Most people agree that sex ought to be consensual.
Put another way, they think that no one should be forced to have sex against their will. And that if someone engages in sex without the consent of the other party, then it is sexual assault – and a moral horror.
Well, what about being governed without consent?
Does it not amount to the same thing?
Another person – or persons – force themselves on you. They violate you. They – or their proxies – literally lay hands on you if you attempt to get away or refuse to submit to them.
It may not be a sexual assault, but it is certainly assault.
There is one difference, of course.
The people who compose the government and the people who support what it does to you claim you have consented. This necessary claim – without consent, their actions are obviously assault – is asserted so frequently and so early that it becomes rote despite being obviously untrue. Kids hear of it in elementary school, where they are taught to venerate the man who had the audacity to speak of the “consent of the governed” while repudiating it through force of arms.
Consent means: permission given for something to happen or an agreement to do something.
Implicit in this – without which the word has no meaning – is the option to not give permission; to decline to agree to do something. Otherwise, you’re simply told what you will do and your only choice is to accept it or accept being punished for not accepting it.
Isn’t the latter precisely the true nature of our relationship to the government?
Some will say you do have a say – that you may vote. But that is not the same thing as giving your consent and it certainly doesn’t give you the right to consent for others.
Which is an absurdity.
Voting amounts to being presented with usually disagreeable choices not of your own making and no option to refuse any of them. If you don’t vote, others choose – and by some evil transmutation, the choices of these other people become (legally) binding on you.
How can this be characterized as the “consent of the governed”?
It’s clever wordplay, that’s all. Of a piece with the elegant preface to that contract none of us consented to called the Constitution of the United States. It states: “We, the People. . . ”
It really means: A few people. The literal handful of men who gathered in secret and without any mandate from other people let alone We, the People – to write this document, which they then managed to get a slightly larger but still minuscule number of supposed “representatives” of the people to accept on their behalf but without their actual consent.
Votes were taken, certainly. And it is equally true that some did in fact approve. A majority of a very small minority. But no contract was presented to every American for his agreement or not. Which – if words have meaning – means those Americans never consented to be governed by it. Their consent was simply presumed – exactly in the same way that a rapist sometimes claims she meant “yes” even though she said “no.”
One may say that the logistics involved in presenting a contract to every American for his approval – or not – would be difficult. Absolutely. But it does not affect the question of consent. People either did – or they did not.
Most clearly did not.
How many signatures are on the document? Is it 330 million? 100 million? Even 3,929,314? The latter being the number of Americans alive in 1789, the year the Constitution was “ratified” by a much smaller number of Americans.
Thirty nine Americans, to be specific. These thirty nine affixed their signatures – so the Constitution can rightly (morally) be said to bind them. But that leaves 3,929,275 Americans who did not affix their signatures and who therefore did not consent to it. Their consent was simply presumed by the 39 – which is a species of effrontery words are inadequate to convey.
If even a third of those 3,929,275 million people wanted no part of the Constitution – wished to not be governed by anyone other than themselves – the thing is outrageous. Poultices such as “representation” and “democracy” are offered to sooth the wound, but they do not alter the fact that whatever the thing is, it is not done with the consent of the governed.
And – as the great 19th century Libertarian writer Lysander Spooner pointed out – those 39 signers well as all the “representatives” of the time – are long-ago dead and buried. There is not a single living person who has formally given consent to be governed by the Constitution. Some 330 million Americans are nonetheless bound by the dead hands of 39 Americans.
How is this different than a claim that an indenture contract signed in the year 1680 is binding on that man’s great-great-great-great grandson?
Thomas Jefferson wrote that one generation has no moral right to bind another. He was partially right about that. No individual has the right to bind any other individual. You may only consent for yourself, not for others.
And if they have not given their consent, then you have no more right to presume they have given it – and to act on that presumption – than a sex fiend has the right to presume his victim is a willing participant in his degradations.
. . .
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While it is true that a very small percentage of the men then alive in the united States (yes, the capitalization is purposeful: See the Declaration of Independence) did agree to the Constitution as written, there is one major point that was missing. This nation was never intended to be a democracy!
When a lady asked Benjamin Franklin what they had created, his response was, “A republic. If you can keep it.” As a group, these men found the concept of a democracy to be distasteful, and did not want to burden succeeding generations with its flaws.
Incidentally, there was one other note that I would add about consent: It is granted on a case-by-case basis, and never assumed. When a person is in handcuffs, it’s very difficult to voluntarily consent.
Exactly, Travis!
The only thing “democratic”, was the election of “representatives” who were supposed to carry out the precepts and functions outlined in the Constitution, and NOT to go beyond the obligations and responsibilities as set forth in the Constitution. Somehow, that morphed into various economic schemes, welfare schemes, agencies which rule over every area of human endeavor….and wars to uphold and implement “democracy” the world over…when it has no right to even exist in this country!
Morning, Nunz!
Yes – and these “representatives” only represent those who voted for them and specifically gave them proxy power. They have no moral authority to “represent” anyone else – and certainly no right to defrock anyone else of their liberty or property on account of some other person or persons “authorizing” them to do so on their behalf.
It is no different than my hiring a couple of goons to “represent” me to my neighbors – and tell them that Eric needs a ’78 El Camino and they are going to “help” him buy one!
Ahahaha! Great (and very accurate!) analogy, Eric!
