This idea was well articulated by Hobbes, and in some senses, Legal Positivism.
The thing is, there are some great refutations out there, Rousseau and Locke and a bunch of people since then. The US Constitution, Bill of Rights, and Declaration of Independence all draw from these refutations - in essence asserting that humans have certain inalienable rights which legislation should not infringe upon.
What weirds me out is that so few people seem to reference those ideas at all ... they merely articulate the position you detailed above, or some variant of it ... it is to my mind a fairly primitive world view and even otherwise intelligent and educated people seem to have no awareness of why it might not be a good idea to base government on positivist principle.
The thing is, there are some great refutations out there, Rousseau and Locke and a bunch of people since then. The US Constitution, Bill of Rights, and Declaration of Independence all draw from these refutations - in essence asserting that humans have certain inalienable rights which legislation should not infringe upon.
What weirds me out is that so few people seem to reference those ideas at all ... they merely articulate the position you detailed above, or some variant of it ... it is to my mind a fairly primitive world view and even otherwise intelligent and educated people seem to have no awareness of why it might not be a good idea to base government on positivist principle.