The ability to make choices of moral consequence that matter is part of the human construct, and part of the reflection of the image and likeness we bear. So I think clearly we are in step this far. The Christian does take as their absolute guide in matters of faith and moral consequence, scripture, tradition and reason, and these three, enabled by the indwelling of the Holy Spirit should prove to be the guide for the Christian. Individuality and Self-determination are gifts, however I am not sure they are human rights. I am concerned that the argument then makes a special case for Christians, and in reality that is not necessarily just or equitable. Ultimately the rationalle you present is that you only need to comply with the Government directives when you feel you should. What about those who feel they don't need a driver's licence, or don't need to pay taxes. To me the vaccination question boils down to I lay down mis resentment of the compulsion for the greater good, in order to help my community be a safer place for the vulnerable. I am actually not sure I am completely sold on a universal mandate, and I understand why our Metropolitan suggested he did not want to open Churches till all are welcome, as it is against the Gospel DNA to not be open to all, in fact it would be in breach of the catholicity of the Church.
I am afraid that the premise of this thread is rather weak. We could decide that we will do nothing mandated by the state if we do not agree with it. If we all behaved in that way we would have anarchy. I would not like to live in anarchy and I am certain those arguing against government mandates would not like it. There are certain things all states mandate and have to mandate because if left to the population we would have anarchy or something approaching it. Under the premise of this thread you could decide it was your Christian conscience not to pay your taxes. We probably would not know how that worked out because I do not think you have internet access in prison. What about speed limits? You may decide it is your Christian conscience that you will drive your car as fast as you want. Then laws about theft? Can your Christian conscience tell you that you do not have to contribute to the huge profits supermarket chains make and you will take any essentials you need without paying for them? The point is this. Where do you draw the line? When does the state intervene and when does it not? Who gets to make that decision? I must admit I am not one in favour of forced vaccination. However, we have to look at the circumstances. COVID-19 is going to be with us (1) at best for a great many years to come and (2) highly likely that it will be here for good. Because humans have no prior exposure to the virus that causes COVID-19 there is no natural immunity in the human population. Therefore, the best way for us to live with COVID-19 is to be vaccinated against it. The more people are vaccinated the less likely people are to get COVID-19, be seriously ill as a result or die. If people are not taking up the vaccine then I do see a need in this case for it to be made compulsory so that the population in general is protected. It is alright saying I am going with my conscience but if we all did that and we all decided not to have the vaccine then we should not be surprised if governments re-introduced measures to curb our mingling and need to be aware that people will die as a result of our choice. I do not believe it is the Christian way to do what you want for your own exclusive reasons. Christ told us the second most important commandment was to love your fellow man. I firmly believe that it is an act of charity to be vaccinated against COVID-19 and to reduce the incidence of this disease in the human population. If governments and educational establishments want to mandate that their employees are vaccinated I fully support them. Indeed, I think they are in an impossible situation. I am sure there will be somebody somewhere who would litigate a government or other employer because they caught COVID-19 at work and considered their employer had not done enough to prevent that from happening.
This is one of my favorite topics, since I come from a strong natural law tradition, where these questions have been discussed for literally more than 2000 years, and all the main answers have already been figured out. Okay, so the basic premise behind @bwallac2335 's post is completely correct. There is a fundamental distinction between law and morality. They are not the same thing, and it is possible for something to be: -illegal -but not immoral. In other words, there may be a law on the books, which you will be completely warranted in breaking or avoiding to the best of your ability, without being guilty of moral vice, or sin against God. Moreover, it is possible for something to be: -legislated by state authority, -but still not become a law. In other words, the mere legislative act of a state does not by itself create law. In order for law to be law, it must pass a series of checks (eg. rational, conformable to natural law, non-particular, etc). There are basically two theories of government in the entire history of the natural law tradition. 1. Government is there to serve the common good. (Middle Ages, Aquinas) 2. Government is there to protect natural rights. (Ancient Rome, Grotius/Locke) The first theory is what Roman Catholics push heavily as the "correct" theory. But as reason shows, this theory is incredibly conducive to government tyranny, and it is no accident that Roman Catholics have never had a strong tradition of liberty and natural rights in any part of their domains. In the Reformation, the RC governments decided that it would serve the common good to execute those who didn't submit to the Pope. All of the RC dreams of government, such as More's Utopia, have been communistic fantasies where each man is but an ant in the great anthill called The Government which rules over all. I do not accept the notion that the government is there to serve the common good. The government is pencil-pushers and fatcat pseudo-criminals. They need to be as far away as the arm can throw them. The only government that should matter most is your local government, where you the sovereign citizen have the most control and the most access to them, to pull them down if/when they begin to become corrupt. This principle of federalism and subsidiarity is what underlies the American system of government: Washington is far away, and mostly irrelevant, and powerless. Your state and local government is where most of your attention is spent, and where the actual geopolitical locus of power lies.
