What kind of harm is a government obligated to protect against?

[Hegel]

What kind of harm is a government obligated to protect against? Is the government obligated to protect against only physical harm (by the way what constitutes physical harm)? Do they need to protect from fiscal harm? Emotional? Mental? Spiritual? How far is too far when it comes to a government protecting its population

[jj]

How about you express some of your own positions, Socrates?

[Ed]

Originally posted by Hegel
What kind of harm is a government obligated to protect against? Is the government obligated to protect against only physical harm (by the way what constitutes physical harm)? Do they need to protect from fiscal harm? Emotional? Mental? Spiritual? How far is too far when it comes to a government protecting its population

The government is not obligated to protect you from harm. What gives you that idea?

[Hegel]

Originally posted by jj
How about you express some of your own positions, Socrates?

Sure.

The first thing that should be done is to define harm. I define harm as being the intentional or accidental through carelessness damage to a person in the fiscal, emotional, or physical form. Since the existance of a spiritual form cannot be proven, I think we should leave spiritual harm to be dealt with after death.

I think that the Government really should protect people from all kinds of harm. It would be extremely difficult, and I realize that, however I personally feel that this is one of the few obligations of a government.

Now that I've answered your question would you mind answering mine for once?

[Shane Costello]

Originally posted by Ed:
The government is not obligated to protect you from harm. What gives you that idea?

Anti-smoking laws?

[RandFan]

Originally posted by Ed
The government is not obligated to protect you from harm. What gives you that idea? They might not be obligated but they do it anyway. Seatbelts, motorcyble helmets, laws against suicide, war on drugs, etc., etc.

[Solitaire]

Originally posted by Ed
The government is not obligated to protect you from harm.
What gives you that idea?

Strange, very strange.
The sole reason for having a government around is behavior
modification specifically to prevent harm on various fronts.
If a criminal steals we do not lock him up to prevent the same
later? (I did the ID fraud thread elsewhere.) (http://netscape.businessweek.com/technology/content/aug2003/tc20030814_9611_tc073.htm)

[prettygirlsmakegrave]

I am going to call you Socrates from now on, sorry, but Socrates is now part of the Unholy Trinity.

[Attrayant]

Government is directed to regulate, control and protect based on a mandate from the public's elected representation so long as such regulation, control and protection does not infringe on Constitutionally protected rights.

[Michael Redman]

Originally posted by Attrayant
Government is directed to regulate, control and protect based on a mandate from the public's elected representation so long as such regulation, control and protection does not infringe on Constitutionally protected rights. Well said. I was going to say something like, "the government is obligated to do whatever we tell it to," or something like that.