Wealth Cap

ProfessorCurio

MadScientist
I and 9 other people think abortion is bad. We get together to form a group arguing that abortion is bad and politicians should pass anti-abortion bills, we contribute funds to print posters, and conduct other forms of advertising.

Should that be illegal?
If you are donating enough funds to political candidates campaign work to be disproportionately represented by a significant margin or have said politicians disproportionately and heavily dependent on your group by a significant margin then yes.
I would consider a significant margin to be about the point where rival opinions from similarly sized groups are readily marginalized through your influence.
Saving lives is all well and good, but you shouldn't say the ends justify the means and in spirit trample rights and liberties of opposition or allow and enable such trampling to happen without exhausting your other options.
Let those things unethical or out of many options especially unethical stand as illegal until better and ideally legal means find themselves blocked or perverted.
 
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Largo

Well-known member
If you are donating enough funds to political candidates campaign work to be disproportionately represented by a significant margin or have said politicians disproportionately and heavily dependent on your group by a significant margin then yes.
I would consider a significant margin to be about the point where rival opinions from similarly sized groups are readily marginalized through your influence.
This is meaningless gibberish and is frankly a bureaucrat or judge's wet dream as they will get to define this meaningless gibberish in any way which they see fit.
 

ProfessorCurio

MadScientist
This is meaningless gibberish and is frankly a bureaucrat or judge's wet dream as they will get to define this meaningless gibberish in any way which they see fit.
On the second part you sadly have a point, but how is it allegedly "meaningless gibberish"?
 

JagerIV

Well-known member
No, it's a very massive loss of scale to the truly powerful because it diffuses that power among far more hands, thus greatly impeding geopolitics-warping concentrations. There being a far larger absolute number of independently wealthy people means nothing if none of them have the personal wealth to shape the landscape of governments and megacorporations.

I guess I meant that in that its a massive increase in the scale of the Class of the truly powerful. Or at least, modify the nature of that class.

The goal is not to get to equality, or prevent people from having immense wealth and power. Wealth and power being concentrated in the hands of the relatively few is an inevitability, and probably better than not.

The problem is that the current system makes it quite straightforward to have single persons or cohesive private groups become political institutions. That's why so many talk about taxing the ultra-wealthy into the ground, there's not really much you can do to trust-bust Amazon to compromise Bezos.

This is more or less an inevitability though, and thus not really worth focusing on. Wealth is fungible, and so it power. And both will have tendencies to collate. If you are the mayor of a town, its more or less inevitable that you will also establish a relationship with the owner of the largest business in the town. Whenever the Mayor needs money, that business is probably one of the largest sources of money locally. And both are (ideally) co-dependent on the other one doing well, and thus both have deep interests in what the other is doing. Practically, there is little clear dividing line between private and public power, and you ideally would prefer that relationship to be healthy and effective.

This suggestion is built to somewhat shift conditions where those kind or relationships work in a healthy manner. The above for example assumes both the company and the mayor of have skin in the game and are personally invested in the local community because of it. If the person the mayor is negotiating with is not an owner, but a manager for a massive corporation, and he's only here to do his time before retirement or promotion, and can shift to a different location easily if this one goes bad, that collaboration between the mayor and the manager takes on a different characteristic, and probably a less healthy one.
 

JagerIV

Well-known member
Unnecessary. With progressive taxes those at the upper end of the income scale reach an "it's just not worth it" point when it comes to bringing home more.

The Laffer Curve, as ridiculous as it gets portrayed, has some truth behind it. It's a thought exercise which points out that at some level of taxation - it's different for everyone - people stop working once all the basics are met.

Person A might call it quits at 25% because rather be out fishing instead of at work. Person B might keep going all the way up to 99% because they'd like to add another Ferrari to their garage.

Eh, this seems to increase inequality then by pre-emptiviely necapping the wealth generation of the lower and middle classes, and narrowing the numbers who increase their wealth to the lower upper class, while having a minimal effect on those who are already wealthy.

Progressive taxes seems to be an anti-upper middle class measure, not an anti wealthy measure.

A very high wealth cap meanwhile lets those who are productive greatly use their productivity without limit, while encouraging those above to reward those coming up with actual ownership, rather than just hiring more managers.