And the funny thing is, they don’t really even “represent” those who voted for them. How many voted for the Trumpster because he said he was going to get us out of NATO, and stop all of the globe-trotting wars, and make nicey-nice with the Russians, and work with RFK Jr. to shed light on vaccines, and look into what really happened on 9/11, and greatly reduce all of the regulations and red-tape which strangles this country?
And of course, he gets elected on those lies, and once in, represents nobody but the globalists, Zionists, and established cartels which truly run this country- although that should not have been a surprise, considering the man’s past and the people whom he chose to surround himself with.
“Voter” = someone who can be lied to over and over again, and yet who will always believe that the liar is telling the truth.
That’s one reason that “democracy” is just another phrase for “mob rule.” Or as Benjamin Franklin (and John Adams) said, “Democracy is three wolves and a sheep discussing what will be for dinner.”
Hi Travis,
Arguably, it’s even worse – because we’re not even ruled by the mob but rather, by a relative handful of thugs who claim to represent it.
Consider: In every recent presidential election, only about half the eligible voters even vote and the winner rarely wins more than about 26 percent of that bloc.
Thus, the president is chosen by a minority – not a majority.
The same goes for most congressmen and senators, too.
eric, a recent local election in Midland Texas has the status quo upset by a tiny voter turn-out. The media reports it breathlessly that it’s a major concern and no one knows why it’s so.
It would be great if it happened on every level and continued to the point of almost no voting. I’d like to see it if for no other reason to see how the “elected” spin it. OK, I’d like to see 0 votes but clover’s gonna kill herself or the rest of us getting there to do her “civic duty”.
Suppose they had an election, and no one came? Then what?
I’m not too fond of statists, and voting is just a way to encourage them. The idea of being able to elect a mob to do the majority’s dirty work is just as reprehensible to me as doing an evil deed yourself. Cloaking evil under the sanctity of the state doesn’t make it any less evil. Instead, it just implicates more people in the dirty deeds.
Hi Eric, I have also come to the conclusion that what the fondling fathers of this government gave us is even worse than what we would have had in a democracy. I do not want any state rule at all; but I doubt that we would have in excess of twenty trillion dollars of debt under a pure democracy. The bankster bailouts of 2008 damed sure would not have taken place under a pure democracy! I believe that the fondling fathers dissed democracy because simply wanted more power for themselves.
The CONstitution and fondling father worshipers are in danger of getting whiplash due to inconsistent viewpoints! They will usually admit that the state committed genocide to the Indians and violated treaties on one hand, yet they believe that those same scoundrels were mostly God-fearing Christians who would form a virtuous government for us, and keep their promises. I wonder if they have to wear a neck brace very often?
Brian, great points and accurate. As to the bank scandal of ’08, there’s a great movie about it called The Big Short.
Probably most people have never heard of it since the message isn’t conducive to big banks or govt.
The credits contain a list of banks and how much money they were “given” by we, the taxpayers via govt. bureaucrats. This really is a “must see” film in my opinion since every US resident should see it to understand what went by them as they paid no attention.
Liberty is the lamb contesting the vote with a loaded gun.
JohnZ, love it! But may I add an amendment? Liberty is the lamb contesting the vote with an AR 15.
Hence the wolves’ relentless pursuit of gun grabbing.
Yes; thank you. That was the part I forgot to mention, along with skunkbear’s comment.
The gun-grabbers don’t care about the people’s right to overthrow a bad government; they just don’t want to be the “victims” of the fight. And by the people not having the ways and means to fight, they figure that they will do the trampling.
Not to mention they sell themselves like the whores they are to big business, big pharma, the banksters and even worse. Some are involved in pedophile rings along with other unsavory situations, so they are easily blackmailed by israel into doing their dirty work ie: Iraq, Afghanistan , Syria, Iraq etc. Many of them have been so compromised they have become liabilities to America and the people. Traitors.
And it ain’t Russia.
The fact is Washington is totally compromised and controlled by an international criminal syndicate.
There is also the manufacturing of consent through government propaganda and its outlets the CMMM (Controlled Mass Mainstream Media). It is now legal for the government and its entities , particularly the CIA and pentagram to use propaganda against the American people. In reality the government gave itself the legal permission without my consent. In truth it is not legal, moral or otherwise.
Manufacturing consent was first brought into the consciousness of Americans by Noam Chomsky. The history of America’s wars and its interference in 81 foreign elections since 1947 all done either in secret or by manufacturing consent. It was done to get America to attack Spain in Cuba, to get America embroiled in the war in 1917, a false flag was used in 1941, the Korean war, Viet Nam war and all subsequent wars have been waged by manufacturing consent through propaganda disseminated through such outlets as the NY Times, WaPo, and on every news channel and internet.
Today now, the government seeks no consent from anyone. Controlled by zionist neo-cons and israel, who now call the shots and control America’s foreign policies, particularly in the middle east, are leading America into a quagmire that it has not been able to extricate itself and instead headed for disaster as President Putin has now warned both israel and the U.S. they are now playing with fire and that time is running out.
The defeat of israeli/U.S. policies in the middle east will spell political disasters for both Netenyahu and Trump. Only a humiliating defeat of the west’s attempts to bring down another legal government, supported by more than 80% of its people, will hopefully force the U.S. to pull what’s left of its military out of Syria.
Hear, hear, JohnZ!
….and to think, Trump was supposedly going to make nice with the Rooskies, and put Hillary The Bitch in jail. Hope no one’s holding their breath for that!