Ok, but if you reject the "common good" theory of government - even though all tyrants claim to be acting for the common good, so that's not much of an argument - then I can only conclude that you subscribe to the "natural rights" theory, correct? If so, then you must know that in that tradition there is no such thing as a "sovereign citizen". That construction is literally a contradiction in terms for Hobbes, Locke, et al. To be a citizen at all is to grant sovereignty to the State. As Burke put it: What you and @bwallac2335 are advocating is not limited "natural rights" sovereignty, but anarchism. That's ok I guess, since everyone's entitled to an opinion - anarchism has a long intellectual tradition of its own - but it's not the tradition of Hobbes, Locke, Smith, Burke, Hume, Jefferson, Madison, et al. It's something entirely different from the social contract. The Lockean liberal tradition was also clear that the way you prevent government from becoming tyrannical is by having institutions that are designed to act with consent, whether this entails dividing power between separate "branches" or (better) requiring balance between different stakeholders (such as Parliament's ability to withhold supply), alongside regular "tests" of consent, i.e., elections, in which the prevailing majority enjoys the limited right to rule, etc. A " common good" government can be constructed in such a manner just as well as a "natural rights" government can be. I will also point out that what distinguished Continental "common good" theories from later British Enlightenment theories was not "natural law" - which was originally common to both sets of theories and which the later liberal tradition dispensed with - but rather the notion of the social contract (whether construed historically or hypothetically), which was entirely absent from Aristotle, on whose writings, along with Roman law, the "common good" theories were ultimately based.
I am advocating for anarchy? That is just stupid. I am sorry it is really stupid to say such as that. Did you not read where I said it is the responsibility of government to provide some means, and I specifically said health care. It should make that available as I said I was for some form of universal health care model. What I was not for was forcing it on anyone. You can choose or not choose to take it. That is not the government's job and a violation of your natural rights.
Sorry I do not follow your point or the relevance of Burke's argument. And we should state for the record, that Burke was trying to tear down the natural law theory of government, and return back to the the medieval conception of Government as an Organism, where the people are just the various constituent organs. So clearly the Burkean and medieval conception of government doesn't teach individual sovereignty either. Er, there is nothing in common between almost all those thinkers. Not sure why you lumped them together. 1. Hobbes and Hume are for the medieval conception of "government as organism" 2. Locke, Smith, Jefferson, Madison, are in the tradition of natural rights, a blip on the radar. 3. Burke rejected 2, and tried to return things back to 1, of "government as organism" It can't, because the purposes of those two governments will be different. The "natural rights" government will seek to only fulfill its function of protecting its citizens' natural rights. The "common good" government has no such limitation, and will seek to further and further, to more and more, accomplish what it thinks the common good to be. The "common good" government is inherently progressive (and tyrannical), while the "natural rights" government is inherently curtailed and limited. You are right of course that Aristotle is the grandfather of the "common good" theory of government. But I will note that the Romans sharply disagreed with him, and in Cicero you find the "natural rights" model of government which was refined by Grotius and Locke. This is the difference between the Greek political theory (which was even at its best, potentially totalitarian), and the Roman political theory (sharply opposed to totalitarianism, even under emperors, and even unto its last days in the 500s AD). In the Corpus Iuris Civilis we have all the constituent elements of liberty, and rights, that then explode again on the surface under Grotius and Locke. Here is the famous jurist Richard Epstein:
That kind of response is uncalled for. I've gone out of my way to be respectful of your position. I never said being an anarchist was bad. Indeed it has a long and venerable intellectual tradition of its own. And no, the notion that you are actually advocating anarchism (whether you realize it or not) is not "stupid", and I am not the only one on this thread who interpreted what you said that way. The fact that you don't seem to recognize that is more indicative of a flaw in your position than it is of a flaw in our interpretation. The whole point of anarchism is that other modes of social organization are believed to reduce public goods, so your defense above is a non sequitur. Go back and re-read what I actually wrote, think about it, then go back and re-read it again. Perhaps that will be productive of a more thoughtful response next time. All you're doing is slamming your hand on the table, making bare assertions and insulting whoever disagrees with you. But what is asserted without evidence can also be dismissed without evidence. If you have an actual argument handy to back up your position, by all means, let's hear it.
