I haven’t posted in a while due mostly to school and its harsh demands on my time and creative energy. There have been a few things on my mind, though. Little things, liberty, government, morality.
It seems to me that government, by its nature, walks a very fine line between legitimate communal necessity on the one side and all the worst possible human failings on the other.
In any group beyond a certain size, (and I tend to think this size is defined by the number of people you can know on a first-name basis) some form of collective organization eventually becomes necessary. Some form of conflict mediation between members of the group, and some form of collective decision-making in issues that affect the community as a whole, are both needed for any kind of cohesiveness and stability. The problem seems to be that it is very hard to build a governing structure that does not put individual humans in positions of power. Once the position of power exists, the certainty of corruption exists. Perhaps more insidious than corruption is the tendency of people to do what they think is right. This is great on an individual basis, but when someone’s moral sense can become law, this is bad news.