deadmeow wrote:Ultimately you can only depend on yourself. However, what you do comes back to you, good and bad. If you give to the community, this is something that will come back to you. If you give to others, this will come back to you. Even the largest governments fall. Government is corrupt by it's very nature (control of people with violence and coercion). Corrupt things only become more corrupt. In today's world however, if you are lucky you will live somewhere where there is not too much repressive government, as most places have government.
As far as rights go, no person has the right to harm or control another person. We have a difficult road ahead as humanity. The experiment of government will end with government becoming extinct. This will happen in one of two ways. As technology increases, government will commit easier and larger genocides, but this will get out of hand through biological, nuclear, or other form of warfare and make all life extinct on Earth. The other way government could become extinct, is if people wise up,and disengage from government, entire communities, armed forces, police, etc.. Government will destroy the planet like a cancer (and itself in the process), or people will learn to turn the other cheek and love their enemy, and reject all forms of harm.
Back to today's world, we can only take small steps day by day. If you want to disengage from government, you don't have to vote, you can even look for ways to "legally" make less contact with government. You can build a stronger community by doing volunteer work, or taking a job that helps your community where you live. As I get older I can see much clearer. However, if you want to use your life energy to play politics and act as if your life is only temporary, you can try to grab all you can. This is the beauty of free will, as we all have choice.
I partially agree with the way humanity is going (yes, it's going downhill), however I do have a source that says there is hope.
Our democratic government has lasted a pretty long time, and done fairly well all things considered. I do believe we need to fight the downhill trend but realize that it is a losing battle.
Mankind as a species requires government, it's innate. If there isn't a government people will make one. We do not do well without control, and we know this, so we band together and assign people to limit the damage.