And that's before getting into the issue of the immense power concentration that progressive taxes allow. How is it better that one government bureaucrat can control the spending of a $100 million than for a 1,000 lower upper class people to have a $100,000 more in disposable income? Or a hundred millionaires to have an additional $1 million each?

Why is public power concentration better than relative private power dispersion?
 

JagerIV

Well-known member
As we see, another person pushing at capitalism, wanting just a little bit more communism, because surely this time it'll work?

Every time a capitalist compromises, it leads to a worse country, more problems, and the communist saying "We just need a little bit more, this time it'll work! I double promise!" The problem isn't that people have money. The problem is that the political institutions have the power to interfere too much, which makes them targets: there's no point in bribing the powerless.

Instead, fundamentally limit the amount of regulatory change that can be done per year, total (I'd like to just get rid of them entirely, but this'll do), and make it so that every regulation has a sunset provision that if kept, counts towards the yearly total. Maybe make it a constitutional amendment. Now a) politicians and the deep state can interfere less, and better: instead of just competing for goodies (read: bullshit government handouts), people with power will be forced to campaign against other people's goodies.

Do you believe in the Libertarian King who through his absolute enlightened Libertarian rule bring about good liberal order?

Or does Liberalism require the dispersal of political power, probably more dispersal than what we have now?

How do you justify arbitrary limits to political power accumulation, but no limit to the scale of private power, when those mostly go hand in hand? Big business loves the big state, and vice versa.
 

ProfessorCurio

MadScientist
Do you believe in the Libertarian King who through his absolute enlightened Libertarian rule bring about good liberal order?

Or does Liberalism require the dispersal of political power, probably more dispersal than what we have now?

How do you justify arbitrary limits to political power accumulation, but no limit to the scale of private power, when those mostly go hand in hand? Big business loves the big state, and vice versa.
While I would not call such limits necessarily arbitrary, your point aside stands.
 

ProfessorCurio

MadScientist
again, though who controls and determines the limits?
Obviously the law itself should with the consent of the governed and some ironclad justifications of the numbers.
I would much rather than any 1 entity instead have such an emotionless and impartial thing controlling this important aspect of the economy as a well planned and justified mathematical formula and protocol with room for augmentation if the governed consent, the circumstances call for it, and another set of ironclad arguments can be presented for choosing that augmentation over other possibilities.
 

Abhorsen

Local Degenerate
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Osaul
Do you believe in the Libertarian King who through his absolute enlightened Libertarian rule bring about good liberal order?

Or does Liberalism require the dispersal of political power, probably more dispersal than what we have now?

How do you justify arbitrary limits to political power accumulation, but no limit to the scale of private power, when those mostly go hand in hand? Big business loves the big state, and vice versa.
... I don't want a liberal order. I want a libertarian one, first of all. They are similar, but also have major differences (liberalism is way to happy with wars and regulation).

And no, they don't go hand in hand. Yes, some big businesses like the big state, but I have nowhere near the problem with big businesses that I do with the state, they don't kill people nearly as often as the state does. They don't do massive thefts from everyone. They don't imprison hundreds of thousands on bullshit charges like drug crimes. And I could go on. And that's just the shit the US does, every other country is much worse.

See, imagine government as a hammer, with a lot of hands grasping at it, some with bigger hands and a more secure grip than others, all of which are trying to use it to bash each other, some working together, some working separately.

What you are proposing is just loosening a couple of the grips in favor of other grips which are just as strong, if not stronger, in exchange for making the hammer bigger, when it's already 100 times bigger than it needs to be. Those hands with the now firmer grip would be the companies that aren't hit because they don't have major owners (like every military industrial company) and the deep state. Every communist ever promised that the hands that got a better grip would be 'the peoples', but in reality, it was only ever a new set of higher ups, more powerful than the previous, as they were directly hooked into the halls of power.

So yeah, to hell with the creeping communism you propose. Because it never stops, and will roll down until everyone is banned from being 'rich', i.e. having 2 whole meals a day.
 

ProfessorCurio

MadScientist
So yeah, to hell with the creeping communism you propose. Because it never stops, and will roll down until everyone is banned from being 'rich', i.e. having 2 whole meals a day.
You seem to have a rather expansive definition of communism, do you not?