JohnZ, you are on to it. One way to stop the beast, or at least slow it down considerably, is for people to stop sending their kids into the military. Joining the military goes beyond giving consent; it is actively participating in the controllers’ twisted plans.
“Serving your country” is one of the biggest flim-flam cons ever devised.
It has been my experience lately, that any intellectual component has been bred out of the common person. I’ve been making it a point lately when having a conversation with new-to-me people -especially young ones- 20-somethings- to gently interject a Libertarian idea or two. But they just don’t get it.
For instance, in recently talking to a young woman the other day, she was telling me of her nephew, who recently got his driver’s license, and then had gotten a $200 speeding ticket.
I remarked that it sucked that he was being penalized and treated like a criminal, when he had actually caused no harm to anyone- just because of the numbers on some machine, and some arbitrary law. She paused. It just didn’t register with her. -So she just went on, saying that he’ll have to learn to “be more responsible” and “stay out of trouble”, yada, yada….
I figured at that point, that there was no sense in even bringing up how the state was feminizing young men by severely punishing any normal young-man behavior.
It’s not even that they disagree with us. It’s that they can’t even comprehend the argument, because it is so foreign to the state-as-god-and-moral-authority-to-always-be-obeyed concept. They do not think in terms of people as individual agents of free choice who should not be interfered with until and if they cause harm to another; and they don’t think past the reward and punishment concepts of obeying or disobeying “the law”. They don’t question the law or how it is that they are subject to moral dictates which others have thrust upon them; or how it is that their every action is dictated, and yet they claim to be “free”.
These things are beyond their scope, because they have been conditioned to think in terms of group-think and hierarchies, and see themselves merely as a part of that [w]hole.
Their thoughts center around mundane activities- work, friends, relatives, shopping, entertainment. There’s no understanding of the world around them, nor a desire to know the hows and whys of why things are the way they are, and what things used to be like, and what impact today’s actions will have on tomorrow. They live in blissful ignorance.
This is why I gave up dating many years ago! And things have gotten much worse lately. This is why there is no hope for the Western world.
Nunz, spot on! Well said, especially “It’s not even that they disagree with us. It’s that they can’t even comprehend the argument, because it is so foreign to the state-as-god-and-moral-authority-to-always-be-obeyed concept.”
People today seem to not think. Rather, they emote and emotions are very easy to manipulate especially in an electronically corralled society.
It’s not bred out, it’s been conditioned out. That’s the design of the modern public schools, the media, and so on. To set the frame of how people think and keep it set.
Dating? That is at the crossover of many different things. Not just becoming unable to communicate and tolerate people with no ability to figure out how things got the way they are but a whole other layer of conditioning.
Brent, yup. The purpose of government skools is to produce idiots. The purpose of universities is to produce useful idiots.
Absolutely true, Brent- but I say “bred” because it has been going on for so long, that it is now self-perpetuating. It’s not as if we have a group of freedom-loving adults ignorantly sending kids off to the pooblik skools and being suprised when they come back as brain-dead statists. Instead, we brain-dead statists teaching their kids the same crap they learn in the schools, and encouraging them to excel at it; and plopping them down in front of electronic devices and TVs when they are babies….
They changed the definition of ‘smart’ into parroting whatever teacher told them. Ever notice if you say or write something you’ve learned on your own that doesn’t match what teachers tell us in grade school people will find the need to correct you on it?
The breeding part is that is most telling is how the measure of wealth that determines access to reproduction for men is driven based on how much he can _borrow_. When a 90th percentile income isn’t ‘enough’ to compete unless one leverages that to its maximum we have a problem. A very deep problem.
Ha! Brent, that is SO true! If you say anything which is outside the realm of the current propaganda- no matter how logical; no matter that it can be tested and proven; no matter that it exposes blatant contradictions in the current narrative….it is called “ignorant” by those who are not even capable of verbalizing what is erroneous with what you state.
Or, even if you merely express an opinion or preference which is contrary to the “correct” opinions and preferences that you should have- i.e. if you find homosexuality disgusting and distasteful- you are “ignorant!”- Ditto if you cite the exponentially higher rates of diseases which affect homos- or how blacks are reposnible for a significant percentage of the violent crimes in this country, despite being a minority….etc. etc. -It doesn’t matter how factual what you posit may be- nor that such facts can be easily proven, and are in no way disputable- because when you are dealing with the brainwashed- and especially those who are conditioned into group-think, they will never accept anything other than what the schools and media repeat over and over again; and would never even DARE to even think about questioning the things which all of their fellow brainwashed friends, coworkers, associates, peers and relatives believe.
If it does not have the official sanction of the schools and media, then it is not even open for consideration, much less debate.
Also, what you say about breeding is true in a way- but consider, that in today’s world where the state “makes everyone equal”- people of every class reproduce- and in-fact, the state has so made things ass backwards that the poor now have much higher birthrates (Which is largely why they are importing the poorest of the poor and most prolific breeders into America and Europe- to prop-up the declining birfrates) -, and the poor, now having access to a plethora of socialist government programs, now have those hoards of kids under state influence from the time they are babies- from daycare, to pre-school, to pooblik skool, and then either jail or community college= which all conditions them to be the most ignorant, most dependent, most controllable slaves. The indebted middle-class and rich aren’t far behind. Their kids are just as brainwashed and propagandized…only they’re a little more capable, so get to be the overseers and managers and technicians and doctors and executives.
