Philosophical Question Re Citizens' Responsibility

Chris Alger's post below about the Mr. Blonde concept got me thinking of another one. I wanted to put it in a separate thread because the specific example of Iraq is not the best example. But the question is at what point do "innocent" citizens become responsible for the horrors of their government? At what point do people have the obligation to engage in revolution to overthrow horrible governments? For example, China has never had a government allowing much freedom. I think the citizens are oppressed. But should I feel so bad considering they have a billion people who could easily overthrow that government if they organized and revolted. They don't, so should I care so much whether they are oppressed? (My personal answer is yes, I care, but I will save saying my reasoning for later.)


In the Iraq sanctions question below, do the Iraqui citizens bear some responsibility for their government? Even putting blame on U.S. sanctions, do the citizens bear some responsibility for having a government that would set its priorities so as to allow the bad things, when they might be able to mitigate the consequences through some other course of action?


I don't know the answer to these questions. I think citizens do bear responsibility for their governments, even totalitarian ones, at some level. But this is group responsibility which is unjust to ascribe to some individuals depending on their thoughts and actions. I am interested in your ideas on this one.

gee, i thought for a while you might be talking about the US. glad to see youre not. id have to report you for that. just get with the program and follow orders. remember, if youre not with us youre against us.


our model must be the democratic model. no political dissent of any kind. homeland defense must be our highest priority. any undesirables (such as those cry babies who whine about ghosts of lost liberties (remember ashcrofts glorious statement) ) must be weeded out and segregated. tatooing their i.d. numbers has been superceded by high tech microchip implants. once we have troops on the street we can collect all firearms for the safety of the population.


one order, one world, one common leadership.


brad

The tool of Propaganda is a powerful tool in controlling the attitudes and opinions of the people , especially in Totalitarian like societies such as China. State control of Newspapers , Television , Books , Magazines , Music and even history will definately have a strong influence on how the people think about everything.


Perhaps a (re)read of George Orwell's 1984 will convince you of this.

History seems to show that no dictator that maintains an iron fisted rule gets over thrown. It's only when they get soft and allow greater freedoms do the malcontents organize and overthrow.

I think this is because totalitarian regimes are irrational. They must use force to physically and mentally control their population. But because there is always room for thought in individual's minds, totalitarian regimes are in constant danger. I think they have to have a give and take with the population in order to maintain power. Because if living coditions get too bad people will revolt. If things get too free, the government will collapse. (See Gorbachev)


I am actually optimistic about the long term improvement of conditions everywhere around the world. One of the reasons is the dissemination of information. I don't think China will be able to keep its government with the existence of satellite communication and the internet. China knows this and it is why it cracks down on whatever movement shifts people's minds away from the government, i.e. Falun Gong or whatever else.

Of coruse, he then burned down the Reichstag(sp?)

If a regime is truly totalitarian, I'm not sure how accountable you can reasonably hold people for government that, by definition, the people cannot hold accountable.


But let's assume they have some responsibility. It follows that the responsiblity of free people for the actions of their democratic government is almost infinitely greater, and that we should anticipate some deserved "punishment" to be meted when the people occasionally fail at a fairly daunting but extremely necessary task (no, I'm not making an elliptical reference to 9/11).


If so, we've got a lot of work to do, but because this notion is so rarely mentioned or reflected in ordinary discourse, it's effectively trumped by the more dominent idea of need ingto work in order to consume, it probably won't get done.

Citizen's either vote for or accept their circumstances. Change comes at a high price, most citizen's would rather just leave it to someone else to rock the boat. We always get what we deserve good bad or ugly.


SPM,...sorry but the truth is sometimes ugly...

I am pretty sure this is false. The Nazi party was never a majority party in Germany. He was appointed PM by von Hindenburg, if I remember my history correctly. I guess I should whip out the ole' world history text and look it up.

SPM: "We always get what we deserve good bad or ugly."


This is a false statement. Do you actually believe this nonsense?

But this is absolute crap. It's not that easy to change your circumstances in certain cases. You are telling me all the cruel dictatorships in the world are in place because people deserve them? I think not. You think people can just get together and organize revolts against oppressive regimes? If people find out you are having those types of meetings in a totalitarian state, you are usually executed. A well organized totalitarian state has ways of preventing you from organizing in such a fashion. You think all these eastern bloc countries WANTED communism? I think not.

I think you got mixed up there, HDPM. It seems to me that totalitarian regimes control the people physically, rather than mentally. Not both ways. I read somewhere that if a government's not going to control the people physically, then they damned well better control what they think.


It is far more comfortable for us to bury our heads in the sand and believe that our government would never do the horrible things we read about, but even if some of those things really happened, they had the best intentions (so it's forgivable). This type of thinking keeps them in business. The suicide bombings, 9/11, and the murder of Daniel Pearl will only give us more justification to use brute force. When our government stops acting in the best interest of the nation, then it's time for them to go. When they back terrorists--oops, I mean freedom fighters, who rape and pillage and terrorize their countries, they do it in all of our names. You are the government.

'I read somewhere that if a government's not going to control the people physically, then they damned well better control what they think.'


probably noam chomsky.


brad

Good question and a tough one to answer. It can be extended, I think, to asking what responsibility do citizens bear for inaction by their government.


The difficult is that few governments are all evil or all goodness. What responsibility do we all bear for the bad or evil things our government does? We can't even agree which policies are bad, and, even if we did, we might then disagree as to whether they are just mistakes or the products or evil minds.


Most people make their primary responsibility their own and their family's lives and well-being, concentrating their time, energy and resources to that. Few have the time or inclination to fight other battles.