Also what makes a government a government for the purposes of governance, it's alleged legitimacy and assumed status or it's ability and impetus to actually govern as a stable ruling structure?

I personally subscribe to the idea of Social Contract and believe it should govern the way law is handled, though I suppose there are some that would unfortunately disagree with that notion.


And of course the government when limited and checked in how that power is used should have the power to enforce said social contract and insure that no single individual or entity with an agenda or whim and not having those same restrictions is capable of subverting or having similar levels of power unchecked with which to impinge upon the people without their consent.

We do not need individuals or small groups whether they are in, outside of, or connected to the government having such rampant influence and control irregardless of it being direct or indirect.
 
And of course the government when limited and checked in how that power is used should have the power to enforce said social contract and insure that no single individual or entity with an agenda or whim and not having those same restrictions is capable of subverting or having similar levels of power unchecked with which to impinge upon the people without their consent.

We do not need individuals or small groups whether they are in, outside of, or connected to the government having such rampant influence and control Irregardless of it being direct or indirect.


Right contract, because I totally concented to a contract that was considered ironclad long before my father's father's father was born and if I and a handful of other decided that the people ruling over me aren't fulfilling my wants and needs I'm totally free to leave oh wait....
American Revolutionary War - Wikipedia

American Civil War - Wikipedia

Waco siege - Wikipedia

look we can argue (preferably in another thread please) about whether the confederates or the branch dividian were good or bad people, but let's not pretend that contracts or consent have anything to do with this. Once the parasites in their ivory towers have a consistent food supply, the only way they are letting it go is in a body bag. Let's not pretend any of us was alive to sign the constitution, let alone all of the crap the government has passed in the last 150 years.

Social contract:

in theory
individuals have consented, either explicitly or tacitly, to surrender some of their freedoms and submit to the authority (of the ruler, or to the decision of a majority) in exchange for protection of their remaining rights or maintenance of the social order.

Reality: Shrek (2001) - Some of you May Die, But it's a Sacrifice I am Willing to Make - YouTube
 

ProfessorCurio

MadScientist
Right contract, because I totally concented to a contract that was considered ironclad long before my father's father's father was born and if I and a handful of other decided that the people ruling over me aren't fulfilling my wants and needs I'm totally free to leave oh wait....

So you do not consent to surrendering any freedoms and to the authority of an (at least in theory) representative system in exchange for the preservation of your remaining rights and liberties?

Please tell us what your minimum standards are for a government you would consent to?

Are there any freedoms at all you would ever give up to preserve and maintain the others?

Do you mind or care if the rights of any single individual in practice impinge upon those of another?

Are there any rights you feel are of greater or less importance or do you believe they are equal in importance?
 

Abhorsen

Local Degenerate
Moderator
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Comrade
Osaul
You seem to have a rather expansive definition of communism, do you not?
Um, not letting people have property is communism. That's not an expansive definition, and a wealth cap is a significant step towards it. You can take issue with the slippery slope part, but noting that limiting wealth is a step towards communism is pretty straight forward.

Also what makes a government a government for the purposes of governance, it's alleged legitimacy and assumed status or it's ability and impetus to actually govern as a stable ruling structure?

I personally subscribe to the idea of Social Contract and believe it should govern the way law is handled, though I suppose there are some that would unfortunately disagree with that notion.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_contract
No, government according to some social contract is how you lose all your rights. People change their opinion of what's in the social contract all the time.

Government is evil cause it violates the NAP, plain and simple. Some of it is a necessary evil, lest there be more violations of the NAP. But it needs to be shrunk down drastically as it is (to use my analogy above, to make the hammer smaller).

Look, I'm fine with a national defense, including military, some spy agency/counterintel/counterterrorism, and control over nuclear stuff (bombs and plant security); a criminal justice system for crimes with a victim; a civil justice system for contract law, restitution for crimes, and suing the government to keep it small; some method of breaking up businesses acting as a monopoly based on a consumer welfare standard (I don't care about their market share so much as I care what they are doing to the public. Like google's monopoly on search costs the public next to nothing, so I'd be fine with it. This is how it is done currently in the US); and some method of financing this including enforcement. Finally, add some largely meaningless elections for certain parts, where the elected positions influence how government is run, but not what they do. This is really here just for legitimacy, that's about it.