Have you noticed that the same people who say Ford, GM, Audi, Toyota, etc are trying to kill their customers to save a nickel and will even manufacture things to that end are now forgiving Tesla Motors for admitted issues because that’s how innovation happens? See they put it in the owner’s manual….
General Motor’s Corvair is “unsafe at any speed”. GM designed a defective car when motorists didn’t drive it correctly. Tesla Motor’s autopilot that mostly works until it doesn’t is perfectly fine and it’s the motorist’s fault for not paying full attention while using a device to reduce their attention. Audi’s pedals were too close together, not the morons who stomped on the accelerator instead of the brake. I could go on… but the point is clear.
It just amazes me. Subject after subject. People will do 180s because what they were told to feel about something.
At some level, we already have the dystopian combination of “1984” and “Brave New World”. Society has been split into proles and non-proles, the NSA panopticon is always on, and people are numbed into conformity by mass media and big pharma.
Couldn’t agree more!
In my experience, people in so-called undemocratic countries in Asia have a lot more real freedom than those living in the west. Their bank accounts are not subject to constant scrutiny, they don’t have police cars at every street corner and hiding behind bushes on highways, and the police are usually normal (not steroid addled muscle brains) people in the more developed parts, and easily bribed to look the other way in case of the poorer regions. People also tend to leave you alone if you are not bothering them.
There are downsides too: such as living in high density cities if you are a salaryman, and the lack of like minded company (not that it is easy to find in the West either).
Eric:
What are you talking about? Maybe once upon a time, but today we don’t have a Constitution. We have, at the top, nine persons who make the law according to their personal predilections.
Hi Imbroglio,
Yup. It’s worse, actually. We are subject to the whim of myriad bureaucrats, cops and so on – who can simply order us to do this, demand money for that – and so on. We are in the position of Ned Beatty in Deliverance.
We are in the position of Ned Beatty in Deliverance. That sums it up fairly well. Last week a young owner/operator I know was doing 75 on a posted 70 mph road by a deputy looking for revenue and who better than a trucker.
The young man pointed out he’d only been on the road coming in from another road that went the same direction and the 3 miles he’d been running and the 3 miles he was on when he was stopped had no speed limit signs. Every other road out there was posted 75 but this one, once you get 12 miles or so south of where he was has a single PSL sign….or 70. Cut no mustard with rent seeking armed thug. Whoever heard of a speeding ticket for an admitted(by the armed worker)5 mph over? Of course he’ll use a lawyer and not take the hit since one hit leads to another and truckers can’t afford even a single ticket on their records. This is just another circumstance where “law enforcement” is total bullshit. BTW, that road is intersected by county roads and lease roads every quarter mile to half mile with solid oil field truck traffic day and night. A good speed limit on it would be about 50 mph since so many of the pickup drivers can’t drive for shit. I rarely drive over 60 on it and commonly 55 or less because i’ve had so many close calls on the damned thing.
In Jersey they’ll give ya a ticket for 2MPH over!!!!
Safety my ass! Drivers spend so much time looking at the speed-O-meter and worrying about “complying”, who has time to devote any attention to the road and driving? And you can bet that those tickets are many hundreds of dollars…not to mention the most expensive insurance in the country…
But Americans love their tyranny!
Excellent to bring up these obvious points, obvious to everyone who has spent any time unraveling the matrix.
If you are interested, I spotted a few typos:
“Even 3,929,314 million?” I think “million here is a mistake.
Another thing is “Constitution for the United States”. Many people say “of” but the Chimp’s “G#dammed piece of paper has the word “for” in the title.
Hi David,
Thanks for the kinds words – and the copy editing! I’m solo here, by way of explanation. I keep hoping that, one day, I will have the funds available to hire a copy editor and a computer guy (or gal) to handle those things for me!
LJ wrote:
“The bottom line is that the entity known as government doesn’t force you to consent to it’s laws and whims.The fact is that you volunteer. The fact that you cannot survive without volunteering is besides the point. The point is that you willingly accept the government’s consent. Unfortunately we don’t live in a limited free republic anymore. We live in a modern administrative state. And,in order to survive,unfortunately,we must be willing to consent to that which the state decrees.”
You’re trolling here, right?
Hi AF,
This “Libertarian” Jerry character is as Libertarian as George Bush. I particularly enjoyed this line:
“… you willingly accept the government’s consent.”
Er… umm…
Illiteracy aside. what escapes Jerry is that “willingly” and having a gun pointed at your head are mutually exclusive things.
Jerry reminds me of that interview basketball coach Bobby Knight did many years ago with Connie Chung. He famously said – “I think that if rape is inevitable, relax and enjoy it,” Jerry is saying essentially the same thing about .gov
Well-said, David…
Jerry is either a troll – or just doesn’t understand the concept of duress as it applies to consent.
Jerry’s argument can also be expressed as: It is not slavery if the slave does not run away. By staying on the plantation the slave gives his “consent”.
I “Clovered” Jerry!
You shot the messenger.
Hi Jerry,
No – your message. Which seems to have missed the point; i.e., that “consent” cannot exist under duress or be legitimately acquired by false pretense.
Relevant “G” quote for the day;
“Contemporary culture requires automatons. And people are undoubtedly losing their acquired habits of independence and turning into automatons, into parts of machines….One thing alone is certain, that man’s slavery grows and increases. Man is becoming a willing slave. He no longer needs chains. He begins to grow fond of his slavery, to be proud of it. And this is the most terrible thing that can happen to a man.”
