, congressional insider trading, military contract approval, etc. Additionally, the large majority of society's interactions happen outside of any democratic vote. The whole goal of the Constitution was to narrowly white list the functions of government so that the Civil Society could be left to operate as it saw fit thus maximizing individual liberty. In general, not maintaining a clean separate abstractions for government and society is like having classes that try to have too many unrelated behaviors. They lead to unneeded coupling of functions and an inability to reason cleanly about the whole system.
    • mcv 11y ago
      Not my assumption. Well, our government doesn't function too badly as a democracy, but the US government is a corrupt mess where voter interests are mostly ignored. The thing is, the moment you abandon the option of using the government as the tool by which society organizes itself, you abandon democracy. I'm not sure where else you can go from there, other than accept that you're never going to be free.