In article ,
says...
You'll have to take that up with Will Roger's ghost - I was quoting him
:-).

Ah. I see your Will Rogers, and have countered it with Douglass Adams.


So we both learned something :-).

Back to the original question - what can we all agree on? Other than
the above, how about:

Everyone wants their own freedom maximized, and others prevented from
harming, or even irritating, them.

If there are no rules, or no way to enforce the rules, those with no
morals and lots of brains will wind up owning everything and everybody.
For primitive societies, replace "brains" with brawn.

The trick is to keep the enforcers from becoming the very thing they're
supposed to prevent, which gets us back to the "power corrupts" theme.

These aren't quotes, although I'm certain the thoughts aren't original.
I suspect some ancient Greek said the same thing a lot better than I
have.


--
BNSF = Build Now, Seep Forever