Nice cages. People like nice cages. The problem is what they traded for their nice cage is gone and then there is no reason for the cage to remain nice.
Who’s this “G” guy? Seems to have an accurate understanding.
Eric,your thesis is “non-consensual government.” However,if you look carefully,you and most Americans,consent to government everyday whether you realize it or not. Your walking around with a Social Security number,a drivers license,if married a marriage license,literally thousands of occupational and professional licenses depending on what you do for a living,you fill out a military draft sign up,you fill out numerous tax forms:1040,W2,W4,1099 etc.,building permits,occupancy permits plus a myriad of other living and occupational permits,licenses and permissions that you volunteer to be a part of. The bottom line is that the entity known as government doesn’t force you to consent to it’s laws and whims.The fact is that you volunteer. The fact that you cannot survive without volunteering is besides the point. The point is that you willingly accept the government’s consent. Unfortunately we don’t live in a limited free republic anymore. We live in a modern administrative state. And,in order to survive,unfortunately,we must be willing to consent to that which the state decrees.
Hi Jerry,
Your argument is specious. Worse than that, actually.
You write “…most Americans,consent to government everyday whether you realize it or not”
Italics added.
No court would honor any other contract that wasn’t presented as such – i.e., a contract which was presented deceptively, as some other thing. Nor one signed under duress; nor one “consented” to by a minor not capable of giving informed consent (i.e., a teenager who applies for his first job – and signs the W2 – or the driver’s license application) or by a minor’s parents on his behalf (as is often the case with regard to “signing up” for a SS number) but obviously without the informed consent of the subsequent adult, whom you claim is now obliged and bound by this “contract.”
You are presenting the vile implied consent idea that the government uses to legitimate what it does. It is the mafia idea of making you an offer you can’t refuse. Only it’s even worse because the “offer” isn’t above-board. See my point above about the kid whose parents signed him up for SS when he was an infant. Or the teenager who filled out the paperwork to get his first job at some fast food place.
It’s risible.
This idea that we are “free” to not consent – and therefore, shouldn’t complain about our enslavement – is absurd. One literally cannot live without bending knee to the government. Even the homeless are not let alone and compelled to obey.
Consent is either free – given by a fully informed adult individual who is not under duress – or it is not consent. That is the point I made in the article.
The hospital applies for the SS no. You have NO SAY. And in fact, if you try to take your own baby home with you – you will be sent to jail.
Yep, Johnny. Even in my day- a number was assigned to you….the card came in the mail when I was a teenager- I never requested it nor signed it.
The driver’s license is their catch-22. You can’t travel without it on the infrastructure which they’ve used the money which they extorted from you to build. and on which all other forms of transportation are either illegal, or impractical or extremely dangerous.
Like everything e;se, they create a monopoly, and then either require you get their permission to use that monopoly, or they use your refusal to beg their permission as the definition of a “crime”.
Other than that though, Jerry is somewhat correct. The way that most of us just go along and participate in their system, even in areas where it is not essential; where we have a choice, but yet choose to comply for convenience or prosperity, is quite sickening.
It’s no different than buying property in highly tyrannized place- such as where I used to live- where property taxes are well into 5 figures, and they snoop on you via helicopter and random in-person “inspections”, and dictate everything from where and if you may have a garden, to what you can grow; and require a permit to put up a little Home Depot 5×8 shed (which costs more than the shed) and require a foundation, and tell you where you must put it, and IF you may put it….
If we do not live by the precepts of liberty, and disentangle ourselves from the very tyrannies we preach against; and if we do not abstain from participating in their system; from giving our consent in areas where we do truly have the option to consent or not; from furthering their system by complying, and doing things their way, and giving them power over us and our actions and abilities to interact with others- then all of our words are in vain- and we are worse than the clovers, because WE know better.
Not that The Clovers are that bad!:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nt7htnE1s4o
Thank you for your ‘gun to the head’ theory of consent, Mr. I-missed-the-point.
Hi Geoih,
Jerry is either not a Libertarian or does not understand Libertarian concepts. That argument he trotted out is one I hear from “conservatives” all the time, though!
It sounds a lot like the libertarian purity test argument to me. The one where a person accepts being impoverished living in a shack deep out in the woods as a hunter-gather in order to be ‘free’ or he’s not a real libertarian. That is doing without everything government has licensed, restricted, etc because they can’t break the law and can’t ‘consent’ to the government either.
Of course there is the other purity test where one breaks the law and doesn’t get the licenses etc and spends a lot of time in courts and in jails to the point to where he can do nothing else but that doesn’t appear to be Jerry’s.
My question to you is where does the Government get the Authority to License, Regulate, Limit, Permit, Ban and other things that I can do or choose not to do? I never gave them that Authority, The Framers of the Constitution never did, at least I can’t find it in Article 1 Section of the Costitution. After Abe Destroyed the Constitution and Centralized all Power in DC the States and Citizens were #@!$ed. No, after the war between the States, the Federal Government had the Sole Monopoly on Violence/Force. Before then, no.
Hi Hugh,
The people who are the federal government (I consider this parsing important; the “federal government” isn’t an Oz-like entity or deity) simply presume and arrogate the authority. They cite “regulate commerce” and “general welfare” and “necessary and proper” and other such – but it all comes down to their false claim of having our consent.
