2 Responses to “Seizing Power and Property”

1. Mary Christine Erirekson Says:
   June 3rd, 2009 at 8:07 am

   There is a certain problem here. If governments don’t
   engage in some of this especially moral sanctions,
   then the various people will and the result will be
   open war between small groups and chaos, until someone
   seizes power and restores order.

   The idea that people cannot transfer to government
   powers they don’t have is itself a moral one, and
   and moral sanction such as you say governments can
   impose is involved in interfering in what some might
   call some natural law of the jungle.

   the management of resources and imposing as routine
   those procedures discovered to be most helpful,
   are certainly proper government actions even by your
   Randian theory, since resources are often not owned
   by any individual.

   The theory of government in St. Paul’s epistle to
   the Romans is much superior. It is, that government
   is an institution created by God to limit evil and
   secondarily to reward good. Not that it always does
   so, but you can see that the direct beneficiary
   is God and as one prophet or in the psalms somewhere
   says, when God’s rules are enforced by the king, the
   people are happy.

   This is not the same thing as divine right of kings.
   Indeed, it would be a rationale for coups and
   revolutions if necessary, but only as a last resort
   since St. Paul said that sedition is one of the
   works of the flesh, and sowing to the flesh reaps
   death.

2. Mary Christine Erikson Says:
   June 3rd, 2009 at 8:08 am

   oops, misspelled my own name

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