With all due respect to you, my friend, I don't think you are using the term "social contract" in the way I am, and certainly not according to the standard definition as employed by philosophers and political scientists since Rousseau, who wrote the first definitive book on the subject.

Other than the fact that politicians serve the interests of those by whom they are bought and paid for (i.e., they do not do any of this for themselves, per se), this is largely correct.

If they do not receive social security but are on an elite retirement plan not available to the people, it's because they want it that way.

Congress is NOT covered by Medicare.

Seems pretty selfserving to me.

The special healthcare and retirement plans of members of Congress amount to a pittance, dollar-wise, compared to the full scope of financial giveaways that elected Republocrat officials -- at the federal, state, and municipal levels -- enact for their masters. Yes, those plans are self-serving, but they exist because the masters reward their servants with the okay to create such perquisites. To focus on them to the exclusion of all else misses the larger point.

That's my take as well on government.
On taxes, wealth creation and wealth creating jobs.
Also non-wealth creation jobs and numerous safety nets for social support and cohesion, required by society for it to function and to create and maintain the structures to enable the wealth creation jobs to flourish.
When government gets too big it creates fake jobs in the form of multi-layered bureaucracy paper pushing
to create the illusion of job creation when it is nothing of the sort.
All paid for by the wealth creators.
Which is as it should be.
Unless the government grows that side too much
for the purpose of power and a dependent electorate who will vote for them coz they work in expanded structures.

Thats when it all falls down. Like now in the UK.

Frankly, I don't understand your view of the social contract. To me a social contract is when the public decides to form a government in order to provide services that the public cannot provide on their own. The public can decide what type of government they want, totalitarian, representative of communal, for example. We in the US decided on a representative type of government as our social contract. In order to provide the services the public desires, the government levies taxes to pay for the services. If the government cant obtain sufficient taxes to provide the services, It can issue notes (borrow money) to pay for the services. In the past these notes (bonds, dollar bills) were backed up by gold reserves stored in Fort Knox. Theoretically, anyone could go to a bank and exchange their dollars or bonds for gold. President Nixon did away with that so the government could have unlimited opportunity to expand its credit line. The value of the bonds and the dollar are now based on the faith and credit of the government. We now have a government deeply in debt and comitted to provide a vast array of services in addition to protecting us from dangerous threats such as Afghanistan. Our social contract with our government is in dire need of rehabilitation.

Just as Hobbes, Locke, Rousseau, and others came to their own different ideas of what the social contract is I too have my own version of what it is.

For me the social contract is what politicians say they are doing for their citizens all the while making it look like it isn?t really the citizens paying for it, but rather giving the impressions that the politicians are somehow creating programs out of the goodness of their heart and the generosity of their spirit.

It is often quite true that politicians convey this impression. However, the public is not stupid, although they often appear to be, they know somebody has to pay for the governments services. What the public hopes is that somebody else pays a greater proportion of the cost of the services than they do. Cost-benefit is not the exclusive purview of the rich.

ila, you can't just go and take a time-honored philosophical term that has a specific meaning and decide to use it for something completely different. Just because you might decide to call the love of transwomen "existentialism" doesn't make it existentialism.

yes, it is.
 

The early 19th century philosopher S?ren Kierkegaard is regarded as the father of existentialism.[ He maintained that the individual is solely responsible for giving his or her own life meaning and for living that life passionately and sincerely in spite of many existential obstacles and distractions including despair, angst, absurdity, alienation, and boredom.

Subsequent existentialist philosophers retain the emphasis on the individual, but differ, in varying degrees, on how one achieves and what constitutes a fulfilling life

So if Ila wants to call it existentialism, he is existentially correct.
For the rest of us here on the forum this certainly fulfills the distraction part of the paragraph above. That is, we are loaded up with despair, angst, absurdity, alienation, and boredom.
Other than that we probably fit into that other deffinition found in Wikipedia: Idontgivearatsassialism
I do what I can to have a fulfilling life; including web surfing.:)

note: not typed in Magenta at dauls request.;)

I could write a long essay on semantics to disprove that ila would be correct in calling it existentialism, but instead I will concede the point to you because your point isn't really germane to the discussion of the social contract. Let's see you come up with some quote from a philosopher that makes it okay for ila to redefine what "social contract" means.

Is surfing the internet for porn a fulfilling life? It is definitely self indulgent and avoids most of life's restrictions and inhibitions. Having a nice sexual fantasy every morning with a beautiful passionate young lover helps me get through the rest of the day.
Is that what Kierkegaard is taking about?

Is surfing the internet for porn a fulfilling life?

Randolph, you should not be asking me. You need to ask yourself.
You've had the *hots* for me for two years now and the ol' ticker is still ticking. Don't you realise that if you reach the goal of the fantasy, the fantasy will end?
quote: "A man chases a girl until she catches him."

I could write a long essay on semantics to disprove that ila would be correct in calling it existentialism, but instead I will concede the point to you because your point isn't really germane to the discussion of the social contract. Let's see you come up with some quote from a philosopher that makes it okay for ila to redefine what "social contract" means

On behalf of the rest of the forum, thanks for saving us from the boredom.
As far as Ila defining what is to him, a social contract; my previous post says he is responsible for that. That satisfies me.
Now, as long as Ila satifies me..........:heart::censored::censored:,,,Well, that's not germane is it?