And by “our” consent, I mean the consent of every single competent adult human being. Those who have no given are no more bound by the Constitution than Jennifer Lawrence is bound to share my bed.
The government took, assumed the authority. It doesn’t really have it, but the libertarian purity test, the first option I mentioned, assumes it does.
Option 2 operates as if it does not, but as I stated to use an automobile without plates and license among other things means spending a lot of time in jail and in courts. I understand that some people living out in the sticks and never leaving their immediate area do eventually win out well enough to be left alone. But the entire cycle begins anew when they step out of that limited area. So again they have to go to court, argue the case, appeal up to the point where the courts realize they have to drop it or the scam might be broken. That is get up high enough to be dealing with people who also know its a scam. The lower layers of the system generally have no clue.
And each year it gets more difficult as more code, more laws are added and wording of the old subtly changed.
I think the best example I’ve come across is Larkin Rose’s tracing of the modern (1913) income tax laws through time. That’s how they do it. How they assume the power.
Yep, Brent.
They assume the power because they can do so by force and we can’t stop them. They needn’t adhere to any law. They barely even make a pretense of doing so anymore, and when they do, the laws are contradictory to each other and applied willy-nilly.
They impose the tyrannies through gradualism. Had they done it all at once, there would have been a major rebellion…so they do it little by little, bit by bit…a few bits from one generation; a few from another- and the sports fans don’t even realize it’s happening.
Jerry, “…either your signature will be on the contract or your brains will be…” is the exact opposite of consent.
“The fact that you cannot survive without volunteering is besides the point.”
No it’s not besides the point, it is the point. It makes what you are calling consent involuntary and under duress even if the person understands it at the time which most don’t. So for most we can add deception to the list. Most people will treat you as a nutter if you explain to them what “driving is a privilege” actually means or the history of how drivers’ licenses came about. Or anything else for that matter.
Additionally contracts are often thrown out by courts for a lot less than government’s conditions, especially prenuptial agreements.
These you’re not a pure libertarian unless you live out in the woods like the unabomber arguments are nonsensical in the fact that they accept the state’s ‘or else’ behaviors as legitimate. As if people actually did get something by getting licenses or whathaveyou instead of the entire system being a violation of their natural rights and these contracts being invalid under any reasonable notion of contract law.
Eric, you have wandered onto the correct path. Yey!
Brent is mostly correct. They do their deeds by deceit.
Was mom told, when she filled out the birth information, that upon registration the state would claim ownership of that info and create a legal entity from which many persons (taxpayer, driver, spouse, child, defendant etc) would spring? And that those “persons” are operating in commerce and are monetized?
Are you told that upon applying for a driver license that you are agreeing to be either, surety for or agent for, an agency known as “driver?” The agency or driver is JOHN Q DOE and it is operating in commerce and is not you?
Are you told that a “taxpayer”is a person is a US citizen and for tax purposes the UNITED STATES means the District of Columbia and the territories. And that the United States may be one of many different entities. And that whenever you see “in this state” or “in the state” in state statutes it means a corporate franchise of the UNITED STATES? And that this state and the state are different entities than Virginia or Pennsylvania?
Were you told that any kind of citizen is a subservient status?
No, you were told none of this. Without full knowledge it can not be said that anyone volunteers to be a “person,” or a “driver” or a “taxpayer, ” or “US citizen” is deception of the highest order. Strictly speaking, there is no consent there, but these criminals presume there is because we didn’t object. How can one object to something one didn’t know existed? This is the game they play.
I fart in its general direction.
When “No” is never an option there is indeed no option.
Nothing’s perfect, and neither is the Constitution, but it recognizes that We the People have all the rights (unalienable), and government has only limited, delineated, powers. Those in power take an oath – the only oath – to the Constitution, to protect and defend those unalienable rights.
The Constitution can’t protect itself, it’s just a piece of paper. If the oath is not being complied with the problem is not the Constitution but the oath taker, and the constituents keeping the oath denier in office.
I’ll side with enforcing the Constitution, through the oath of office, until something better comes along.
Indictment method for not complying: Independent Grand Jury – not the present prosecutor-run grand jury. Enforcement method: Sheriffs
To become more informed: Weekly conference call of We the People’s Grand Jury, Wednesdays 7:30pm, 712-770-0416 code: 175794#, First name and location for ID
DUTY OF THE INDEPENDENT GRAND JURY – “If anyone’s unalienable rights have been violated, or removed, without a legal sentence of their peers, from their lands, home, liberties or lawful right, we [the twenty-five] shall straightway restore them. And if a dispute shall arise concerning this matter it shall be settled according to the judgment of the twenty-five Grand Jurors, the sureties of the peace. MAGNA CARTA, JUNE 15, A.D. 1215, 52.”
Hi Liberty,
Yes, it says “We, the People” – but then goes on to define its powers and our obligations, which no one consented to. I certainly did not.
Did “We, the People” give a bunch of strangers calling themselves “Congress” authorization to “lay and collect taxes”? I don’t recall being asked – or having the option to say no.
The Constitution replaced a hereditary monarchy and House of Lords with an elected (by some) chief administrator and “representatives,” that is all.
Is it meaningfully better than the monarchy? Both are our masters – and we its servants. Both assert literal ownership over us by asserting control over our lives, our bodies and the product of our minds and bodies.
