Wednesday, June 30, 2010

Political Consent Is A Myth

Permit me to digress into a discussion of the meaning of political consent and its withdrawal. I am not saying that the American people ever explicitly consented to be ruled by the regime on the Potomac, or that they are parties to some mysterious Social Contract that implies their consent. That is all utter nonsense and propaganda. I know I never consented to be ruled by a regime that I have strongly opposed since my teenage years. Nor have I ever signed a Social Contract allowing them to rule over me. I’d be a jackass if I had.

To the best of my knowledge, no living American ever signed a contract to be ruled by the creepy politicians in DC. There are people long dead who signed a proposed Constitution and there are 11791 people long dead who voted at state conventions to ratify the Constitution. However, no living American ever agreed to be bound by the consent to be governed apparently given by people long dead that they did not know.

The Myth of Political Consent

5 comments:

  1. It is really this simple: leave or work to change it. Don't be a little bitch about it.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Comments are acting funny again. Ginx comment not showing up (moderation was turned off) and I can see it if I change comment form from embedded to "full page".

    Anyway, it should show up and magically become visible eventually.

    Here it is again:

    Ginx: "It is really this simple: leave or work to change it. Don't be a little bitch about it."

    Ginx, you really do need to start making some actual arguments.

    Please make a case for the "social contract". I (or you, for that matter) never gave consent to be governed by anyone (and certainly not by a government that steals from my paycheck and uses the money to commit murder).

    When did I sign that contract, Ginx? I don't want to "change" the state, I want it to just leave me alone!

    ReplyDelete
  3. I don't even know where to begin, besides maybe telling you to open your eyes to how hilariously dependent you are on society (a society which built the infrastructure of the marvelous form of free expression we are currently enjoying).

    If you don't want any of the benefits of living in America, then leave. It's not a mean spirited comment, I'd give you helpful advice on how to pack. I'm telling you truthfully: if you don't like the deal, don't take it. That's how the social contract works, you have an offer and you can choose to accept it by staying or decline and leave. You live on American soil, so you all you have to do is vacate and you can follow some other set of rules, or you can go off on your own island all by youself where you can jack off to assault rifles. I don't really care, honestly.

    What I find ridiculous is that you think you're being oppressed simply for being American. Poor baby...

    ReplyDelete
  4. Ginx, your "argument" (such as it is) is pathetically circular.

    According to you, I give my consent by continuing to live in the United States (where I was born) and thus acknowledge the government's right to rule over me. But this assumes what you're trying to prove, that that government is legitimate in the first place.

    Your view would give legitimacy to any state, including Stalin's Soviet Union and Nazi Germany. Hey, if you don't like the Nazi Racial Laws, pack up and leave! (only you might be prevented from doing so by that very state, or find yourself unable to freely enter another nation for refuge by being refused entry).

    You also conflate society with the State. They are not the same. All the "benefits" you speak of are possible through voluntary cooperation, or are not benefits at all (such as the U.S. military occupying other countries).

    Poor baby..

    Take your condescending attitude and shove it up your statist ass.

    *********************************************

    Another brillant idea they have is that being in a "country" means you accept the "social contract" of that "country". Of course, since "countries" are statist fictions enforced by coercion, this is nothing more than a "might makes right" argument. But let's go along with it for a minute. Suppose that this is actually the case- that everyone who enters a country, or decides to stay there, agrees to the exact same contract. Now how likely is it that every single person in a population of 32 million people agrees to follow the exact same contract? Either we are all ignorant of this supposed contract that we all agree on, which is absurd if the contract actually exists, or every single one of us agrees on it, which is improbable to the Nth degree.

    And being in a certain area does not make a contract enforcable. One reply I have heard to this is that we have an implicit contact when we enter a store, for example. If this is so, I'd like to know what this contract consists of. I can just as well enter and leave immediately, without breaking any such fictional contract. I have to follow the rules set by the owner (for example, the store closes at such and such hour, and I can't barge in afterwards and demand stuff), but that's not a contract, that's a parameter. We're not exchanging anything- the parameters of the exchange come before the exchange proper. The owner establishes what kind of exchanges he'll do and how they will be done, then we trade, not before. If we lived in a market anarchy, the same principle would apply to land.

    How about democracy? By electing someone, do we bind ourselves to him by a "social contract"? Well, that's easily defeated if only by the fact that there are many, many people who vote against an elected official, or do not vote at all. If a vote is consent, then none of those people consented. If we are all bound by the consent of the majority, then it is not a contract at all but rather "might makes right", once again. Or is the law the "social contract"? If that was the case, then no one could change the laws without everyone else's support. Since this never happens, we must assume that this is just yet another version of "might makes right".
    -from Where is the social contract and where is my signature? by Francois Tremblay

    ReplyDelete
  5. You are trying to make a "might makes right" junkie agree with logical arguments. Not gonna work.

    ReplyDelete

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