I am not being mean to you personally. I am just saying you have a stupid understanding of what I have said. I am sorry if I hurt your feelings but I stand by that it is stupid. I literally advocated for a government run health care system of one kind. I literally agreed with your major premise that one of the activities of government is to help to preserve life. So if you some how think by not wanting to force something on people is advocating anarchy then so be it. I will continue to find it stupid to believe such because I am at the same time advocating for government to provide the means but just not force the means on people, so in affect I am advocating for government jsut not a tyrannical government. I see no reason to reread what you wrote and I don't see a reason to respond to someone who can't even properly define anarchism. 1.1 Political Anarchism Anarchism is primarily understood as a skeptical theory of political legitimation. The term anarchism is derived from the negation of the Greek term arché, which means first principle, foundation, or ruling power. Anarchy is thus rule by no one or non-rule. Some argue that non-ruling occurs when there is rule by all—with consensus or unanimity providing an optimistic goal (see Depuis-Déri 2010). Political anarchists focus their critique on state power, viewing centralized, monopolistic coercive power as illegitimate. Anarchists thus criticize “the state”. Bakunin provides a paradigm historical example, saying: If there is a State, there must be domination of one class by another and, as a result, slavery; the State without slavery is unthinkable—and this is why we are the enemies of the State. (Bakunin 1873 [1990: 178]) A more recent example comes from Gerard Casey who writes, “states are criminal organizations. All states, not just the obviously totalitarian or repressive ones” (Casey 2012: 1). Such sweeping generalizations are difficult to support. Thus anarchism as political philosophy faces the challenge of specificity. States have been organized in various ways. Political power is not monolithic. Sovereignty is a complicated matter that includes divisions and distributions of power (see Fiala 2015). Moreover, the historical and ideological context of a given anarchist’s critique makes a difference in the content of the political anarchist’s critique. Bakunin was responding primarily to a Marxist and Hegelian view of the state, offering his critique from within the global socialist movement; Casey is writing in the Twenty-First Century in the era of liberalism and globalization, offering his critique from within the movement of contemporary libertarianism. Some anarchists engage in broad generalizations, aiming for a total critique of political power. Others will present a localized critique of a given political entity. An ongoing challenge for those who would seek to understand anarchism is to realize how historically and ideologically diverse approaches fit under the general anarchist umbrella. We look at political anarchism in detail below. https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/anarchism/#PoliAnar It is 100% possible to be for a government, and an active one at that, and at the same time allow individual action within that frame work.
The problem is, if you accept this, you've given away the whole store to the other side. If it is indeed the case that one of the activities of government should be to preserve life, then perhaps putting everyone in concentration camps, "for their own good", could be the best way of accomplishing that goal. Maybe the current Australian government is enacting your principle of preserving life, when it locks Australia down like a prison camp. The only way out is to have a completely opposite principle of government. Government is not a good, but a necessary evil. It is there to protect the evil in men, but it can be quite evil itself also. It not on a morally higher plane. It is filled with wicked evil people, just like anything else. Therefore, it is only given a few specific tasks, which cannot be done by other agency; such as assuring the sanctity of the natural rights of its citizens. Everything else should be done by other actors in society.
