Essay On John Locke's Second Treatise Of Government

Per the teachings of John Locke in his Second Treatise of Government, man has “liberty to dispose of his person or possessions” in whatever way he would like to, so long as he does not destroy himself or anyone else (Locke 102). Following this philosophy, the government should not be allowed to require every citizen to give up two years of their limited time to live in civic service, no matter what virtues it may promote. Two years is a long time to give up to your government. The common citizen has a right to their life, and deciding what to do with it. Many people still choose to freely give of their time to help others, whether that is through military service or religious service. However, making this donation of time mandatory would defeat the purpose. In the wise words of Ezra Taft Benson, “compulsory benevolence is not charity” (Benson). The moment a gift or donation is made compulsory, it is no longer a gift. The point of giving to others, whether it’s a monetary gift or a gift of time and service, is to give because of charity, not because the government will impose taxes if disobeyed. To get at the heart of a law imposed by the government, one must think about the telos, or the essential nature of it. When the government begins to make things that would normally be a personal …show more content…
Today, there are more than one million people serving in the US Military voluntarily. Making this service mandatory would inflate our military past its breaking point. There wouldn’t be enough missions to go around – the service would be rendered useless, thus wasting two years of every citizen’s life. Many people are already serving this country in other ways, motivated by things other than the government. The government wouldn’t gain much from the citizens other than problems, such as: how to cater to those with disabilities, what counts as civic service, and when the service needs to be