I had a contest last week looking for a specific logo; @keepdoodling won, and what he created was exactly what I wanted.

I have incorporated this logo into my Steem signature...

But what does it mean to me?

First of all, I see human governance as the result of three competing forces:

• The Individual
• Society
• The State

Of the three, The Individual carries the most weight in moral value to me; this is a purely selfish motive on my part. I do not want decisions made for me by people who are not me. I certainly don't want decions made for me by people whose morality and/or competence I find wanting. I assume that's what other people want when they speak of Liberty, but I aint gonna speak for y'all ;>

On the other hand, The Individual is not an angel. People are stupid, corrupt, cowardly, and tyrannical in different measures. Some people may be angels, but I don't think most of them are. And of course, Society is made of of many Individuals, each with their own wants and means of acheiving those wants.

There may be some confusion about what I mean in Society and The State; both forces will exude some control over The Individual...

Let me start then, by what I mean by Society. Society is everybody else in their assorted groups; your Church if you belong to one, the churches you don't belong to, your peers, your family, your neighborhood, your workplace, the culture you grwe up with, the culture that has formed since you became an adult, and the whole lot of them competing for influence against each other within the scope of human activity. That's right, society is subject to human influence just as it influence humanity, and unless you live in an isolated village that walls out other humans, your society will change with new currents of humanity.

Unless you live completely by yourself, Society is going to have some control over you. You think it's your right to walk across traffic because The State has no moral authority over you? You also have the right to get squished by that guy speeding down the street in a manner that Society approves of. Are you married? You have the right to argue with your spouse all day long unless you are smart enough to keep her chained to the bed ;>

Society is going to affect who you marry, what clothes you wear, how much you cuss in public...GOD DAMN THEM, who hires you, and every other thing you do that requires cooperation with other people.

The State has no monopoly on coercion; Society can boycott and shun you, and Individual folks who go gaga for certain Societal standards can mob up on you in a heartbeat.

What makes The State different from Society is that State is formal recognition of Societal standards. A Society that tolerates corruptocrats and rent-seekers is going to have a corrupt State . The State is not some magical creation with a will of it's own.

I love this Shepard Book quote from Firefly:

A government is a body of people, usually, notably ungoverned.

However, the presence of formal mechanisms such as laws and courts can mitigate abuse of The Individual by other Individuals and by Society. Theoretically...cough cough...The State should prevent abuses of The Individual by The State. Then again, some Societies conjure States designed to go after Individuals of a certain group, i.e. Nazi Germany.

Justice

The ideal interaction of these forces is known as Justice. When a Individual acts within the bounds of State and Society, they should be protected from the abuse of everybody else, and when they are not, retribution is expected.

Lady Justice is a common theme in Western Civilization; the scales represent Justice, the blindfold represents impartiality, and the Sword represents the force required to maintain Justice.

If you can see how I ripped off certain elements from this theme, you are correct ;> however, I'm going to add in another layer of meaning when I get to the description of my logo. These elements are fairly recognizable and that is important in getting messages out, wouldn't you say?

Bias and corruption affect Justice; they arise from those Individuals that are corrupt and the Societies that tolerate or encourage corruption. So how do we get from the unbalanced scales to the balanced scales of Justice?

The Left and Right Sides

I am going to make an assumption at this point which deals with the "necessity" of The State; whether you take The State OR Society as separate entities which employ coercion against the Individual, unless you are making a similar assumption that all Individuals are pure of heart, then I will assert that it is the tool of force that allows humans to govern with Justice...competing interests and all.

But how much power should The State have under this assumption?

Let's ask George Washington, who supposedly gives us one of my favorite quotes:

Government is not reason, it is not eloquence — it is force! Like fire, it is a dangerous servant and a fearful master. Never for a moment should it be left to irresponsible action.

I'll start with the Left/Right Continuum, an over complicated and misrepresented concept:

What is leftism? What is rightism? Why are there so many different interpretations?

The primary characteristic in assigning a label on the Left/Right Continuum is governance, or the mode of rule. The farther one goes to the Left, the more absolute the level of State control, up to the point of determining each subject's economic restrictions. You can not have economic control of a person without State control. Thus Far leftism is socialism, communism, etc. The farther one goes to the Right, the less State control over the individual, up to Pure Anarchy on the extreme Right.

I'm not going to spend a lot of time justifying my views today as I am in explaining how I see things; I do see a danger in holding on to any ideology as a means to Utopia, and the extremes on the Continuum are defiantly a danger to humanity, as Utopia is at the end of the Road to Hell

Utopia ALWAYS leads to Dystopia (Updated/ReSteemed 5/25)

There is an idea that the answer is in the middle, bu this assumes a perfect balance between these forces. Since we know there is not a perfect balance...any function controlled by the State is going to be very powerful, and and mass concentrations of Society influence will carry a great deal of weight, we can not assume that "the answer lies in the middle"...especially since I personally assign a greater value on the decision making responsibility of the Individual.

How can you balance an unbalanced load? Change the location of the fulcrum!

This image is a little ass backwards. Since we assign the fulcrum of government far more to the heavier weight of the Individual, it should be farther to the Right on my Continuum; the power of the Individual should be able to balance against the power of State and Society.

This is Minarchy in my view, supported by Rule of Law.

...but I do hope you see the point of changing the fulcrum location to balance the load

Wrapping it all back up with my logo

Instead of trying to portray the actual balance of forces in a simple logo, I use the commonly understood message of balanced scales.

One side of the scale represents the Individual.

The other side represents Society.

The Sword represents two things:

• The proper use of the State, which ideally balances Individual and Society
• The responsibility of Men to use Force as necessary to maintain Justice

I really thought balanced on the tip of a sword was a known saying. It must have been in a book I read. It certainly makes sense to me in the context of this logo.

Thank You for reading!

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