I might have missed something as this is off the top of my head, but this is the goal. Not some arbitrary social contract, which could include anything. You can social contract your way to any government.

And of course the government when limited and checked in how that power is used should have the power to enforce said social contract and insure that no single individual or entity with an agenda or whim and not having those same restrictions is capable of subverting or having similar levels of power unchecked with which to impinge upon the people without their consent.

We do not need individuals or small groups whether they are in, outside of, or connected to the government having such rampant influence and control irregardless of it being direct or indirect.
The government can't do this. Literally can't. There are always individuals with concentrated power. Every government throughout history has had them, and every government will have them. All the proposed law does is weaken some in favor of others who fill the power vacuum.
 

ParadiseLost

Well-known member
And no, they don't go hand in hand. Yes, some big businesses like the big state, but I have nowhere near the problem with big businesses that I do with the state, they don't kill people nearly as often as the state does. They don't do massive thefts from everyone. They don't imprison hundreds of thousands on bullshit charges like drug crimes. And I could go on. And that's just the shit the US does, every other country is much worse.

Of courses big businesses kill people - a lot of people.

Consider how many companies we know of have known about different issues - like car manufacturers that knew their vehicle was unsafe and hid it, or J&J knowing Asbestos was in baby powder.

Things like that happen daily.

Wage theft by employers is estimated to consist of more goods than all other forms of theft combined in the US.

The obvious conclusion is that the reason big business hasn't caused as many problems with big government is because big business very rarely has remotely as much power as big government does - but libertarianism would pretty much inevitably lead to neo-feudalistic corporations, with all the baggage that suggests.
 

Abhorsen

Local Degenerate
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Staff Member
Comrade
Osaul
Of courses big businesses kill people - a lot of people.

Consider how many companies we know of have known about different issues - like car manufacturers that knew their vehicle was unsafe and hid it, or J&J knowing Asbestos was in baby powder.

Things like that happen daily.
They kill people a lot less than governments do, was what I said. Wars, the Holocaust, Holodomor, Stalin's purges, Cultural Revolution, and I could go on. Those are just the big examples. Heart disease and obesity in the US is hugely caused by the bullshit food pyramid that was pushed as 'healthy', for example.

Wage theft by employers is estimated to consist of more goods than all other forms of theft combined in the US.
You're forgetting taxation, of which income tax alone robs more than all illegal theft in the US every year.

But even when we look at illegal theft, people rob more from their employer than the other way around:

(estimates at $15B for wage theft)

The obvious conclusion is that the reason big business hasn't caused as many problems with big government is because big business very rarely has remotely as much power as big government does - but libertarianism would pretty much inevitably lead to neo-feudalistic corporations, with all the baggage that suggests.
I'm not advocating for full ancapdom. The US government could be 10 times less intrusive tomorrow and it would still be far more powerful than any corporation. So your point still falls flat.
 
So you do not consent to surrendering any freedoms and to the authority of an (at least in theory) representative system in exchange for the preservation of your remaining rights and liberties?

Please tell us what your minimum standards are for a government you would consent to?

frankly at this point, part of me A BIG part of me would rather take my chances with bandits and wild animals than put my life in the hands of a governing entity as again it's not a matter of if I die by the sword but when. I can't say I don't trust anybody, but the only people I do trust are the ones very close to me.

Are there any freedoms at all you would ever give up to preserve and maintain the others?

Honestly, I think at this point I'd give up "My right to speak" for A right to fight or Right to leave." here is the thing, unless some sort of mafia literally cuts your vocal chords or cuts your tongue, nobody can actually stop you from saying stuff. speaking doesn't keep a angry mob from lynching you or silence false accusations against you. Frankly social media has been teaching me outlawing dueling was a mistake.

Please tell us what your minimum standards are for a government you would consent to?

A government that basically understood "You mess with anybody and your dead." I'd feel a lot more comfortable being governed if it meant M.A.D. maybe then politicians in the like would be forced to get out of their ivory tower once in a while and see how the rest of us peons live.

Do you mind or care if the rights of any single individual in practice impinge upon those of another?

like it's not already? One false accusation or minor arrest later and your ability to live in "Normal civilized society" is gone.

Are there any rights you feel are of greater or less importance or do you believe they are equal in importance?

see my response to the first point.
 

