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Entries Tagged as 'Role of the State'

An Argument for Gay Marriage

December 14th, 2006 No Comments

[1] Justice requires that all people be treated equally by the state.
[2] Homosexuals are people.
[3] The marriage act does not treat homosexuals
equally to heterosexuals unless it is amended to allow for Gay marriage,

Therefore

[4] Justice requires that the marriage act should be amended to allow for Gay
marriage.

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Sanctions and Siege Warfare

December 14th, 2006 6 Comments

I believe that a state has the right to wage war only to defend those living with in its boarders from attack. A state’s authority to use coercion to uphold justice is limited to its borders. Just as a state has no right to prosecute a person for committing a crime committed outside NZ or to make laws regulating peoples behaviour beyond its shores, it has no duty to defend people in other countries.

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Democracy and Legitimacy

December 5th, 2006 No Comments

The founding statement of liberal political theory, John Locke’s Two Treaties of Civil Government, opens with the following statement: Reader, thou hast here the beginning and end of a discourse concerning government; what fate has otherwise disposed of the papers that should have filled up the middle, and were more than all the rest, it [...]

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