Dammit, Fran, I have been trying to unbutton your blouse for years and all you talk about is Ila, Ila, Ila.
What does Ila have that I don't have. sob sob :lol:

Social contract
 

Back to the social contract.
In a sense, Ila has a point. We no longer have a valid social contract with our government. The upper class has hijacked the social contract. It is now between them and the government. The rest of us are out in the cold.
Until recently we assumed we had a classless society (in the traditional sense) based on constitutional rights. There have always been rich and poor but there was a feeling that anybody could rise to the top. In other countries, especially England class distinctions were and still are very apparent.
Reagan's policies that persist until today set the stage for the wealthy to become a class (upper) and take control of the social contract. This has enabled them to carefully control government policies to protect and enhance their well being. All of the statistics support a massive shift of wealth from the middle class to the upper class. However, it is more than wealth that has shifted, it is also power. Power to run the economy, power to set foreign policy, power to set priorities.
As Karl Marx said there has always been a struggle between classes. The rich want to protect their wealth and the poor want redress of their grievances. Our Constitution was supposed to deal with these issues. It appears that it is no longer functional.

And for you, a "you're welcome" for so readily giving you another opportunity for a post of this sort.

I certainly can. Others certainly felt free to decide what a social contract is. I am just as free to decide what a social contract is. Just because someone decided years (centuries earlier) what a social contract is doesn't make that (those) person(s) correct. Social contract is an expression and not a defined word.

If you actually think that it is a fungible expression and not a defined philosophical concept, I don't even know where to go with the next part of the discussion. Oh, well ...

Hey Ila, You can call an apple and orange if you wish and get used to being ignored. Some people call the bagpipe a musical instrument, in some Northern countries anyway.:lol:
If one wants to disagree on what kind of government we have, that's is fine. We all know what government means. Those are the guys that collect taxes. Taxes are collected with the consent of the governed, that is a social contract. If the government becomes too powerful, it can tax without consent, at the risk of revolution. Alternatively, it can create public debt in lieu of taxes, which is essentially the same as taxes, the public still has to pay the bill. :censored:

Well, that's your definition of a social contract and it differs only slightly from my definition.:)

One of the basic tenets of productive argument or discourse is an agreement on the meaning of fundamental terms. If that does not exist, there can be little or no progress toward achieving any sort of synthesis of ideas or, at minimum, clarification.

ila chooses to reserve for himself a personal definition of an established term. He makes an argument for why this is okay, but it is not one I believe works. Therefore, I truly do not know where to take the argument next. It has nothing to do with "conceeding" to him; I have not conceeded that his perspective is correct.

As for conceeding to you, Fran, I have no idea what it is to which you are referring.

Yes, you conceeded
 

I am well aware of the post you quoted. I was referring to the specific issue of "social contract" -- and I stated that your point was not germane. Clearly, you have succeeded in employing my use of the word "concede" in that context as a cudgel, as you are wont to do, but it doesn't make it true that I conceded anything but a willingness to forego further discussion about something that was irrelevant to the topic.

Now, do you want to escalate this as in the past?

WB
 

Question:
How do you tell the difference between a British Police Officer, an Australian Police Officer and an American Police Officer?

Answer:
First - Lets pose the following question:

You're on duty by yourself walking on a deserted street late at night.
Suddenly, an armed man with a huge knife comes around the corner, locks eyes with you, screams obscenities, raises the knife,

and lunges at you.You are carrying a Glock .40, and you are an expert shot, however you have only

a split second to react before he reaches you. What do you do?

BRITISH POLICE OFFICER:
Firstly the officer must consider the man's Human Rights.
1) Does the man look poor or oppressed?
2) Is he newly arrived in this country and does not yet understand the law?
3) Have I ever done anything to him that would inspire him to attack?
4) Am I dressed provocatively?
5) Could I run away?
6) Could I possibly swing my gun like a club and knock the knife out of his hand?
7) Should I try and negotiate with him to discuss his wrong doings?
8) Does the Glock have appropriate safety built into it?
9) Why am I carrying a loaded gun anyway, and what kind of message does this send to society?
10) Does he definitely want to kill me, or would he be content just to wound me?
11) If I were to grab his knees and hold on, would he still want to stab and kill me?
12) If I raise my gun and he turns and runs away, do I get blamed if he falls over, knocks his head and kills himself? .
13) If I shoot and wound him, and lose the subsequent court case, does he have the opportunity to sue me, cost me my job, my credibility and the loss of my family home?

AUSTRALIAN POLICE OFFICER:
BANG!


AMERICAN POLICE OFFICER:
BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! 'click'....
(Sergeant arrives at scene later and remarks: 'Nice grouping!)

You left out the part where after the American police officer shoots and the sergeant arrives, no knife is found. Happens all too often ...

LAPD
The Los Angeles Police Department (LAPD), The FBI, and the CIA are all trying to prove that they are the best at apprehending criminals. The President decides to give them a test. He releases a rabbit into a forest and each of them has to catch it.

The CIA goes in.
They place animal informants throughout the forest.
They question all plant and mineral witnesses.
After three months of extensive investigations they conclude that rabbits do not exist.

The FBI goes in.
After two weeks with no leads they burn the forest, killing everything in it, including the rabbit, and they make no apologies.
The rabbit had it coming.

The LAPD goes in.
They come out two hours later with a badly beaten bear.
The bear is yelling: "Okay! Okay! I'm a rabbit! I'm a rabbit!"

It was a black bear of course...