MCViewPoint

Opinion from a Libertarian ViewPoint

Posts Tagged ‘Constitutions’

Social Contract Theory Idiocy: What Contract? – LewRockwell

Posted by M. C. on February 1, 2023

Have you voluntarily and knowingly delegated by active and legal contract all your decisions about your life, family, war, taxation (theft), government mandated schooling, health care, employment, property ownership, self-defense, licensing, and every other aspect of life to this illegitimate government? Are you just a slave and a resource element of the state? Do you have any real desire to be free? The state does not work or rule by contract, it does not have the consent of all the governed; it is the epitome of force, violence, extortion, torture, theft, and murder.

https://www.lewrockwell.com/2023/01/gary-d-barnett/social-contract-theory-idiocy-what-contract/

By Gary D. Barnett

“And yet we have what purports, or professes, or is claimed, to be a contract—the Constitution—made eighty years ago, by men who are now all dead, and who never had any power to bind us, but which (it is claimed) has nevertheless bound three generations of men, consisting of many millions, and which (it is claimed) will be binding upon all the millions that are to come; but which nobody ever signed, sealed, delivered, witnessed, or acknowledged; and which few persons, compared with the whole number that are claimed to be bound by it, have ever read, or even seen, or ever will read, or see.”

~ Lysander Spooner, No Treason: The Constitution of No Authority

The very idea of any ‘social contract’ for any large group of individuals is asinine on its face. It is an impossibility to be sure if freedom is considered, and that is why constitutions, (‘social contracts’) which supposedly require individual explicit or ‘tacit’ consent, neither of which are valid in this context, are completely worthless, and only deceit by the state. Social contracts require that some or most freedoms be relinquished, and submission to the false authority of a ruler or ruling class be accepted for the ‘common good.’ This is usually based on only a majority ‘decision,’ or not, due to the corrupt and evil nature of voting, for the purpose of gaining protection for only those rights considered remaining, and state-supported in the bogus contract. In other words, natural rights are eliminated in favor of ‘legal’ rights created and administered by the state for the sole purpose of monetary gain and mass control. This can only mean that all natural rights are disallowed and non-existent’ in this lie called a social contract.

The assumed starting point for social contract creation in theory is to examine the human condition absent a political order. From here, social contract supporters would seek (assume) to argue that ‘rational’ individuals would voluntarily give up their natural freedom in favor of consent to a governmental (political) ruling system. Thomas Hobbes’ approach to the “state of nature” circumstance and social contracts was telling of his desire to see humanity ruled over by counterfeit documents shifting power from the individual to the state. Hobbes said that in a state of nature, or freedom of the individual, would be a horrible situation where everyone would have unlimited rights to pillage, plunder, rape, and murder, and endless war of all against all would be the result. His solution to his made-up claims, was for all to establish what he called “civil society” through a social contract in order to gain security by giving up natural rights and accepting an absolute sovereign made up of one man (king) or an assembly of men (oligarchy). He saw absolute government as the only option.

The meaning of the term “contract” in its most basic form, is an agreement between two or more parties that defines the terms of an exchange. The five major characteristics for any contract to be valid are:

1) An offer and terms: One party makes an offer to another, which includes a description of terms that the offering party makes to the other, that he is legally bound to honor.

2) An acceptance of an offer is necessary for any contract to be valid.

3) For any contract to be valid, every single individual involved needs to know,

comprehend, and fully understand the entire agreement and every obligation associated with such contract.

4) Some form of consideration (something of value) is necessary for a contract to be legally valid. Any consideration has to be legal, as illegal consideration or activity nullifies the contract.

5) All parties involved in any contract must enter this contract with the clear intent to set up a formal agreement and accept all terms as legally binding.

With this in mind, attempt if you can, to fathom the idea of a magical contract, completely unsigned and legally unaccepted by each party, without a full description of exact terms to be followed. Consider that this contract has to be fully understood by each and every individual involved, and that some form of legal consideration must be present and accepted by each party agreeing to this document. This contract in order to be valid must be set up with clear intent, and with acceptance of each and every term as binding on all parties.

