Rousseau Natural Rights

What is government? Government is the governing body of nation, state, or community. Government determines the way any group of people are ran. There a several different types of government used all around the world. In the United States for example, uses a type of government that has three different branches of power. The Legislative Branch is the law making branch. The Judicial branch is the courts and the low enforcement. Lastly, the Executive branch is the presidential branch. “Each has its own responsibilities and at the same time they work together to make the country run smoothly and to assure that the rights of citizens are not ignored or disallowed.” (Osborne) Usually, governments break up the responsibilities into two or more groups. Two very influential writers wrote about their views on government; Lao-tzu and Machiavelli. These writers were in very different times which makes it very interesting to compare their views. Lao-tzu and Machiavelli had very different views on the ultimate purpose of government, the obligations of government leaders, and the main work of the state.

Government is necessary in all societies. The government offers citizens protection if the citizens agree to conform to the laws put into place. Laws are put into place to keep order and to protect people from hurting themselves. Without government there would be no laws or order and all societies would have complete chaos. There are many different forms of government and all leaders run their societies in different ways.

Government was created, and has always been, to enforce law and order. “Governments almost certainly originated with the need to protect people from conflicts and to provide law and order” (Purposes, 2016, par. 2). Without government, the people would fall into disorder and chaos, causing unhappiness and hardship throughout the nation they live in; it would be anarchy. Constitutional governments not only protect citizens from foreign threats, but also domestic threats from within. In America, a citizen’s freedoms extend as far as they want until they infringe upon the rights of another citizen. Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness are only some of the many rights promised to the American people. These rights are set forth by a well-

When looking up the definition of a government it says, “the governing body of a nation, state, or community”(dictionary.com). This helps to understand it a bit more, but what is the purpose of a government. Government has many purposes that keep its people safe and protected, this includes to establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity. There are so many ways that the government is use and there are so many sub categories and even those have categories. So when one is faced with a question like this there any number of responses, and but the main purpose of a

The government can only rule with the people’s best interest at heart because “governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed” (Jefferson, 1776). It is the citizens that give the government its power which is why the government protects the American citizens’ rights. Due to the Declaration of Independence, the government cannot impose unfair taxes on the citizens. If a law was to be imposed, it would have to be review by the judicial branch in order for the law to be enforced. Also, one branch of government could not have more power than the others which is why a system of checks and balances was later created. That way one branches would not be able to make all the decisions concerning the affairs of the nation without the consent of the others. This also protects the citizens from being taken advantage of and each branch will think about what the nation needs instead of competing for power among each other.

Why is government necessary? In the words of Alexander Hamilton, “Why has government been instituted at all? Because the passions of men will not conform to the dictates of reason and justice, without constraint” (Federalist No. 15 137). Men have a sin nature and must have an authority set in place to keep them from falling into anarchy. America has federal and state governments with a system of checks and balances for exactly this reason, but one sector of the government has overstepped the bounds that were set for it in this country’s infancy. In order to answer the question of whether more power should be put into the hands of the federal or state government, three things must be considered: the history of state’s rights in America, the differing types of government, and the constitution itself.

In this book, Rousseau aims to discover why people gave up their liberty and how political authority became legitimate. In his case, sovereignty is vesting in the entire populace, who enter into the contract directly with one another. He explained, “The problem is to find a form of association which will defend and protect with the common force the person and goods of each associate, and in which each, while uniting himself with all, may still obey himself alone, and remains as free as before.” That was the fundamental problem which Social Contract provides the solution.

The government should be should be looked to for focus and administration, however for a little our government was feared. “In the new two-level political federation created by the Constitution, the national government would exercise limited, delegated powers, and the existing state governments would retain authority over all other matters” (America 182). The constitution gave guidelines to follow to ensure freedom and justice for all. This is what America is all about, freedom to do anything and justice

Government is extremely important in a country, because without it, all hell would break loose, and wrong doers would receive

The government does their job for the interest of the people in the United States. The people in the United States trust the government to protect the people’s right. The system of checks and balances has worked very well over the years. Although there have been some problems in the system but it has improves the government a lot. It rarely occurs that an appointed official has been rejected or a veto has been overridden but it has happened in our system. The system of checks and balances and separation of powers was created to keep the three branched of government in

Philosophers have struggled with determining the proper role of government. In the absence of government and laws, people could do whatever they wanted, and some of them would try to slaughter others and steal their property. This is the state called anarchy. People have realized that the safety of the people and the country would be in jeopardy in such a state. Thus, it is necessary for a country to have a government and/or ruler. However, a ruler must not have absolute power nor lack authority. But the protection of the people and the country alone is not enough for a country to prosper. The property and the natural rights of the people and the government must also be protected. Thus, the proper role of government is to protect the

What is government? Government is a person or group of people who control and make decisions for a country. It has a number of particular roles to help make a country survive and function successfully. I believe that without the roles a government provides a country would not function and would eventually fail. Therefore, I think government is necessary because without it there would not be any provided protection, resources, and regulations.

Over the course of history this idea of freedom has been developed and defined by many famous political and philosophical thinkers. Many of Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s ideas are acknowledged in the “Discourse on the Origin of Inequality” and more notably the “The Social Contract”. John Stuart Mill’s major points originate from a book called “On Liberty”. All of these works are still read today and taught in schools around the world. In particular, their ideas on freedom and liberty have drawn a considerable amount of attention. For instance, Rousseau is well known for his idea of “forcing citizens to be free”, while Mill claims that freedom can be found in “pursing our own good in our own way”. Therefore, it is evident that fundamental differences occur between Rousseau’s and Mill’s ideas on liberty and freedom. Rousseau’s rejects this classical liberal idea of freedom of the individual, and instead argues that the highest quality of freedom is achieved through a social contract where collective decisions represent the law and people have a duty to the state, while Mill sees freedom as not being constrained by the government (freedom from laws) and pursuing one’s own good as long as it does no harm to others.

1. The quote was made by Jean-Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778) in his creation “On Social Contract (1762)” (Rousseau, Social Contract, 4). Rousseau’s discourse on private property can be understood as a response to John Locke’s theories regarding property – and especially to Locke’s labor theory and the government’s role in it (assumption based on the similarity of their discourse). According to Locke’s labor theory, a man’s labor defines his right to own something (Locke, Second Treatise Government, 16) and that one of the government’s top priorities is to guarantee inheritance of private property for those who have and own something (Locke, Second Treatise Government, 37). The theory also contains the aspect that one can own something if he improves it (Locke, Second Treatise Government, 15).

The purpose which Rousseau ostensibly gives his social contract is to free man from the illegitimate chains to which existing governments have shackled him. If this is his aim, then it follows that he should be most concerned with the preservation of freedom in political society, initially so that savage man might be lured out of nature and into society in the first place, and afterwards so that Rousseau’s framework for this society will prevent the present tyranny from reasserting itself. Indeed, in his definition of purpose for man’s initial union into society, he claims that, despite his membership in an association to which he must necessarily have some sort of obligation if the