I think Al Qaeda would say that American citizens are fair targets for punishment because we allow the "evil" policies or our government. This can't be correct. So while I need to give this issue more thought, it would seem to me that to say that the "ordinary" citizen should bear responsibility for his government's actions is wrong.

No, totalitarian regimes seek to control thought as well as simply using brute force on people. This is why there are "reeducation" camps in some of these countries. See also the control of art and literature in totalitarian regimes. Even composers were regulated in a lot of these places. Listen to some Shostakovitch in its political context and you will see why Stalin had to silence such expression. If each Soviet citizen understood and agreed with his message, there wouldn't have been communism. Then again, there wouldn't have been Czars before communism either.

I tend to agree, for a few reasons. Moral action is always individual action. By moral action I mean either action or inaction that has a moral choice involved. A concentration camp guard is making a moral choice when he stands idly by "just following orders" as people go to be exterminated. His choice is immoral of course, and he is an immoral bad person, but his inaction is a moral action.


I am not a believer in collectivism in any form, thus don't think we can necessarily ascribe blame based on something other individuals have done. (For that matter, I don't think one's race or ethnicity is either a cause for racism or a whole lot of ethnic pride. You did not choose your race or culture, thus being born into it is no reflection on you, positively or negatively.) Since few people choose their citizenship, they cannot be held accountable for being born a citizen of a particular country.


However, at some point people become responsible for their moral choices. Politics are a reflection of people's moral choices. So I think at some point individuals have some responsibility to try to correct bad political situations. An individual does not often have the power or ability to fix things on his own, or even know all the problems there are out there. But when confronted with certain choices, they must choose to do something. This will vary depending on circumstances and the degree of outrage. For instance, if a person knows his government is doing horrible things, he should not seek a job with the government that will assist the evil. Don't volunteer to do nerve gas experiments on political prisoners in other words. To rise up and do something to overthrow a horrible regime may be noble, but probably isn't required to be a moral person. But where the line is exactly is pretty hard to determine.


I do think we are responsible at some level for the things our government does, particularly for those of us fortunate enough to live in relatively free societies. But I don't know exactly where our responsibility starts or what the consequences should be if we screw it up.


Also, do you see how nice it is to advocate less government if we are really responsible for all it does? A government with fewer disposable tax dollars cant do as much bad stuff.:-)

must disagree here. average russian citizen knew for a fact that pravda was propaganda. almost all americans intrinsically (well, you know what i mean) believe the nightly news.


brad

'I think Al Qaeda would say that American citizens are fair targets for punishment because we allow the "evil" policies or our government. This can't be correct.'


this tends to break down when say, one groupA is robbed blind (by a few in another groupB) and the majority of groupB share in the benefit.


that being said, if youre an ordinary member of groupB, youll still have to blow a groupA away if they come after you.


brad

It may have the potential to get a bit more involved from a theoretical standpoint when group benefits/losses are considered, BUT...the terrorists who suicide bomb a little girl's bas mitzvah party know damn well that she and her young friends are not responsible for ANY of their grievances, either directly or indirectly.


I believe these guys are not merely criminals but are vicious animals and should be put down accordingly.

well, say the US goes and kills a bunch of people in a foreign land and sets up a totalitarian regime and basically milks all the wealth of a country.


people of that country may hate americans so much that they kill them whenever they can. i mean, americans have a very high standard of living, in part because of what this person sees in his own country.


so as an american, you are an enemy, and in my opinion somewhat justified.


so if people of this country want to come to america and kill us, lets hope we can get them first.


brad

"Also, do you see how nice it is to advocate less government if we are really responsible for all it does? A government with fewer disposable tax dollars cant do as much bad stuff.:-)"


I see the happy face at the end, but in a word, no. Overall, I'd like my government, which I think is a good one, to do more and the Cuban government, for example, which I think is a bad one, to do less. I'd like both governments to do more good things and fewer bad ones. The problem is different definitions of good and bad.

I think you've got it! Thanks for the memory refresher.

>>The Nazi party was never a majority party in Germany>>


Not a majority but they were the largest party. At first Hitler was offered the Vice Chancellor which he refused.This was doen mainly to form a coalition government to keep the Communist Party (3rd largest party) out of government. Many Social Democrats considered the Nazi's the lessor of 2 evils .Eventually when Chancellor Von Papen ( Social Democrat leader ) resigned the Chancellorship fell on Hitler but by this time the Nazi's had grown considerably in power and influence.


Hitler became Dictator based on a Reichtagg(spell) vote where a 2/3 majority vote was required to overturn the German Constitution.


He was Democratically elected. First to Chancellor , then Dictator.

First, you are not addressing the point that in any case children are 100% blameless of such things, and that targeting them, as at a bas mitzvah party, can in no way be justified. Not even a little bit.


Second I don't think your scenario occurs--we don't set up totalitarian regimes and milk all the wealth out that country. For instance any Middle Eastern oil exporters were enriched, not milked, by our oil purchases.

I don't think you can name one country where this actually happened. Milks all the wealth? Besides, America does not have a high standard of living at the expense of other nations. If anything, they too benefit from trade with us.

argentina? i dont know, maybe. anyway, im just saying i can imagine a situation. (i took it to the extreme to make a point).


but of course the US did train death squads in latin america.


historically of course, theres always united fruit.


brad

I think you have valid points. My point is that we are responsible for what our government does, more so than people who live under oppressive regimes. It's just so much easier to live our relatively comfortable lives and tell ourselves that we're beyond reproach. Or maybe this is just my white guilt talking...