JagerIV

Well-known member
While I would not call such limits necessarily arbitrary, your point aside stands.

I am using arbitrary to mean more, culturally/situationally derived? The Power the US President wields vs the UK Prime minister are not laws of the universe, and are thus somewhat "arbitrary" and a product of local desires and assumptions. Arbitrary is probably too strong a word though, and may be communist post structuralist subversion in my thinking/language. There may be a better word that doesn't prejudge the situation as much.

After all, more or less all of history suggests any functional long lasting State needs some sort of Head of State where a lot of power gets concentrated into a single individual. Thus, having a head of State is not arbitrary, but seems to be some product of the way the universe works.

But, within having a head of state, there does seem to be fair bit of latitude on how exactly that head of state is set up and empowered. So, you need to have 1, maybe 2 people who are ultimately in charge, with two heads of state seeming to work in certain circumstances quite well (Roman Republic/Sparta), but that person being there for 1 year, or 10, both seem to be fairly functional. So much of these discussions is really trying to figure out what the limits of the possible is.

You for example seem to view limiting intergenerational wealth as an Ideal that might be achievable, and would be desirable, while I don't really think its achievable (your trying to work against the interest of all parents in a way that requires their buy in, which does not seem possible as a political program, long term) nor even desirable (I think having a petty aristocracy and a great many families with pots of intergenerational wealth is actually useful, and that it is better for as much wealth to be spread out in true ownership of private hands, and most conventional attempts to stop intergenerational wealth transfer involves instead concentrating wealth into impersonal ownership in the State or a corporation of some sort).

So, while we may have somewhat similar visions, we do disagree over the possible and how such a vision may be manifest.

again, though who controls and determines the limits?

The powers that be, that apply the current limits to power? I don't see how recognizing that governments and the powerful exist is some sort of gotcha.

In the US congress passes a Bill, maybe needing a constitutional amendment, though given the legality of progressive income taxes, wealth taxes like property taxes, various price control laws, I don't really see a reason such a law would be unconstitutional, but if there was something I missed you would then need a constitutional amendment.

... I don't want a liberal order. I want a libertarian one, first of all. They are similar, but also have major differences (liberalism is way to happy with wars and regulation).

And no, they don't go hand in hand. Yes, some big businesses like the big state, but I have nowhere near the problem with big businesses that I do with the state, they don't kill people nearly as often as the state does. They don't do massive thefts from everyone. They don't imprison hundreds of thousands on bullshit charges like drug crimes. And I could go on. And that's just the shit the US does, every other country is much worse.

See, imagine government as a hammer, with a lot of hands grasping at it, some with bigger hands and a more secure grip than others, all of which are trying to use it to bash each other, some working together, some working separately.

What you are proposing is just loosening a couple of the grips in favor of other grips which are just as strong, if not stronger, in exchange for making the hammer bigger, when it's already 100 times bigger than it needs to be. Those hands with the now firmer grip would be the companies that aren't hit because they don't have major owners (like every military industrial company) and the deep state. Every communist ever promised that the hands that got a better grip would be 'the peoples', but in reality, it was only ever a new set of higher ups, more powerful than the previous, as they were directly hooked into the halls of power.

So yeah, to hell with the creeping communism you propose. Because it never stops, and will roll down until everyone is banned from being 'rich', i.e. having 2 whole meals a day.

That analogy is doing a lot of work for you, and I don't agree it accurately represents the actual structure of things. Government is not an inaminante tool random individuals control, its closer to an influence network. Trump was the President of the United States, but clearly did not operate as a man with a hammer. Government is much more a playing field to encourage the powerful to work together in productive ways, to complete in minimally destructive ways, and provide some protection that only "acceptable" people are playing the game.

At the scale this law is concerned with, Government is the board the rich and powerful play on, with this being an attempt to somewhat modify the game being played.

You also sidestepped the initial question: does the Libertarian order make sense with an absolute dictator managing the state, or does the Libertarian vision require some manner of decentralization of power, imposed somewhat arbitrarily by the definition I'm using?
 

