Re: [twuug] Space Shuttle Columbia blows up on reentry!

[Charles Shannon Hendrix <shannon@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Sun, Feb 02, 2003 at 03:27:28PM -0500, James wrote:

> I don't think I forgot anything. The common (banding) goal was to provide
> for the common defense of our collective right to life, liberty, and pursuit
> of happiness. 

Our government is an expansion of the writings on social contract by
Locke, Hume, and Rousseau, which were by themselves incomplete.  We live
in a state of social contract which pools the powers of individuals in
their natural state.  We did this by reserving garanteed rights, accepting
a restriction of rights and also duties, and pooling our collective power.

All powers of government must derive from the power of the people in their
natural state.  None derived from a group or an individual are legitimate.

For example, the government cannot derive its powre from an individual's
power to be king, or a group's power to subjugate another.

However, individuals in the natural state do have the right to tax one
another, to gather for defense, or to explore.  Thus, our government also
has these powers.  That is not to say that the powers are without limit,
but simply to state they exist.

It is not "life, liberty, and happiness" alone that define the powers
our government has.  

Another aspect of our social contract is that we delagate the government
power to a specific group of people for the purposes of sanity.  This is
also how we prevent things like mob rule, and how we embark on projects
that the majority would avoid due to ignorance, discrimination, etc.
They must always be within the rightful powers of man and the limitations
we accept in our social contract.

Since a citizen cannot be knowledgable in everything, we use experts to
guide us on projects which we might not otherwise go for.

The basic problem you are seeing is that we have strayed away from
these limitations, and our government derives its authority from its
enforcement of those limitations.

So you are correct in saying that our government operates out of bounds.
It is far too large, the president has too much power in general, the
president has not enough in some ways, and the people we have charged
with government duty are not doing their job well.

Of course there is more to it than that.  Individuals have become
inattentive in their own civic duties.  We also have a gross problem
with the private sector usurping the power of government.

But nowhere does it say that space exploration is outside the powers
of our government.  The government is basically you and me, and has all
powers we have ourselves.

In time, this will move into private enterprise anyway, so at most
its temporary.

> If our nation is not defined by our Constitution, and sadly I have to agree
> with you that it hasn't been for a long time, what is it defined by? 

The constitution is not the document "Constitution" alone, but also
includes the founding documents, several critiques, public defense,
and federalist debates.  All of these together define the constitution
of the USA.

http://www.constitution.org has a great deal of information.

-- 
UNIX/Perl/C/Pizza____________________s h a n n o n@wido !SPAM maker.com


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