Now consider the fake contract called the law of the land, and described as the U.S. Constitution. This is simply an invalid social contract that does not meet any definition of a legal contract whatsoever, and is assumed to have been accepted, understood, with valid consideration, by 330 million individuals. No one has signed it, no one has legally accepted it, few if any understand it, it can be changed arbitrarily by the so-called contract offeror at any time without approval of each (or any) of those involved, and no accepted consideration is forthcoming. There is no clear intent, actually no intent at all, of any formal agreement and acceptance. In fact, it is completely illegal, and therefore not binding in any regard on any individual.

The state in fact is a scam. It is based on this false notion of an illegal ‘social contract,’ written and forced on society over 240 years ago. It is as illegal now as it was then, and should be, at least in any free society, completely unenforceable. But this is not a free society, and even though in past centuries, freedom was more prevalent, this has never been a truly free country. If government and rule exist, freedom cannot exist.

The entirety of rule in this country and many others, is based on the evil and fraudulent concept of ‘tacit’ (implied without question) approval of an illegal and fictitious social contract called a constitution. “This theory of an implicit social contract holds that by remaining in the territory controlled by some society, which usually has a government, people give consent to join that society and be governed by its government if any. This consent is what gives ‘legitimacy’ to such a government.” Nothing could be more ridiculous and underhanded than such a concept as this one.

The very idea of government in this country is completely dependent on the false illusion that the social contract called the Constitution solidifies and justifies that ‘consent’ for this heinous government is legitimate, because blind ‘consent’ is assumed by that same government. 

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What the Constitutions of the Soviet Union and North Korea Can Teach Us about Rights—and the Purpose of a Constitution

Posted by M. C. on October 3, 2022

A successful constitution will prevent the centralization of power, not facilitate it.

https://fee.org/articles/what-the-constitutions-of-the-soviet-union-and-north-korea-can-teach-us-about-rights-and-the-purpose-of-a-constitution/

Jack Elbaum
Jack Elbaum

n December 5, 1936, history was made in Moscow when the Eighth Congress of Soviets approved and Joseph Stalin signed the Soviet Constitution of 1936.

Also known as the “Stalin Constitution,” the document was hailed by Soviet leaders as “the most democratic in the world.” It was indeed a revolutionary document — and not even primarily because of its openly socialist ideology. What made it so striking was that it granted more rights — civic, political, and personal — than almost any Western constitution did (or does today, for that matter). Forget the universal right to vote, the five freedoms granted in the First Amendment of the US Constitution, or the right to privacy; the Soviet Constitution guaranteed all of that and more. There was the right to “rest and leisure,” “the right to maintenance in old age and also in the case of sickness or loss of capacity to work,” and the ”right to employment and payment for their work in accordance with its quantity and quality.”

Despite this new, egalitarian Constitution, the next two years were notable for its escalation of terror and Stalin’s campaign “to eliminate dissenting members of the Communist Party and anyone else he considered a threat.” Over 750,000 people were executed and more than a million were put in the Gulag (a system of forced labor camps). This period became known as the Great Purge. In subsequent decades, many more millions of people were killed in famines caused by an utterly inefficient state-run economy, while others were killed for expressing dissenting views. Citizens had no right to protest the government, join a union that was not controlled by the state, or even leave the state without express permission from the government.

All of this was done in the name of creating a better society; and it was done despite the lofty, rights-centered language of their new Constitution. In other words, despite enshrining utopia into law, the USSR ended up being one of the worst and most repressive countries in history.

The question, therefore, must be asked: how could this happen? How could the terror and brutality of the Soviet Union happen under such a seemingly progressive and forward-looking Constitution?

The answer is surprisingly simple — and also instructive for our own times.

The horrors of the USSR were able to take place, despite all of the rights included in their Constitution, for two reasons.

The first reason is that the framework the USSR Constitution outlined — and the structures it put in place — did not prevent the centralization of power. In fact, it actually did the opposite by maintaining the absolute power of the Communist Party, while also granting the government jurisdiction over basically every area of life.

However, the creation of systems designed to keep total power out of the hands of any group is both the purpose and the sign of a strong constitution. It ensures that even if some people would like to violate the rights of others — whether it be for personal gain or ideological reasons — they will not be able to because there are checks on the amount of power any individual or body can accumulate.

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