To repeat, communitarians maintain that we are constituted as persons by our particular obligations, and therefore those obligations cannot be a matter of choice.

The government has become a mechanism for distributing largess, and your census form is your ticket.

Libertarians recognize the inevitable pluralism of the modern world and for that reason assert that individual liberty is at least part of the common good.

Obligations may be universal or particular.

Obviously, all of us have been influenced by those around us.

It is obvious that different individuals require different things to live good, healthy, and virtuous lives.

If an individual is born with the obligation to obey, who is born with the right to command?