From what source does the government derive its power to punish its citizens?

Question

If this source is not morality what else could it possibly be? If it is morality than would capital punishment not undermine the very source of its power? By killing, the government becomes as amoral as the murderer and thus loses its right to power of punishment. In short how can such an amoral monster as government which murders(punisment and war), lies, and uses humans as tools, be the ultimate distributor of moral justice?

Did you or I sign a social contract? Did you or I truly give consent? The social contract is something you were told about in school. Not something one signed, not something one truly thinks. Government and ethics were never meant to be seperate.

To the question of "which morals should be enforced?" and punishment equaling the crime: There are a number of moral philosophies out there that when looked at by any person few truely major faults can be found(Nicomachean ethics, Kant's ethics, etc.) Crishtianity has many flaws and for some reason someone always brings it up anytime I mention the word morals. And on punishment does the government steal from the thief or rape the raper? Do they beat the assaulter or slander the slanderer? Incarceration is equal punishment for every crime except murder? Does that really make sense that we couldn't as easily punish murder with incarceration as we do with stealing?

Answer 1

from power itself. You are right that social contract theory is a load of nonsense, invented to justify the existence of government by making historically innacurate claims. Never has there been a state that was created with the active consent of all or even most of its people. The majority of people are born into a state, have no say over its functioning, and live their entire lives by rules they did not create. This holds true whether the rules are created by a dictator, tradition, or "representatives." A large scale democracy is an oxymoron. The idea of a social contract or that power is derived from the will of the people is a fiction which then justifies anything the state does (as long as it is not too openly outrageous.)

Democratic tyranny in which a majority of voters (having no knowledge of a local community) establish norms for that community and against the will of that community is as much a tyranny as a dictator doing the same. The big problem with american democracy today is that we confuse the will of the people with moral justification. If those people are creating norms for themselves, then their will is sufficient moral justification. If they are establishing norms for others against their will, then it may be "democratic", but it is not morally justified.

the history of politics is a history of justifying centralized power over people. the justification has changed from religion (middle ages) to the idea of social contract and protection of rights (the enlightenment) to a manufactured common bond (the nationalism of the 19th and 20th centuries) to popular will (today the moral superiority that popular opinion seems to give to a side in what should be local political issues, such as gay marriage, drugs, and abortion.) In all cases the center of decision making is isolated from the communities actually affected by the decisions and centralized in a distant authority. Very few people can honestly claim that they have had a say in the forces that dominate their lives. At most they are one among millions electing a person they don't know to enact laws from a distant capital. Their only influence is in electing him, and even then the influence is minute. Not even mentioning the vast influence of undemocratic forces, such as corporations, public relations, and advertising, on politics, thats a sad state of affairs for a democracy. Unless power is decentralized so that people actually do have power over the norms that govern their lives, the idea that they are free and self-determining is a joke, and there is no moral justification derived from their will.

prettygirl_a...: how many people really are free to leave the country they are born in to? not many, and those that do often do so at the personal cost of leaving their friends and family behind. Even if one was to leave their country, where could they go? Every other country has centralized power structures which minimalizes their ability to govern their own lives. It like a student being able to choose between wearing a school uniform with shorts or with pants, as long as they wear the school uniform. Everybody talks about hypothetical contracts and "suppose we give our consent" but why not actually give consent? Why not actually enter a contract with others to live by? Of course at the national scale in the US its unfeasible, but there certainly could be local contracts that communities could negotiate in order to actually establish the rules they choose to live by, with perhaps some centralized oversight to guarantee basic rights and needs.

Answer 2

I suppose that we give our consent to be governed by the rules of the nation when we are born into it. We have a choice to live here and by doing so we give consent. Capital punishment has been around since man first started to live in communities. I think we are quite fortunate to live in America where it is used only on the worst offenses, and not on minor infractions of the law.

student_of... What would a country be without a government..that would be like faith without some sort of central "divine". It just doesnt work. No government is perfect, democracy has issues just as any other form does. Is there one "true" plan of government that can guarentee the rights of all its citizens...I dont really think there is. You live in America so you have given consent to live by the laws established to protect yours, and others, rights. If you dont like it do something about it. I do beleive that we have a contract for our people, its called the Constitution and if im not mistaken, which i may be, it was written to guarentee our rights...we agree to live by the laws that are written and we have our rights...

Answer 3

Said simply in a nutshell:
It has to do with the high-end elected officials who we trust and give power to to draw up laws and subsequent punishments for lawbreakers. The need to seek restitution and revenge is an attempt to equilize and satisfy our hurt is an inherent trait in humankind. Democratic laws are, for the most part, designed to mete out a punishment equal to the crime (I know many times there's an imbalance in the execution of justice, where justice simply fails because of various factors). The government does not "become as amoral as the the murderer" as you contend because we, the people support the government which we abide by. We don't support the murderer and abide by his/her rules.

Answer 4

As I see government, it should not be concerned so much by morality as by the management of society. Governments ought to punish people not because what they do is wrong, but because discouraging a behavior is in the best interest of society. If we didn't punish murderers, murder might run rampant--no one would feel safe, and society would fall apart.

Personally, I'd rather "morality" not enter into it, because whose morality would you go by? There are many laws in this country I don't agree with simply because they are sin laws and I am not christian. For example the "sin" tax on alcohol.

Anyway, living in this country is consent to be governed by its laws. If you don't like it, move to China. Oh wait, their government is even worse, isn't it?

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"Government derives from a mandate from the masses, not some farcical aquatic ceremony." -- Monty Python

Heheh, just had to add that in there.

Answer 5

The government hardly becomes amoral by killing murderers; in fact, the punishments issued by the state are far too soft. You cannot look at individual acts in a vacuum; all murders are not alike. The cold-blooded murder of an innocent is clearly wrong, while the killing of one of these murderers is a service to society.

Answer 6

any goverment derive power from the political support of its constitution, definitely not from morality, the root of the problem you stated lies within the political system that constitute the government, it is the constitution who decide what could and could not be done by any government, if the constitution doesn't agree with capital punishment then they should withdraw their political support on that matters. if it doesn't work out like that then there must be something wrong in the system, perhaps the representative methods, political channelling, etc. It is political matter not moral.

Answer 7

You are arguing this point from a moral standpoint, so my response would be that God and his prophets have said in the Bible that it is ok for the government to use capital punishment. See Romans 13:1-4

There is a difference between killing someone and murdering them. If the country is under attack, is it ok for a solder to kill the enemy? Yes. The reason is because it's important to our country to protect itself against invaders. God has made it clear in the Bible that it is ok to go to war under certain situations.

To answer this question without using religion. The government derives its power to punish its citizens, including kill them under sum situations, because the representatives of the people have once voted to allow that to happen.

Governments are organized for several important purposes. One of those purposes is to create and enforce laws. This is important to maintain a stable society. If you locked someone in your basement because they hurt you, you wouldn't be justified because that is the duty of the government to lock away prisonners. It's good that the government does this instead of the people for many reasons.

Answer 8

Any democratically elected government derives its power from the people who voted it into power. If the majority of people who it represents don't like what it does then they can choose to elect an alternative government that better represents their views.

Answer 9

It's called the social contract, we give our consent to the government to make decisions to protect us.

Answer 10

Their power comes from each other and the head honcho who keeps rewriting the rules!
Hey check out www.William Cooper
also "Behold a Pale Horse" by William Cooper
they (us?) killed him you know.