Page 18 - GALIET ILLUSION: Rousseau IV

State.52 If a citizen preserves his life at the expense of others, he not only has a duty to give his life for others when necessary,53 but if it is expedient for the State that an individual ought to die; then he should die.54 The individual in this case, is not a rebel or traitor to Rousseau, but a member of the Social Pact. Rebels and traitors, having made war against the state, cease to be members, and undergo a legitimate trial and judgment and may be banished into exile or put to death,55 as was Socrates case. Here, however, Rousseau contradicts his theory. If all men are born free and equal, his life is not a gift received from the State, but from his parents and from life itself. Rousseau’s State, in the aforementioned instance, has too much power. It ceases to protect the lives of law-abiding citizens because, like Nazi Mengele, the Doctor of Death, it can decide who ought to live and who ought to die. Thus, it reverts their liberties to one of absolute dominion. Although the Sovereign, says Rousseau, has no right to impose onerous or unnecessary burdens on its citizens,56 it does. The Sovereign burdens citizens with more chains when it owns lives, and when it wills to violate rights driving minority members to servility and fear, or dissent and civil war.57 It burdens when it passes laws to persecute law-abiding citizens or “apparently guilty” Minority Wills.
52 Ibid., Book II. Chapter 5.
53 Ibid., Book II. Chapter 5.
54 Ibid., Book II. Chapter 5.
55 Ibid., Book II. Chapter 5.
56 Ibid., Book II. Chapter 4.
57 To Milton, “untrained minds are, therefore, naturally vicious, permitting
wretched rulers. When human beings are irrational, they can neither discern good from evil, nor a good King from a tyrant King and justice flees away; it becomes perverted. Thus, the rule of law becomes a tyranny that serves the master, and not the people or commonwealth. Rather than freeing and elevating minds to greater deeds and freedom, it enslaves them and reduces them to servility and fear, and dissent and civil war. Moreover, when the appetites govern, the desire for power overwhelms corroding virtue, and inviting disorder and chaos to reign. In this state, humans are incapable of self-governance are incapacitated to govern a nation.” Milton. Complete Poems and Major Prose. Ed. By Merritt Y. Hughes. The Tenure of Kings and Magistrates. Indianapolis: Hackett Publishing Company, Inc., 1957. 754-758
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