There has been "Democratic Springs" taking place all over the world to one degree or another. For the last few years we have witnessed an Arab Spring flaming in countries across the Middle East. The result has been Egypt is changing governments for the third time, Libya is a combat zone, or as some are calling it 'Woodstock for Terrorists', Syria is in ruins and still burning. The result is not more democracy but violence and terror and horror. In Libya, there is no central control of the country, so the nation is divided up under the control of militias, most with terror ties, including Al Qaeda, a declared enemy of the US, yet the US does nothing for the citizens of Libya, after removing the standing government that had been in power for years. And Syria, has been flooded with outside 'jihadists' including many hardened Al Nusra fighters that are trained, supported and allied with Al Qaeda. They have seen combat in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya; some even have experience that goes back to the Balkans and former Soviet Republic.
While I certainly am for bad governments being removed, I think that the majority weight of responsibility for removing a bad government falls on the people of the nation in question. Yes, there may be times when outsiders need to step in due to complete and total inhumane actions by either side, those times need to be well measured and very well documented and the international community needs to stop picking sides and realize that in those situations there is no black and white division of actions. Both sides will be conducting themselves in less than honorable actions. War brings out the best in men; however, war also brings out the worse in men too.
Why do I think it is the responsibility of the 'oppressed people' to bear most or all of the burden of removing their government, when such government becomes unbearable by the majority of the public? I believe that in most circumstances today, the public under oppression by inaction or ignorance allowed the oppression to occur or at least expand. Thus, in these cases since they created the problem or increased and supported by inaction the problem it should fall to them to be the solution. It is after all their country and the future for their children that is at stakes.
It is only the masses, the people that can control the government. It is the right, duty and responsibility of people to accept and maintain their natural rights. What are your natural rights? As Jefferson put it, the right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. However, Jefferson was not the first to state the fact that man is born with certain rights invoked by the laws of nature. Rights "inborn into our hearts" according to Marcus Tullius Cicero who went on to say
There exists a law, not written down anywhere, but inborn in our hearts; a law which comes to us not by training or custom or reading but by derivation and absorption and adoption from nature itself; a law which has come to us not from theory but from practice, not by institution but by natural intuition. I refer to the law which lays it down that, if our lives are endangered by plots or violence or armed robbers or enemies, any and every method of protecting ourselves is morally right.
These rights were stated hundreds of years later again by Sir William Blackstone;
"[T]he principal aim of society is to protect individuals in the
enjoyment of those absolute rights, which were vested in them by the
immutable laws of nature, but which could not be preserved in peace
without that mutual assistance and intercourse which is gained by the
institution of friendly and social communities. Hence it follows, that
the first and primary end of human laws is to maintain and regulate
these absolute rights of individuals."
However, it seems that most peoples have forgotten that we have natural rights and that our natural rights out weigh the 'responsibility' of the government to keep us safe. Our personal safety is our individual responsibility not the job of government and by thinking that it is the job of government you indirectly forfeit your natural rights and the natural rights of all other members of the group, another action that is not your right. You are not better for shrugging your responsibility for your own personal safety and liberty and demanding the government handle a job that you are too lazy to perform and expect the government to do the job better than you would yourself. The bottom line you are YOU, a person to yourself; but, to the government you are only a number, you are no more valuable than the stranger you pass on the street. How much would you do for that stranger? Yet, you expect government to do more than that for you, so you do not have to do it for yourself. Then you think you have the right to complain about a bad government ignoring your safety and rights.
You are responsible for you!
No comments:
Post a Comment