Dear learned friends,
I was researching Mill’s Harm principle and thought I understood the delegation of rights to the government for the purpose of preventing harm. I don’t remember anything that stated that we delegated unlimited power for the government to use any and all tools in the execution of that prevention. Somewhere I got the idea that you can not delegate authority of rights that the person themselves don’t have. In other words, I can’t authorize the government to take action that I myself can’t take. I began looking at the difference between Freedom and Liberty. My thought (and I need confirmation and feedback) is that Liberty is with regard to individual rights, vs Freedom – the unchallenged permission to activity.
I do not have the rights to force a medical procedure onto a self-sovereign individual, yet the government assumes it does, and protects the activity to violate a self-sovereign individual.
Is there somewhere in the Constitution that grants rights to the government that the citizen can not wield themselves? Does the representation of a constituent, convey ultimate power and authority, or is it limited only to the power and authority of the constituent.
As “Harm” is not defined (whether actual vs simply perceived harm, or measured against assumed vs explicit rights), does an agency have the freedom to assume unlimited justification and action for the protection of the “good of society“?
It seems this is the question we are faced with today in our republic.
Alexis de Tocqueville, raised the issue of The Tyranny of the Majority enabling the division and persecution of the minority as if a despot. This is what is happening in our government. It is, as if, the representation of the constituent is only to place an oligarch in government with ultimate power, and as a “democracy” of mob rule by the leanings of oligarchs, enable the Tyranny of the Majority to exercise ultimate authority and rights that we ourselves did NOT grant in our elections.
My thought is if we don’t understand what rights (or limits) those protecting the common good for the society actually have, any actions no longer serve the greater good.