I don't see how. That is building a straw man. The government makes a service available. The people can or not use it. If the government forces the use of it then it is in violation your natural rights. In both cases you listed action is that are in violation of your natural rights and it is 100% legitimate to fight back against said government at that point.
@Invictus I think you are a highly intelligent well read person. I was only calling the argument stupid. I don't want you to think that I think that about your or meant towards you. Sorry if I offended you in anyway.
The only accurate part of your reply above was the quote from the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. I never gave a "definition" of anarchism for you to critique, and what I said about it was correct: public goods do exist according to that particular theory, so your defense was a non sequitur. Obviously, you are not intending to defend anarchism. I was pointing out that your position is inconsistent: you are arguing for something like a limited "natural rights" governments on the basis of principles more consistent with anarchism than with classical liberalism. You've yet to make a single argument in favor of your position, BTW. I'd be delighted to discuss it if you have one. Ultimately, I doubt you will be successful in showing on either "common good" or "social contract" grounds that government can't or shouldn't enforce health mandates, or that the lack of such mandates would be desirable. Do we really want surgeons not to be required to wash up and mask before an operation? Or for zoning laws to prohibit placing toxic waste dumps next to our kids' playgrounds? I seriously doubt it.
All I am saying is that the way you phrased it, "one of the activities of government is to help to preserve life" , lends itself to an incredible range of interpretations. One valid interpretation of your phrase is turning society into a prison camp, to preserve everyone's life. What I'm saying is that we need to be more precise, and carefully sharpen what we're saying, because if we give the totalitarians running our societies even an inch, they will use it. So no, if we are being precise, the purpose of government is not to help to preserve life. Even if life is deteriorating, the government cannot step in and fix that, because it's not its role to step in. Its role is only to protect the natural rights of citizens. If there is a deadly ebola plague, other actors in society should address that, and the government should remain powerless to address it.
My feelings aren't hurt. I simply place a high value on the quality of debate, and I dislike it when it gets dragged down to the level of personal insults, as though we were competing for public office or were kids arguing on a playground. We're just a couple of adult guys discussing an issue we mutually find important. Neither of us knows everything, and we each have something to learn from the other's position. I figured my citation of Burke - who was both a conservative and an Anglican - would get at least a fair hearing. Based on what you guys have said, I assume that I come from basically the same set of presumptions that you and @Stalwart do, viz., limited government, federalism/localism, individual rights, etc. I simply disagree, based on my long reading of the original thinkers, that those presuppositions result in the kind of limits you have described. Based on the syllogism I outlined above, I think the government can enforce health mandates up to and including kicking one's door in and jabbing one's arm while being held in restraint (which has actually been done before in the U.S.). That being said, I do not think that would be desirable. It would be best for policymakers to avoid that option (for the sake of maintaining peace and social order), but the goal, aside from genuinely medical exemptions, such as for cancer patients who have no immune system, should still be 100% vaccination (because every person in the State is entitled to equal protection), and the government has the right and the authority to implement the appropriate incentives to encourage compliance and to apply the appropriate remedies for noncompliance (because the proper end of those incentives and penalties is the protection of the population).
