Basic principles of governance

[Cognisant]

1. To enforce and maintain Rule of Law
2. To enforce Civil and Property Rights
3. To regulate the Free Market for the benefit of the Free Market

A nation must have borders, a nation must delineate between citizens and non-citizen, the government of a nation must exist to serve the interests of that nation and by extension the interests of its citizenry.

The government of a nation requires a monopoly on force (to have the biggest stick, so to speak) in order to be able to defend the nation from outside threats to its sovereignty and to protect the rights of its citizenry via the Rule of Law.

Question what I have proposed or add principles of your own for others to question.

 

[fluffy]

Separate the powers of government so one power doesn't take full control and become a tyranny. (Courts, legislature, executive)

Depending on the size of the nation.

Central control is inefficient and ineffective.

Break the system into parts.

State federal local

 

[ZenRaiden]

Given what is happening in the west including the US, I wonder if politics actually to work in favor of nation. Nationalism is almost ultimately seen as evil.
Its often equivocated with evil and the only way you are meant to feel patriotic is during elections and when you are being drafted to being blasted in some corner of the world with a gun or explosive.
I think the idea of erasing nations and state seems to be real goal of modern politics, where giant corps will overtake national interest.
We can see for example the way US economy is collapsing and most people are looking at this and thinking US economy is doing great.
Same with Germany.
Its almost like giant giga corps want everyone to be dependent on China. Which incidentally is becoming the ultimate reality.

No one with state governing interest of his people would aim to cripple national economy in favor of another. Yet we see this happen all across the board in G7 and US is leading the cause.

There are two options here. Either the governments are incompetent or malevolent.
I would go with both options in this case, and the outcome is outright deletion of statehood.

 

[The Grey Man]

Government is to be distinguished from the State, and both are to be distinguished from the nation.

The State is a perfect society ordered towards the earthly happiness of its members. By 'perfect society' is meant a society that possesses all the means necessary to accomplish its end. Thus the Church possesses all the means necessary to achieve its purpose, the heavenly happiness of its members, including a sacerdotal hierarchy (sacerdotium) and sacraments. The State, similarly, has its regnal, or civil, hierarchy (regnum), which ensures the efficient and economic organization and coordination of its members. The State differs, however, from the Church in this respect, namely that, if it is to have more than the merely potential existence of a Platonic idea with no concrete instances, it must be manifested and embodied in some nation, whereas the Church is more concrete and more real than the various national or local 'churches' in which it is instantiated for this reason, namely that the local churches exist only inasmuch as they participate in the one Christ (cf. Colossians 1:18).

The State, then, must be embodied by a nation, but what is a nation? I propose that a nation is a collection of human persons united by consanguinuity, a shared language and shared traditions, a shared land, or, more likely, some combination of the three. Since nations differ in their racial qualities, the riches of their civilization, and the resources of their homeland and are always wanting something which which can only be had by intercourse, commerce, and conflict with other nations, they are never perfect societies in themselves, but always more or less imperfect manifestations of the State, which will only be perfectly realized when the new Jerusalem comes down out of heaven (cf. Apocalypse 21:2)—the new Jerusalem which will have no temple (21:22) because in it, the 'square will be circled,' Church and State will at last be one and the same divine Society ruled by Christ the King of kings, Who is also the High Priest and sacrificial Victim of the New and Eternal Covenant.

The civil hierarchy of the State, concretely embodied in some nation, is a government. (Strictly speaking, the rule of a household by the family patriarch, of a religious community by an abbot or abbess, of an ecclesiastic juridiction by a bishop, and even of the entire world by divine Providence are also governments, but I will simply refer to civil governments as governments since this thread does not concern any other kind.) Now hierarchy in general consists in the asymmetric relation of authority and obedience between a superior who commands and a subordinate who obeys, but when we speak of government, we invariably mean only the commanding element of the civil hierarchy. Therefore the purpose of government is to promote the earthly happiness of a particular nation by issuing commands to its members.

Since a command is one but its object and occasion may be many, government must, in the interest of efficiency and economy, be able to make laws which apply to not just one member of the nation at one time, but all members at all times. Since, moreover, it is not always clear how these laws are to be applied in a given situation, it must also be able to interpret the laws. It is thus seen how the three powers of government, executive, legislative, and judicial, are not independent of each other, but themselves hierarchically ordered: the judicial power is ordered to the legislative, and both to the executive, which alone is government par excellence. In view of these considerations, the most reasonable mode of government, in my opinion, is monarchy, in which the supreme executive, legislative, and judicial authorities are one and the same person, who is truly the national embodiment of the State.

Acting in the interest of the nation is clearly of paramount importance for the government (dissolving the nation by promoting mass immigration, sexual immorality, or subversive ideologies is objectively treason), but should be distinguished from delineating between citizens and non-citizens. It is not necessarily in the interest of the nation that every one of its members should be part of the commanding element of the civil hierarchy, either directly, by filling an office in the government, or indirectly, by having a vote as to who does fill the offices.

 

[riddle_man]

Well, we all tend to have opinions now, don't we. We don't all get to have them manifest, though, do we?

 

[fractalwalrus]

To enforce and maintain Rule of Law

Ok, would it be correct here to assume that by this, you are referring to the existence of the justice system and law enforcement as institutions?

To enforce Civil and Property Rights

Which rights specifically? I mean, what rights should we consider as civil or property rights?

To regulate the Free Market for the benefit of the Free Market

Doesn't this work against the principle of a "free market," or shall we go nuanced here? If nuanced, at what point of regulation does the "free market" cease to be free?