Abhorsen

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That analogy is doing a lot of work for you, and I don't agree it accurately represents the actual structure of things. Government is not an inaminante tool random individuals control, its closer to an influence network. Trump was the President of the United States, but clearly did not operate as a man with a hammer. Government is much more a playing field to encourage the powerful to work together in productive ways, to complete in minimally destructive ways, and provide some protection that only "acceptable" people are playing the game.
First, that bolded part is part of the hammer.

Second, government cannot act without crushing someone. It inherently cannot do things consensually, unlike businesses (cause if everyone consented, there'd be no need for the law).

Third, people don't need to be encouraged by government to work together, they already will because of the free market, it's usually profitable. And competition, even destructive competition, is a good thing as well.

EDIT: The government is only useful for the hammer. I want it brought down only on people who violate rights, and am willing to eat a little bit of hammer on everyone to fund that.

But sure, let's use your analogy:
At the scale this law is concerned with, Government is the board the rich and powerful play on, with this being an attempt to somewhat modify the game being played.
You haven't modified the game at all though. That's my issue. All you've done is change who is playing, while making the game slightly more important. The game is the problem. That's the issue that needs to be solved. I couldn't give a shit who's oppressing me, just that it's happening.

All your doing is asking for a slightly different boot on your neck.

You also sidestepped the initial question: does the Libertarian order make sense with an absolute dictator managing the state, or does the Libertarian vision require some manner of decentralization of power, imposed somewhat arbitrarily by the definition I'm using?
It really doesn't matter if it's run by a dictator or by voting, though voting is much safer and likely to last long term. But look, a perfect libertarian dreamworld will never exist. I've made my peace with that. We got a long way to go before we get within sight of what I want, so I'm quite fine pushing towards it gradually, and seeing how society works with it as/if I succeed, rather than designing something perfect while we get further away from my general direction.
 
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ProfessorCurio

MadScientist
frankly at this point, part of me A BIG part of me would rather take my chances with bandits and wild animals than put my life in the hands of a governing entity as again it's not a matter of if I die by the sword but when. I can't say I don't trust anybody, but the only people I do trust are the ones very close to me.



Honestly, I think at this point I'd give up "My right to speak" for A right to fight or Right to leave." here is the thing, unless some sort of mafia literally cuts your vocal chords or cuts your tongue, nobody can actually stop you from saying stuff. speaking doesn't keep a angry mob from lynching you or silence false accusations against you. Frankly social media has been teaching me outlawing dueling was a mistake.



A government that basically understood "You mess with anybody and your dead." I'd feel a lot more comfortable being governed if it meant M.A.D. maybe then politicians in the like would be forced to get out of their ivory tower once in a while and see how the rest of us peons live.



like it's not already? One false accusation or minor arrest later and your ability to live in "Normal civilized society" is gone.



see my response to the first point.
Well then it seems to me that our disagreement on this matter principally stems from a difference in priorities that can not be resolved outside of severe circumstances falling upon one or both of us.
That is unfortunate, though I hold hope that if anything it is the shear force of years that might prompt any such change.

You for example seem to view limiting intergenerational wealth as an Ideal that might be achievable, and would be desirable, while I don't really think its achievable (your trying to work against the interest of all parents in a way that requires their buy in, which does not seem possible as a political program, long term) nor even desirable (I think having a petty aristocracy and a great many families with pots of intergenerational wealth is actually useful, and that it is better for as much wealth to be spread out in true ownership of private hands, and most conventional attempts to stop intergenerational wealth transfer involves instead concentrating wealth into impersonal ownership in the State or a corporation of some sort).

My goal is not so much to limit intergenerational wealth as to insure that the concentration and influence of wealth does not grant any single individual, entity, or non-representative group with an agenda or whim the ability to readily subvert the government and/or impinge upon the rights and liberties of others.

Or as I put it earlier "And of course the government when limited and checked in how that power is used should have the power to enforce said social contract and insure that no single individual or entity with an agenda or whim and not having those same restrictions is capable of subverting or having similar levels of power unchecked with which to impinge upon the people without their consent.".

I believe that it is the duty of any good government that claims to represent the good and the will of the governed to protect their most valued rights even if doing so requires a lesser impingement.

I do not necessarily believe that what I have laid out is fully feasible at this time, however I recognize such ideals as things to strive for and believe that when a Government or tyrannical figue becomes unreasonable and excessive it ought be if feasible struck down and replaced with an eye for previous mistakes.
 

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