Do you think people will ever be able to govern themselves?

Question

without the intervention of ourside authority?

Answer 1

Nope. There will always be those types of people who will take advantage of the "weaker" people. When I say weaker, I mean those people who are physically or perhaps even emotionally or mentally not as strong as others. If there was no government, you would have roving bands of folks going around and taking things from others and forcing others off their land. Eventually, these bands would form dictatorships. To counteract these bands, you would have regular folks ban together into Militias or something like that. And these Militias would either work democratically or have some sort of leader. Ultimately, you would have to set down rules to get together. Ultimately, these rules would have to be enforced when folks broke them. The bigger the group, the more rules that get broken and the more time you need to spend enforcing the rules. Suddenly, it makes sense to have a smaller group do all the enforcing and that group becomes the intervention of an outside authority. One of the ideas of the Bolsheviks was to have a dictatorship of the proletariat for about 5 years after the revolution and then all the people would govern themselves in a model communist utopia. That 5 years became 70 and eventually the USSR broke up and communism stopped there without this utopia where the people governed themselves knowing exactly what is good for them.

The trouble is that, even in this day and age where everyone is supposedly reasonable, people really aren't that reasonable. People are selfish. They want more than their fair share. Then some people come up with crazy ideas that they want to impose on everyone else. There is a major irrational side to every human being. It causes people to rape and murder and take drugs and do all kinds of things they shouldn't. It also causes love and compassion. This side will always be in humans and will always cause some people to do some stupid and some good things. Because of this, unless you have a really small group, you will always need the intervention of an outside authority.

Answer 2

Never, look at what is happening right here in the United States. It is suppose to be government by the people, for the people, and of the people. Instead we are govern by the very rich, influential, well connected (by money), who have no other aim in government but to enrich themselves more, by greed and corruptions.

Answer 3

We can now. Mostly the government discourages it because if people learn to work cooperatively the government has no function and can be done away with.

People would need to be taught different ways of dealing with things but over a period of years it could be accomplished.

Answer 4

I'm assuming you mean a society without governmental authority, where we all just live together without the need for taxes, police, public health officials, food and water inspections, fire departments, standing armies, criminal courts, and all the things that come with government?

Then, no, it'll never happen. Thankfully.

Answer 5

A person is a smart and resourceful being, people are dangerous and unpredictable. I think in a way we all giovern ourselves everyday in how we behave and seeing the news as of late I think most of us are doing a lousy job of it. So no I think the aliens should come and take over from here on in!

Answer 6

I hope that what max means by "outside authority" is the U.S. Supreme Court.

And no, given the way the Supreme Court behaves (Roe v. Wade, Bush v. Gore, etc., etc., etc.) I don't think that we'll ever be able to govern ourselves.

Answer 7

We have been self governing for over 200 years. What are you talking about?

Answer 8

You mean, we have "non-human" or "non-people" governing us? Wow... you mean ALIENS are our "outside authority"???

I always thought that people always governed themselves, but I guess I was wrong!!!

Answer 9

I think we have enough trouble governing ourselves already. Imagine if we didn't have any laws at all.

Answer 10

Only if they legalize drugs.