The state
This theme runs through several big questions. Here are the ones where it plays out.
The questions that illuminate it
Can it be right to disobey the law?
Any law may one day clash with conscience: an iniquitous decree, an order one cannot follow without betraying oneself. To obey nonetheless is to protect what makes common life possible; to disobey is to affirm that above the laws there is something else, at the risk that each person will follow only their own judgment. From Antigone to the great disobediences of history, the question returns with each generation. To take a position is to say what we owe the law when it commands what conscience refuses.
Should politics aim at the ideal city, or work with human beings as they are?
Aiming at the ideal city can inspire and uplift, but also justify every sacrifice in the name of a future that never comes; taking people as they are averts catastrophe, but can resign itself to injustice in the name of "realism." To take a position is to say whether politics should pursue the best or ward off the worst.
What is it to be politically free?
To be free, is it to be unhindered, to govern oneself, or to depend on no one's good will? Depending on the answer, what a society must guarantee, and what it must protect us from, changes entirely.
Is a political authority that commands and coerces necessary, or should we free ourselves from it?
It all turns on what we expect of human beings left to themselves: able to order their own affairs, or bound for disorder without a power to settle disputes. To take a position is to set how far the duty to obey extends, and where the right to refuse begins.
Does society rest on an agreement between individuals, or on a community that precedes them?
If society arises from an agreement among individuals, we can renegotiate it, leave it, remake it as we wish; if a community precedes us, we are born caught in bonds and duties we never chose. To take a position is to say whether we belong to a society by consent or by birth.
Do political decisions belong to everyone, or first to the most competent?
Giving everyone an equal voice can hand grave choices to ignorance or passion; reserving power for the most knowledgeable can hide the interests of the powerful behind "expertise" and strip people of a say over their own lives. To take a position is to say where the legitimacy to decide comes from: the equality of all, or the competence of a few.