Government happens when we need to live together in more than family groups. Their are of course various forms of Government, and the one that most of us are familiar with is some form of democracy. We often ignore local government whose primary responsibilities have to do with Roads, Rates and Rubbish, yet without them life in the city becomes more difficult. We have consistently over the centuries assigned more tasks to government, and government seems increasingly keen to acquire more and greater areas of influence, providing less utility, greater incursion, and needing more money. So it is the civil service stopped being civil and became the public service which then stopped providing anything and became the public sector. Lockdowns of one sort or another have been a feature in many places around the world, not just Australia, and as it happens, apart from closing our borders the Australian Government has not locked down Australia like a prison camp. Lockdowns in various areas and in various ways have happened, however these have been managed by State Governments. Government in principle is a moral neutral. It's purposes may be used for good or evil, and that will in part at least be determined by those who conduct the business of government. When confronted by a global pandemic government has a role to play. They have in many ways stepped up to the plate in the face of Covid-19 in terms of providing health care, funding and prioritising vaccination research, advocating behaviours that serve to reduce the spread and the impact on ourselves and those around us, and mandating quarantine from travellers and restricting movement. Some of these measures will be short term, and in the short term they are acceded to as we accept that they are needed to work for the common good, and to protect the vulnerable. We (in my part of Australia) are now entering a phase of relaxing some of the restrictions. Sadly of course you hear politicians speaking in terms that suggest that they are giving us freedoms, which seems to suggest that understand themselves more in the role of the feudal monarch than that of a democratically elected person who serves the people. I certainly agree that government should seek to not over govern. The problem with things being consigned to other actors is that other actors fail. One of the great failures at the moment is the so called 'free press', who have abandoned journalism and news in favour of prepackaged infomercials and opinion pieces, served up as infotainment not forgetting to finish with a nice animal story, maybe a Panda this morning.
Sure, but totalitarianism is not the inevitable outcome of "living in more than family groups". Living in more than family groups does not yet answer the question of how we might live. Whether the government is an Organism of which we are members, or whether individuals are sovereign and the government serves them.
I guess I'd have to disagree with Burke, insofar as this nation is concerned at least. In the USA, to be a citizen is to delegate a measure of authority to the State to act on my behalf; I retain sovereignty, for the US government is "of the people, by the people" (we are self-governing) and we essentially have kept the right to act en masse to pull our delegated authority back from our elected representatives and do elsewise with it. We also retain the right to petition for a redress of grievances, and we even kept the right to exercise some measure (though not unlimited) of 'civil disobedience'. In this, the USA is different from many other nations.
You three examples are all from Victoria, and there have been some instances of over policing, but also some significantly disrespectful actions on the part of protesters in Melbourne. These instances have, as far as I know not led to instances link ... The question you hint at is important. Are we the product of our society, or is society simply the aggregation of individuals? I honestly believe that answers to this question are important, complex, and nuanced. The earlier statements you made were about Government, however now I see your objection to to totalitarianism, and I have already indicated that I am not a fan of burgeoning bureaucracy, long before we reach totalitarianism.
I can find a marked distinction between the subject under consideration (submission to a vaccine mandate) and the examples of speeding and theft. In the case of theft, we have a clear commandment from God that theft is wrong, and it is in no way a human right, so it would not be possible for a Christian conscience to genuinely justify stealing. In the case of speeding, speed laws are based on the belief that driving an automobile is a privilege rather than a right, and the penalty when caught is a civil fine or (in extreme cases) possible forfeiture of the driver's license/permit; since it is not evil per se to speed, Christian conscience only really comes into play as far as driving dangerously (in a way that imperils themselves or others). For the sake of this discussion, it's probably best if we set aside the perceived merits and demerits of the vaccine as well as the perceived seriousness or lack thereof of the virus. We could argue those points "until the cows come home" without making any progress. The OP is asking, "Where do you draw the line on the actual obedience that we need to give the state as a Christian(?)" and I think this question stands on its own. Well then, doesn't your support of a vaccine mandate hinge upon your personal perception of its relative importance, and upon your individual choice based on your own Christian conscience? Some of us have a different perception of the vaccine's relative importance and value, and (having read the same scriptures as you) our consciences say otherwise. Don't we have the same right to follow our consciences as you have?
My argument did center upon the special case of Christians, since the OP is a Christian and he raised the question of a Christian's responsibility to obey government orders. A Christian's responsibility is rooted in his faith in God and in God's morality. Have you never crossed a street outside of the crosswalk? Have you never knowingly exceeded the speed limit by one or two KPH? Have you always done exactly what the government said you must do, to the letter? If so, I think it's safe to say that you are an exception to the general rule of humanity. Nonetheless, I think you'll agree that your statement is somewhat overly broad, for we all have our consciences and we understand that we can't "feel we should" simply do anything at all.