Material and Spiritual Security
June 19, 2012
To My Fellow Citizens:
In an earlier letter, I described and criticized the view that our Constitution gives the government the power and duty to provide us with material security because such security is necessary for democracy. In fact, as I argued, economic insecurity does not deprive any one of their rights or prevent them from exercising them.
In addition to being wrong, the argument that to ensure democracy the government must ensure our material security is paradoxical. To even attempt to provide material security, the government would have to have such power over our lives and livelihoods that the government would have all the freedom and citizens none. This is hardly what we call democracy and so, paradoxically, such an effort to preserve democracy destroys it. Cont. Reading
In an earlier letter, I described and criticized the view that our Constitution gives the government the power and duty to provide us with material security because such security is necessary for democracy. In fact, as I argued, economic insecurity does not deprive any one of their rights or prevent them from exercising them.
In addition to being wrong, the argument that to ensure democracy the government must ensure our material security is paradoxical. To even attempt to provide material security, the government would have to have such power over our lives and livelihoods that the government would have all the freedom and citizens none. This is hardly what we call democracy and so, paradoxically, such an effort to preserve democracy destroys it. Cont. Reading
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