Why obey the law anyway?

Robert Putman argued that increasing individualism had led to a decline in political participation and activity in community organisations,thereby undermining good governance.In tandem,Ronald Dworkin had previously argued that the duty to obey the law from an 'associative'obligation;in short,that the duty of obedience to the state extends out of the obligations each individual bears towards family and friends and is therefore natural and not reliant on any overt consent.

For Dworkin community is based on shared concern for others,yet in contrast Arnold Muchoko can ask,(is political or community participation a pre-requisite for 'good governance'?)Is obedience to the state only justified via such participation or is obedience based on a different conception of the relationship between the state and the individual?

Sometimes political philosohpy does my heading!One day when i return to my beloved motherland,i will surely not philosophise every political thought - because the political arena is so much infested with bandits who exterminate whoever has an abstract thought.So for that reason, i am out of politics - but my research goes on.

Thomas hobbes once argued that the individual must obey the state due to the obligations arising from a pre-historical social contract without further demands for active political participation.So the duty to obey the state was the result of a social contract,i suppose.In the state of nature,men were free but also subject to intense violence and competition - just imagine the english civil war(which led to the execution of Charles 1).So by deciding to join together to form the state,men could avoid such competition and violence, in return for the protection,they promised obedience to the state.In Hobbes' eyes there was no requirement of continuing active participation in politics underlying individual obedience, instead via the social contract, agreed in pre-historic,an individual is bound to obey the state.

I guess theology and religion also contributed extensively to the reasons why men found it imperative to live in solidarity and form sovereign states.This brings me part of the theory of Charles Darwin survival of the fittest this time ignore through natural selection.If it wasn't for the precedents of the social contract this world would have been a mess and i mean it.Survival of the fittest would have been the order of the day.The world would have been grossly over-populated through sex without consent, and all anti-social activities that you can dream of would have been prevalent.Thank goodness the bible, the quran and pre-historic social contracts redeemed us all.

Now to mess around,and try to act belligerent - the state has the autonomy to prosecute and convict.That's the reason why Britain has around 88 000 convicts - at least one is assured of a play station,telly and laptop inside the so called British prisons.Conversely prisons like the Black beach(Malabo - Equatorial Guinea),Sun City(South Africa) and Chikurubi Maximum(Zimbabwe)are some of the most notorius in the world.This reminds me of a Briton, who led a group of mercentaries to Equatorial Guinea,in a bid to try a coup de tat on President Teodore obiang Nguema.Unfortunately his attempts were thwarted before his mission could be accomplished - sadly now he languishes in solitary confinement,one meal a day and a wall dripping with condensed water to look at for life.Such conditions are the ones that prompted fugitives like Stephen Chidumo to make maiden escapes from Chikurubi Maximum in Zimbabwe, and Annanias Mathe(houdini) from Maximum security prison C max in Pretoria(South Africa).

So there is every reason why we should obey the law - nevermind human rights.
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