A nation must have borders, a nation must delineate between citizens and non-citizen, the government of a nation must exist to serve the interests of that nation and by extension the interests of its citizenry.

Do you think that, fundamentally, humans share some common interests?

The government of a nation requires a monopoly on force (to have the biggest stick, so to speak) in order to be able to defend the nation from outside threats to its sovereignty and to protect the rights of its citizenry via the Rule of Law.

Ah, there are those who believe that concentration of power is inevitable, and therefore, governments do indeed need to be the highest concentration of power in order to stop the other concentrations of power from dominating. I wonder what this implies occurred in the United States when JP Morgan bailed them out, or in the UK when the East India Company's private army outnumbered that of the crown.

 

[BurnedOut]

Governance does not require a state and power-hungry maniacs cannot stop their megalomaniacal tendencies. Governance needs nothing more than a society and societies can evolve without a written constitution. It's only overpopulation that causes the requirement of a state as it is the most efficient way of exploiting entire classes of people and still be productive as a 'state' even in the presence of mass poverty.

However let go of the hypothetical assumption, an effective governance system is inherently built on oppression of a whole class of propertyless people and lack of a truly free market economy. In the presence of lack of oppression and free market, there can be absolute chaos in the presence of perpetual mobilizations against or for the status quo. When the state is certain to dominate a certain class, the well-off and the ones with leisure time can actually do 'effective' state building with oppression of the propertyless class as the new social contract to get unhindred access to labour which is key to feeding and keeping a large population in order.

 

[BurnedOut]

The State differs, however, from the Church in this respect, namely that, if it is to have more than the merely potential existence of a Platonic idea with no concrete instances, it must be manifested and embodied in some nation, whereas the Church is more concrete and more real than the various national or local 'churches' in which it is instantiated for this reason, namely that the local churches exist only inasmuch as they participate in the one Christ

In the absence of a state, the church's mass requires one anyway to perpetuate the domination of the church in some way. People are always going to fractured by virtue of their cultural differences. It is an asinine idea to have a universalist society.

Church and State will at last be one and the same divine Society ruled by Christ the King of kings, Who is also the High Priest and sacrificial Victim of the New and Eternal Covenant.

In order for that to happen, you need a clergy as the ruling class. Look at Iran and their human rights record. Again, there can be no clergy without being culturally discriminating to non-clergy groups. So the group that captures the clergy's attention will eventually become as powerful. The cycle will continue leading to the formation of a state at the end. Humans are doomed to have a state no matter after being the position of being too populous.

Now hierarchy in general consists in the asymmetric relation of authority and obedience between a superior who commands and a subordinate who obeys, but when we speak of government, we invariably mean only the commanding element of the civil hierarchy. Therefore the purpose of government is to promote the earthly happiness of a particular nation by issuing commands to its members.

Earthly happiness depends on the magnitude of earthly pleasures. The state's commands will essentially serve the self-interest of the ruling class.

There are two options here. Either the governments are incompetent or malevolent.

They are stupid and captured by idiots who cannot wank themselves enough with all the dollars they want to have and possess

You need an actual Plato's Philosopher King to handle this problem of overpopulation and lack of accountability. You need a global constitution that works in any court of law to punish the abuse of the power. But constitutions are always going to be bent in the name of culture when some values are acultural if you tally the prescriptions of all religious texts - some property, good social relations, self-respect, good support system even when they are fucked by the racial and sexist biases of that time as the main thing every god wants to apparently do is make everybody fulfilled and happy. There cannot be a cultural aspect to happiness as happiness is having your self-respect and having your self-respect means having property and means to insure yourself and also prevent your abuse. But look at the maniacs who write about post-structuralism and it's idea of cultural relativism. Cultural relativism is based on lifestyles, not one's self-respect. If god wanted us to be happy and if a human happened to pen down the instructions for the same, the human should acknowledge and evolve with the fucking instructions instead of trying to gain power by holding god's word no matter how imperfect it is.

 

[fractalwalrus]

Governance needs nothing more than a society and societies can evolve without a written constitution.

How are we defining society here, or more importantly, how do we distinguish it from a government?

It's only overpopulation that causes the requirement of a state as it is the most efficient way of exploiting entire classes of people and still be productive as a 'state' even in the presence of mass poverty.

I'm inclined to believe that larger populations have scaling issues that could be solved in other manners, however, how would you suggest dealing with contract enforcement or the defending against invaders? Should a group have laws?

When the state is certain to dominate a certain class, the well-off and the ones with leisure time can actually do 'effective' state building with oppression of the propertyless class as the new social contract to get unhindred access to labour which is key to feeding and keeping a large population in order.

Traditionally this was accomplished through slave labor, yes. It would seem that there is a hierarchy which perpetuates, in part, by allowing for a tier system to exist. I believe this exploits a part of human psychology that I like to call the "well at least I'm not that guy, so no need to rock the boat" effect. Roman citizens, while not as well off as elites, enjoyed far greater priviledges than slaves. In "Western" nations, the populations of the "core" countries enjoy a higher standard of living in part because people overseas make almost everything we consume at a fraction of the cost that a local would do it. Then we do something extremely inefficient (ship stuff on large ships) to get here. Good luck convincing the masses to pay more for their stuff to end this system. It is all built in.

 

[ZenRaiden]

You need an actual Plato's Philosopher King

Ill be a bit of contrarian, but I think Plato is exactly the type of philosopher that would ruin a civilization, because he treats people like object entities that have no emotions and operate purely on rational reasons.

On top of that a lot of NT people think they are rational and I get they are more rational than lets say ISFP, but God the society cannot reason its way out of everything purely by following some platonic ideas.