Yes, they are both preferable to an absolute monarchy or other form of totalitarian government.
But we kid ourselves if we believe we are free under any of them.
eric, when I speak to my neighbors, mostly elderly, have no illusion they’re free. The land owners in our county had a new “Law Enforcement Center…exact words on the building)shoved down our throats without a vote. Of course, the $8M dollar facility went $200K over budget. Our taxes are to increase every year because of it, as if anyone is making more money. Shit!!
Hi Eric,
If your complaints are recognized – not having signed/agreed to being “governed” – what is your way out from the “Company Town” we now live in?
Any foreign country’s governing policies that are acceptable?
Good lord, libertyx, should a person be forced to abandon their home because a mafia doesn’t recognize that they are the bad guys, committing acts no one can have the right to commit?
This particular mafia (“government”) has taken over the entire planet. It’s not up to us to move, it’s up to them to disband or face the consequences.
Hi Liberty,
That’s a practical question – the column was about the moral question.
To answer your question: No “governing policies” are acceptable unless the individual being governed desires that and has agreed to that. And of course, he cannot agree for others, nor they for him.
There are, of course, better – and worse – prisons. And in the same sense, there are better and worse governing policies. My understanding is that one enjoys a greater degree of personal liberty in Latin American countries; Switzerland is decentralized and the individual at least knows the people governing him (despite his not consenting to it).
What I joust for is a future – one which may never come – in which human beings no longer seek to govern other human beings but only themselves. And agree that voluntary arrangements are always morally superior to coercive ones and often practically preferable as well!
For moral and practical input: Weekly conference call of We the People’s Grand Jury, Wednesdays (today) 7:30pm, 712-770-0416 access code: 175794#, First name and location for ID.
Liberty, how exactly do sheriffs enforce an oath of office to the constitution when the constitution’s court decides for itself what is the meaning of the Constitution thereby also deciding by extension whether an oath to the constitution is being upheld or not? It is a circular enforcement.
The constitution fails because it created a centralized government which is exactly what it was designed to do.
The US (“united” in what I ask?) cannot be saved nor should it be. It must be dismantled ASAP, hopefully peaceably. That is the path to Liberty, not trying to continue upholding the constitution which created the mess in the first place.
skunkbear, The “constitution’s court” is not to decide. That’s the idea of the “People’s Grand Jury” – We The People decide – the “check” on power, enforced by the sheriff.
The process has been suppressed, like everything else, but is a viable control, if not too late.
For possible solutions: Weekly conference call of We the People’s Grand Jury, Wednesdays 7:30pm, 712-770-0416 code: 175794#, First name and location for ID
Hi Liberty,
I agree – in principle. We should use every tool in the box and the grand jury is among these. But the most effective tool is to not to allow them to get away with using shuck and jives to create an aura of legitimacy for what they do, as by accepting that the Constitution is something we are bound by, that “the people” consented to it… and so on.
Just as we Libertarians have for decades been refusing to accept that theft becomes not-theft when it is called “taxation.”
Liberty, “The ‘constitution’s court’ is not to decide.”
But the supremes have already decided. And they do it under the constitutional “authority” they themselves decide. The federal government does what every government does, especially large centralized governments, and that is it decides its own powers.
The solution is not to come up with a way to counter the feds; the solution is to get rid of the federal government completely.
If you are mentally deranged enough to consent to be governed, you are in no condition to have your consent taken seriously.
http://blog.kentforliberty.com/2017/08/consent-of-governed.html
“If you are mentally deranged enough to consent to be governed, you are in no condition to have your consent taken seriously.”
A quotable quote” for the ages, Kent!
It’s not like they pay any attention to the Constitution anyway. It’s not like they pay any attention to the voters anyway. It’s not like they pay any attention to the rest of the world anyway.
They figure out what they want to do and then try to make it look like it was our idea.
The Anti Federalists were right.
Alas, they were not successful in stopping the counter revolutionary coup in Philadelphia.
I guess we can be thankful for the crumbs left behind by the Bill of Rights.
Teh Anti-Federalists were turrrrrrorists.
-Your Typical K-12 Teacher reciting the State’s History Lesson
The whole country is a giant crime scene. Read “Indigenous People’s History of the United States” to get a handle on how sick the “founding fathers” and the majority of “settlers” (a more accurate term would be terrorists) were to the native population – the original inhabitants of this land.
Dan, the history of humanity is a crime scene.
Just wanted to share my cousin’s experience in the failed state of NY with his daughter’s car. My cousin had to hide his daughter’s car because she is now addicted to heroin as a result of being prescribed the Sackler Family approved opiate of the masses. In Suffolk County NY, the county where every cop is “earning” $250,000 + in salary and benefits but hide like cowards from the scourge of MS13 who is raping hundreds of underage girls from communities whose parent’s are paying upwards of $20,000 a year in property taxes to fund the $250,000 pay packages of Suffolk cops, heroic officers can seize cars with expired tags after one day and charge the owner $8,000 in tickets and fees.
Keep this in mind each time we hear of Parkland and how the heroic officers hid behind their cars as unarmed children were massacred and each time we hear of MS13’s scourge. Police cannot be bothered because they are too busy looting taxpaying citizens to feather their own nests. The same “heroes” that will machine gun anyone of us for failing to grovel before them at sufficient speed and want us all disarmed and at the mercy of every thug and would be bloodthirsty tyrant, yet have arsenals befitting third world dictatorships and qualified immunity.
