Questions

Concerning liberty: This has become a practical question as a result of America's decision to establish something like liberal democracies in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Other questions that I have been thinking about are: Is it right for the U.S. to use humiliating, frightening, or otherwise disturbing interrogation techniques to prevent a terrorist attack? Is it right for the U.S. to conduct warrantless surveillance of international phone calls to prevent a terrorist attack? Does Israel have a right to exist in Palestine as a Jewish state? All of the above questions are, at bottom, the same question: if liberty, as Locke says, is to be free from violence and oppression, then what may a government justly do in order to protects its citizens from foreign attacks?

Other domestic questions: Should the U.S. government provide health care for everyone living in the United States? All of these questions are ultimately the same question: are the people capable of governing themselves, or would it be better for them to be governed by others who are by nature more able to rule?

In regard to Shakespeare: what may the governed rightly do to protect themselves from their own government?