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Community, Responsibility, Liberty: A Civics Lesso
Josey1
Member Posts: 9,598 ✭✭
Community, Responsibility, Liberty: A Civics Lesson
By: Darrel Mulloy
Published 05. 25. 02 at 22:08 Sierra Time
No man is an island! Most of us have heard that said from time to time, but have we ever stopped to think what that saying means?
Mankind needs more of its own in order to function. We all have a need to serve our fellow man. I don't mean this in the altruistic sense, that we need to give of ourselves to those in need without expecting a return, but that it is that return that prompts our need to serve our fellow man.
We must have others to trade our goods and service with in order to be rewarded by the goods and services that our neighbors have that we need. Our only reward for our need to serve our fellow man is the value he gives to us in return. In order to more readily acquire the goods and service that we all need, man has formed communities among men. This was true in the stone ages and it is true as well today. Cave dwellers banded together for protection from other tribes and animals as well as to hunt in greater numbers for more success, and to raise food, once they learned to plant and harvest. In order to meet the needs of the community of cave dwellers, those best at hunting traded for food from the earth grown by those more adapted to that trade, as well as trading for other needed things from those that had them. Not unlike those cave dwellers, today's man, while a little more sophisticated, still uses the same method of trade, but with government currency used only for ease of movement. Today, thanks to money, we can do business with any number of people who do not necessarily want the product or service we produce, but who do use our currency to get the things they do want.
Without community we could not survive as we do today. It is important that we all form a strong bond with our community, whether neighborhood, town, city, county, state or country. America is one large community...or at least it once was.
When we recognize that we need a community to survive as a free people, we must accept our personal responsibility within that community. As a community, we make rules regarding the behavior of our members, and each of us must accept the responsibility of following those rules. We call those rules laws, and we hire members of our community to see that those laws are enforced. The reason for those laws is to protect us against those who choose not to be responsible for their own actions, and who would take from some of us those things we value, such as life and property. The rights to life and property ownership are two of the rights mentioned in our Declaration of Independence ("the pursuit of happiness" was considered after the original wording of property ownership). The third right mentioned in that document was liberty.
Liberty is the freedom to do anything you choose, as long as it does not deprive any other person of those rights mentioned above. You may not deprive any other person of his life, threaten his life, or take his property, without expecting retaliation from the community. Laws made by men should be designed toward those ends, and not to deprive any man of his right to liberty, as some laws do today. No man should be caused to be imprisoned for doing anything that does not harm another man or infringe on another man's liberty. When laws are made to interfere with a man's ability and right to do anything that he chooses, as long as it does no harm to another man, those laws should be repealed, and it is the responsibility of the community to make that declaration.
When we elect representatives among our community, we trust them to make and administer fair laws that do not infringe on our liberties, but sometimes those we elect fail to follow our desires. When that happens, it is our responsibility, our duty, to either recall them or make certain they are not reelected. That is a civic responsibility we must assume to insure our liberty.
Voter turnout is pathetic! Whether we live in a small community of under a thousand people or in a large city with one or two million people, fewer than half of those of us that are eligible actually register to vote, and fewer than half of that number usually go to the polls and vote. What that means is that about 75% of us are willing to let the other 25% make the decisions as to how we will be forced to live our lives. We let that small minority of Americans choose who will make the laws we must live under. We fail to accept our responsibility as members of the community to do what is necessary to insure our liberty. If we want our country back, and we want to retain our liberty, we must take the responsibility of citizenship, which means registering and voting for those we choose to lead our community, whether small town, big city, county, state or federal government.
Unless we make that conscious decision, to be personally responsible, we will not long be a free people.
http://www.sierratimes.com/02/05/26/mulloy.htm
c 2002 SierraTimes.com (unless otherwise noted)
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878
By: Darrel Mulloy
Published 05. 25. 02 at 22:08 Sierra Time
No man is an island! Most of us have heard that said from time to time, but have we ever stopped to think what that saying means?
Mankind needs more of its own in order to function. We all have a need to serve our fellow man. I don't mean this in the altruistic sense, that we need to give of ourselves to those in need without expecting a return, but that it is that return that prompts our need to serve our fellow man.
We must have others to trade our goods and service with in order to be rewarded by the goods and services that our neighbors have that we need. Our only reward for our need to serve our fellow man is the value he gives to us in return. In order to more readily acquire the goods and service that we all need, man has formed communities among men. This was true in the stone ages and it is true as well today. Cave dwellers banded together for protection from other tribes and animals as well as to hunt in greater numbers for more success, and to raise food, once they learned to plant and harvest. In order to meet the needs of the community of cave dwellers, those best at hunting traded for food from the earth grown by those more adapted to that trade, as well as trading for other needed things from those that had them. Not unlike those cave dwellers, today's man, while a little more sophisticated, still uses the same method of trade, but with government currency used only for ease of movement. Today, thanks to money, we can do business with any number of people who do not necessarily want the product or service we produce, but who do use our currency to get the things they do want.
Without community we could not survive as we do today. It is important that we all form a strong bond with our community, whether neighborhood, town, city, county, state or country. America is one large community...or at least it once was.
When we recognize that we need a community to survive as a free people, we must accept our personal responsibility within that community. As a community, we make rules regarding the behavior of our members, and each of us must accept the responsibility of following those rules. We call those rules laws, and we hire members of our community to see that those laws are enforced. The reason for those laws is to protect us against those who choose not to be responsible for their own actions, and who would take from some of us those things we value, such as life and property. The rights to life and property ownership are two of the rights mentioned in our Declaration of Independence ("the pursuit of happiness" was considered after the original wording of property ownership). The third right mentioned in that document was liberty.
Liberty is the freedom to do anything you choose, as long as it does not deprive any other person of those rights mentioned above. You may not deprive any other person of his life, threaten his life, or take his property, without expecting retaliation from the community. Laws made by men should be designed toward those ends, and not to deprive any man of his right to liberty, as some laws do today. No man should be caused to be imprisoned for doing anything that does not harm another man or infringe on another man's liberty. When laws are made to interfere with a man's ability and right to do anything that he chooses, as long as it does no harm to another man, those laws should be repealed, and it is the responsibility of the community to make that declaration.
When we elect representatives among our community, we trust them to make and administer fair laws that do not infringe on our liberties, but sometimes those we elect fail to follow our desires. When that happens, it is our responsibility, our duty, to either recall them or make certain they are not reelected. That is a civic responsibility we must assume to insure our liberty.
Voter turnout is pathetic! Whether we live in a small community of under a thousand people or in a large city with one or two million people, fewer than half of those of us that are eligible actually register to vote, and fewer than half of that number usually go to the polls and vote. What that means is that about 75% of us are willing to let the other 25% make the decisions as to how we will be forced to live our lives. We let that small minority of Americans choose who will make the laws we must live under. We fail to accept our responsibility as members of the community to do what is necessary to insure our liberty. If we want our country back, and we want to retain our liberty, we must take the responsibility of citizenship, which means registering and voting for those we choose to lead our community, whether small town, big city, county, state or federal government.
Unless we make that conscious decision, to be personally responsible, we will not long be a free people.
http://www.sierratimes.com/02/05/26/mulloy.htm
c 2002 SierraTimes.com (unless otherwise noted)
"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878