God curse the failed States of America.
As an Anarchist/Agorist I agree with this. More people actually DID NOT VOTE in the previous election than did people who voted.
Hi Brazos,
Yup. The more you deconstruct the lies about “representative” government and “democracy,” the more you see how imprisoned we actually are.
Well, if you count people who are of voting age, then slightly more voted than did not vote, assuming the count of people who are not citizens but are here anyway (including those trying really hard to not get counted) is about what the government says it is.
So, about 1/4 of the adult populace voted for the statist with an R, 1/4 of the populace voted for the statist with a D, and about half did not vote for either.
“None of the above” isn’t on the ballot for good reasons from the statist POV, much less the category “adult but not voting, and thus also none of the above”
Hi Jim,
I remember when I first read Mencken’s description of an election – a kind of advance auction of stolen goods – at around the age of 13. It made a great impression. The truth of it was so obvious and yet, all around me, people who seemed to be decent people thought nothing of voting away not only other people’s material possessions but also their liberties.
It shocks me to this day.
If you want to literally see how imprisoned we are, go through any TSA checkpoint or go visit the barb wire and patrolled border with Mexico at some place like El Paso.
We live in a gigantic open air prison, where if you go over the walls, you find yourself in a different and usually even worse prison.
Hi Jim,
Yes, exactly. This is precisely why I cannot endure air travel. Seeing people queue up to be handled like East German proles – or Jews on their way to the East – sickens and depresses me. All the more so because the people queue up willingly – and still could choose not to, unlike the East German proles and European Jews headed East.
From my airport people watching I would say the vast majority of air travelers are in order of their share:
1) People who are traveling for their job.
2) Single women who “love to travel”.
3) People who travel for some family obligation.
4) Tourists, couples, and single men.
1&2 being such a large proportion of the travelers that government can get away with just about anything as a requirement to fly. The only people who are in position to opt out of flying or opt out of the scanners to throw sand in the gears are a fraction of 4). Not enough to matter.
I have had to take a plane lately for one reason or another. I viscerally hate it. If it was up to my family or my girlfriend, I’d be on a got damned plane all the time. Brent’s assessment is spot on.
If #4 would not fly, it would cripple the industry, make no mistake. They make up about 10-20 percent of bookings. I find it disconcerting that no one even blinks an eye going through this crap. The only thing I can do is opt out in front of the sheep, who are undoubtedly staring at me. If I hear a remark under someones breath, someone is going to be spinning some chairs in the waiting area. Im done with the general public. I viscerally hate them as a whole as well.
I have also had the argument used against me that if I do not exercise my right to vote for any of these self-entitled government thugs, I should have my voting rights removed. What an extortionist tool of intimidation that would be! The whole premise being that rights are inalienable, and therefore, irremovable. I wonder how those who say that would feel about being offered castration for not having sex for a year, only because they did not like their choice of potential partners. It’s all done in the same spirit, forced participation in order to maintain the appearance of legitimacy. Control freaks cannot abide even one dissenter in the ranks, as they see it as a threat to social order, theirs, at least.
This “training” to give up free will began in grade school, usually at the direction of an adult, the gym coach.
One classmate doesn’t want to play dodgeball. Well, if you let her sit out, pretty soon everyone in the class will be deciding what they want to do, or not, and we can’t have a total breakdown of social order in school, can we? Maybe she does want to participate and has asshole classmates that use gym class as an opportunity to physically punish her for other reason wholly unrelated to gym class. Maybe the gym teacher is a lazy ass who just wants a paycheck without any responsibilities, I’ve witnessed cases of both.
I was fortunate enough to have teachers who allowed me to read what I chose, and made efforts to engage the interests of every student, individually as well as collectively. I haven’t seen that for about 3 or 4 decades.
Go along to get along, blah blah blah. We live in a society so emotionally insecure, anyone with an ounce of self-confidence is an immediate target for disdain and retribution.
So much that. It starts in the schools. They are designed that way.
I hate that “if you don’t vote, you don’t have a right to complain” bullshit. I simply say that 1. The constitution does not guarantee your right to vote and 2. Nowhere in that document does it state that if you don’t vote…..
Voting is an overrated concept. I did vote for Trump, but I am regretting my choice to participate in the charade.
I hate that “if you don’t vote, you don’t have a right to complain” bullshit.
Whenever that line is used against me, I respond with “you have that exactly fucking backwards. I don’t vote because I do not recognize this illegitimate system’s authority, one which I do not consent to. YOU, on the other hand, DO consent through the act of voting. Therefore YOU have imposed and perpetuated the current system through your own voluntary act, meaning that YOU are the one with no right to complain about the results of your choices. I, on the other hand, am being violated against my will and thus have not only a right, but arguably an OBLIGATION to complain – or take other more direct action.”
Liberranter, exactly. The other side of that same voting coin is that if someone votes for someone to “represent” them then whatever that elected person does is on the hands of the voter as well.
If you vote for someone to steal from others via the government, i.e. taxes, then you are also guilty of theft. If your “representative” supports aggressive wars then your hands are bloody too. Etc.
I will trust no one else to make such immoral decisions on my behalf.
And those who “consent by voting” are also the ones who deprive us of the right to consent or abstain, since whatever they vote for, is ultimately upheld by coercion and violence, and they are perpetuating that system of coercion and violence by their participation in it.