Prerogative

For this week’s reading I found Chapter 14: Of Prerogative to be really interesting. Locke states “For the end of government being the preservation of all, as much as may be, even the guilty are to be spared, where it can prove no prejudice to the innocent” (330). This quote made me think of all the times you hear about people being punished in our court system today when the majority of people agree that they do not believe that person should be punished and also all the times we believe someone should be punished but they’re not. It seems like the law should go hand and hand with “the preservation of all”, but it seems like this is becoming more and more untrue. Respect for law and authority seem to be slipping away from many citizens, and for what I believe is good reason. If your son goes to jail for smoking a natural plant and harming no one then you’re probably going to be upset. If your son gets beat to death by cops who fail to be charged with murder then you’re probably going to be really upset (Kelly Thomas example). Why should you support a system that is failing to fulfill its duty to the good of all? Is there anything that we can do to help and fix it? 

Another great quote from the chapter is “…the reigns of good princes have been always most dangerous to the liberties of their people. For when their successors, managing the government with different thoughts, would draw the actions of those good rulers into precedent, and make them the standards of their prerogative…” (332). Locke claims that here the people have the right to take away the privileges granted to the previous prince in which the new one has tried to claim. I think the key point to pay attention to here is how Locke points out that “contest” and “public disorder” are sometimes necessary actions that must be taken in order to take back that public power (332). All of which you can notice in our society today where our federal government is always looking to gain more and more power, and the struggle for the people (or states) to retake that power is becoming ever more difficult. I also can’t help but to think about how many people often complain that a president is not getting enough done and should have more power to push things through the system. Well, sure great idea if one of your guys is always in office. Attempting to give your preferred president more power while he is in office is only going to bite you from behind once another party of your disliking moves in and inherits all the powers you previously supported, leading to the dilemma in the quote above. 

Locke describes prerogative as “…nothing but the power of doing public good without rule” (332). But how can we even tell is someone is trying to do something for the good of the public? Deceitfulness seems a prerequisite for entering politics. Does prerogative serve any place in how our country should be governed?