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Dear Yuyutsu,

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You wrote :

« If you want to have a social contract, then everyone included needs to sign it, explicitly or implicitly, but that never happened »
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I beg to differ, Yuyutsu. It happens all the time.

The simple fact of being physically present in the territory controlled by some society, people implicitly give their consent to being part of that society subject to its laws and regulations.

The difference between tacit consent and explicit consent is that explicit consent is meant to leave no room for misinterpretation.
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Apart from a handful of countries that oblige its citizens to obtain exit visas (Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Nepal, Uzbekistan, North Korea, Russia, Czech Republic, Indonesia, Philippines), nobody is obliged to remain in a country against his will if he does not agree with the laws and regulations of that country or its government.

The US, of course, also has its “no fly list”, a list created and maintained by the United States federal government's Terrorist Screening Center of people who are prohibited from boarding commercial aircraft for travel within, into, or out of the United States – following the September 11 terrorist attacks of 2001.
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As I indicated in the first part of my previous post, no democracy is perfect but at least in a democratic regime, it’s the people who decide the rules to which they accept to submit themselves and therefore have a vested interest in those rules being implemented as equitably as possible, each generation being free to change and adapt the rules to keep pace with the evolution of society.

You conclude :

With reference to "killing babies and foetuses" : « … it [is] a matter between the parents and God, not the state. … Babies are … neither innocent nor guilty ... it is the soul who identifies with them which is sinful »

That’s fine, Yuyutsu, provided there is a God and there are souls. The fact is, that remains to be established beyond all reasonable doubt.

So far, it has not.

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Dear Banjo,

Most people live where they are because they were born there: what's being born on the face of this earth to do with giving consent to some gang that forcibly controls an area? What right to begin with has any group of people to control vast territories even without the consent of the inhabitants? That's violent, that's immoral!

Now asking someone to leave their home in an area that is controlled by one gang they never agreed with, to join some other gang, is not a solution either: what right has this cartel of gangs in aggregate to command life on earth?

What if you never accepted any of these gangs (or alternately you may have accepted some gangs but none of them accepted you)?

No, this whole thing is barbaric and even the mitigating factor of democracy doesn't make it moral.

«That’s fine, Yuyutsu, provided there is a God and there are souls. The fact is, that remains to be established beyond all reasonable doubt.»

God and souls are a sufficient condition for the immorality of legislation over non-consenting individuals, but not a necessary one - suffice that you are SOMEONE rather than SOMETHING. This you CAN subjectively experience and establish for yourself beyond all reasonable doubt.

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Dear Yuyutsu,

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Given the circumstances you describe, I shouldn’t hesitate to move the family to a more hospitable environment if I were you. I did that once, in similar circumstances, many years ago, when the children were small.

If it had been necessary, I should have done it several times, until I found something acceptable.

If, for some reason, that is not possible, the only other thing I can think of is to contact your local mayor, or one of his assistants if he is not available, and discuss the matter with him. He may be able to do something about it or suggest a solution.

I note your comment :

« Now asking someone to leave their home in an area that is controlled by one gang they never agreed with, to join some other gang, is not a solution either: what right has this cartel of gangs in aggregate to command life on earth?

What if you never accepted any of these gangs (or alternately you may have accepted some gangs but none of them accepted you)? »

Every community has its rubbish dump, Yuyutsu, and, unfortunately, you have – no doubt unwittingly – pitched your tent and established your family right in the middle of one.

Despite all our lofty aspirations, quest for the grail, etc., we are constantly confronted with the harsh reality of daily life. It is part of our earthly condition and we just have to deal with it as best we can. That does not mean we have to accept it.

If we can’t change it, we have to protect ourselves, our family and loved ones by avoiding it.

There’s no use getting on our high horses and complaining about it or fighting proverbial windmills as “El Ingenioso Hidalgo Don Quijote de la Mancha” is reported to have done in 1605. That’s a waste of time and energy.

We have more important things to do in life than to frequent human rubbish dumps and allow them to monopolise our thoughts, block our vision, and determine the “weltanschauung” of our children.

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Dear Banjo,

We were discussing a moral issue: we must clearly distinguish between right and wrong, then tell an evil when we see one, even if we cannot do anything practical about it.

That these bullying gangs that forcibly control this whole planet legislate over others, including over those who never freely consented to be their members, is obviously immoral - yet this does not make me or you immoral: we did not personally do it, we did not personally contribute to this, we have no practical way of stopping this and so we cannot be held responsible for others' sins.

They can take my body, but nobody can monopolise my thoughts and block my vision.

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Dear Yuyutsu,

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You wrote :

« That these bullying gangs that forcibly control this whole planet legislate over others, including over those who never freely consented to be their members, is obviously immoral … »

I can’t say I share your totally negative vision of society, Yuyutsu. You seem to regret having been born. I don’t.
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Of course, I regret that our archaic colonial Constitution is still in force and that we have never felt the need to replace it with a new one that reflects the transformation of our nation. I regret that we do not have a constitutionally imbedded Bill of Rights. I regret the way we treat so-called “illegal” migrants by parking them disrespectfully, indecently, cruelly, immorally, illegally and indefinitely on offshore locations. I regret the way we perpetuate the injustices of British colonisation on our Aboriginal compatriots by treating them as an inferior race of bludgers living off State welfare, corrupting their youth with alcohol and drugs and locking them up in prison. I regret that we freely accept a foreign national (the Queen of England) as our Head of State but, at the same time, eliminate members of parliament who, for purely technical reasons unbeknown to themselves, suddenly discover that they have a second nationality in addition to their Australian nationality. I regret the persistence of racism, xenophobia, homophobia, gender discrimination and various forms of intolerance, deeply ingrained in our society and its institutions.

Nothing is perfect, but I know of no better system of government than democracy. Of course we can strive for perfection, but we can never achieve it. What I profoundly regret is that we don’t seem to be doing much striving at all.

We just bungle along as complacently as usual :

« It’ll be right, mate. If it ain’t broken, don’t fix it ! »
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Perhaps you know the “Serenity Prayer”. If not, here it is :

« God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,

Courage to change the things I can,

And wisdom to know the difference »

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Dear Banjo Paterson,

Winston Churchill said, "The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter."

Perhaps, English democracy is like English cooking. [David F]. It is a democracy without Separation of Powers between the executive and the legislature. It is a democracy with a monarch. If Winston Churchill had died in 1925 he would be remembered like Saddam Hussein as a person who ordered the Kurds to be gassed.