A civilized state should be regarded as no more and no less and indeed (since this is a perfect definition) exactly as: a MECHANISM through which people do together those things that they can't do apart, or that they can't do as easily or as well apart, that they need to do to live together in a civilized way and to provide and maintain as good a life for every participant as is practically possible.

        Since a civilized state is not a religious icon but only a practical mechanism (a tool) with a specific set of purposes, it should never be saluted or sung to or sacrificed to or in any way idolized. The only obligation participants should have, not to their state but to themselves and each other as cooperative users of the state, would be an obligation to keep their state in good repair and working properly so that its specific purposes may be achieved. That obligation should include responsible participation in the state but obviously not adoration of or dumb submission to it.
       Since a civilized state is nobody's private domain but necessarily a joint venture depending for its success on the voluntary and equal commitment of all participants, and there is no reason for participating in a state other than the expectation of an equal share in its benefits, all citizens should share both the obligations and the benefits of any truly civilized state - its work, responsibilities, products, services, and privileges - as equally as organizational requirements and individual capabilities permit and individual needs require, i,e, fairly (yes, that does mean a civilized state must be, economically, a communist state; see Communism). Furthermore, none of the participants in a state, including management team members (if a management team is needed) should be idolized or have privileged status, exalted titles, or elevated salaries.
        Since a civilized state should be an organization with only certain purposes and not all purposes, the obligations of the participants to such a state should not include any obligations other than those necessary to the successful functioning of the state for its specific purposes. And, though in a large state, for the sake of efficiency, the participants may have to bestow some management authority on the state and delegate the exercise of that authority to some participants, neither the authority of the state nor that of the delegates should ever exceed the purposes of the state.

        Obviously, a civilized state has to have some rules. Participants in a civilized state must be expected to participate seriously, to follow rules and accept responsibilities TO THE EXTENT NECESSARY TO ENSURE THAT THE STATE WILL FUNCTION SUCCESSFULLY. A civilized state cannot be anarchic. It must be based on a blueprint and the blueprint must be facilitated and maintained by sticking to that blueprint's necessary specifications. The simplest social contract (clearly a behavioral blueprint) entails at least one rule, i.e. that each participant must abide by the contract: I won't harm you if you won't harm me. A civilized state should be considered a civil extension of the social contract with an economic dimension, i.e. a membership-wide social/economic contract, which entails, besides the social contract commitment to restraint, a commitment to undertake some obligations. This means it should have limited but clearly relevant and necessary rules. Writers of constitutions should keep it in mind that they are writing just such a contract.
        But, since the only logical purpose of a state is to make life better, it should not have merely bureaucratic rules or bureaucratic enforcers of rules that make it a nuisance. The province of a civilized state must not exceed what is needed to accomplish its purposes, and therefore no citizen should be asked or expected to sacrifice any existential rights or freedoms that don't need to be sacrificed or to modify any existential rights or freedoms more than they need to be modified TO ENSURE THE FUNCTIONAL SUCCESS OF THE STATE. And that's all. A civilized state cannot logically have laws that are not based on the social/economic contract of which the state is a civil extension. Writers of constitutions should never forget that limitation.
        Civilization has to walk a very fine line between the participants' concession of rights that need to be conceded so civilization will work and the state's vigilant respect for all the existential freedoms that individuals have the self-bestowed right to retain. I've just perfectly defined that line, i.e. THE MAXIMUM CONCESSION NEEDED TO ENSURE THE FUNCTIONAL SUCCESS OF THE STATE. The honest and consistent recognition and guarding of that line is as much a part of the definition of a civilized state as is the function of a civilized state clarified above.

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