If you are open minded and willing, give this a read and let me know what you think: THE CASE AGAINST INVOLUNTARY GOVERNMENT IN 10 POINTS 1) In the very nature of things, the act of voting could bind nobody but the actual voters. But owing to the property qualifications required, it is probable that under the first twenty or thirty years of the constitution, not more than 1/10th , 1/15th, or perhaps 1/20th of the whole population (black and white, men and women and minors) were permitted to vote. Consequently, so far is voting is concerned, not more than 1/10th, 1/15th or 1/120th of those then existing could have incurred any obligation to support the constitution. At the present time, it is probable that not more than 1/6th of the whole population was permitted to vote. Consequently, so far as voting is concerned, the other 5/6ths can have given no pledge that they will support the constitution. 2) Of the 1/6th that are permitted to vote, probably not more than 2/3rds (about 1/9th of the whole population) have usually voted. Many never vote at all. No one by voting can be said to pledge himself for any longer period than that for which he votes. If for example I vote for an officer who is to hold his office for only a year, I cannot thereby be said to pledge myself to support the government beyond that term. Therefore on the ground of actual voting, it cannot be said that more than 1/9th or 1/8th are usually under any pledge to support the constitution. 3)It cannot be said that by voting a man pledges himself to support the constitution, unless the act of voting be a perfectly voluntary one on his part. Yet the act of voting cannot properly be called a voluntary one on the part of any very large number of those who do vote. It is rather a measure of necessity, imposed on them by others, than one of their own choosing. I this point, in truth, the case of individuals, their actual voting is not to be taken as proof of consent, even for the time being. On the contrary, it is to be considered that without his consent having even been asked, a man finds himself environed by a government that he cannot resist, a government that forces him to pay money, render service and forego the exercise of many of his natural rights under the peril of weighty punishment. He sees too that other men practice this tyranny over him by the use of the ballot. He sees further that if he will but use the ballot himself, he has some chance of relieving himself of this tyranny of others by subjecting them to his own. In short, he finds himself without his consent so situated that if he used the ballot, he may become a master. If he does not use it, he must become a slave, and his has no other alternative than these two. In self defense, he attempts the former. His case is analogous to that of a man who has been forced into battle where he must other kill others or be killed himself. Because to save his own life in battle a man attempts to take the lives of his opponents, it is not to be inferred that the battle is one of his own choosing, neither in contests with the ballot which is a mere substitute for a sword or bullet, because as his only chance of self preservation a man uses a ballot is to be inferred that the contest is one in which he voluntarily entered, that he voluntarily set up all of his natural rights as a stake against those of others to be lost or won by the mere power of numbers. On the contrary, it is to be considered that in an exigency into which he had been forced by others and in which no other means of self-defense are offered, he as a matter of necessity used the only one that was left to him. Doubtless, the most miserable of men, under the most oppressive government in the world, if allowed the ballot would use if they could see any chance of thereby alleviating their condition, but it would not therefore be a legitimate inference that the government itself that crushes them was one which they had voluntarily set up or even consented to. Therefore, a mans voting under the constitution of the UNITED STATES is not to be taken as evidence that he ever freely assented to the constitution, even for the time being. Consequently, we have no proof that any very large portion, even of the actual voters of the UNITED STATES, ever really and voluntarily consented to the constitution, even for the time being, nor can we ever have such proof until every man is left perfectly free to consent or not, without thereby subjecting himself or his property to be disturbed or injured by others. As we can have no legal knowledge of who votes by choice and who from the necessity that is forced upon him, we can have no legal knowledge as to any particular individual that voted from choice, or consequently that by voting he consented or pledged himself to support the government. Legally speaking, therefore, the act of voting utterly fails to pledge any one of them to support the government. It utterly fails to prove that the government rests upon the voluntary support of anybody. On general principles of law and reason, it cannot be said that the government has any voluntary supporters as all until it can be distinctly shown who its voluntary supporters are. 4) As taxation is made compulsory on all, whether they vote or not, a large proportion of those who vote no doubt do so to prevent their own money being used against themselves, when in fact they would have gladly abstained from voting if they could thereby have saved themselves from taxation alone, to say nothing of being saved from all the other usurpations and tyranny of the government. To take a mans property without his consent and then to infer his consent because he attempts by voting (CONTESTING) to prevent that property from being used to his injury is a very insufficient proof of his consent to support the constitution. It is, in fact, no proof at all, and as we can have no legal knowledge as to who the particular individuals are (if there are any) who were willing to be taxed for sake of voting, we can have no legal knowledge that any particular individual consents to being taxed for the sake of voting or consequently consents to supporting the constitution. 5) At nearly all elections, votes are given for various candidates for the same office. Those who vote for the unsuccessful candidates cannot properly be said to have voted to sustain the successful one. They may, with more reason, be supposed to have voted not to support the successful candidate, but prevent the tyranny which they predict the successful candidate intends to practice upon them, under color of the constitution. Therefore, it may reasonably be supposed that they voted against the constitution itself. This supposition is the more reasonable inasmuch as voting is the only mode allowed to them of expressing their dissent to the constitution. 6) Many votes are usually given to candidates who have to prospect of success. Those who give such votes may reasonably be supposed to have voted as they did with the special intention not support but to obstruct the execution of the constitution, and therefore against the constitution itself. 7) As all the different votes are given secretly by secret ballot, there is no legal means of knowing from the votes themselves who votes for and who against the successful candidate. Therefore, voting affords no legal evidence that any particular individual supports the successful candidate or the constitution, and where there can be no legal evidence that any particular individual supports the successful candidate or the constitution, it cannot legally be said that anyone supports either. It is clearly impossible to have any legal proof of the intentions of large numbers of men where there can be no legal proof of any of the intentions of one of them. 8) There being no legal proof of any man’s intentions in voting, we can only conjecture them. As a conjecture, it is probable that a very large proportion of those who vote do so on this principle. That is, if by voting they could but get the government into their own hands or that of their friends, and use its powers against their opponents, they would then willingly support the current government and constitution. But if their opponents are to have the power and use it against them, then they would not willingly support the current government or the constitution. In short, men’s voluntary support of the government is doubtless and in most cases contingent on the question whether by means of the constitution they can make themselves masters or are to be made slaves. Such contingent consent as that is, in law and reason, no consent at all. 9) A everybody who supports the constitution by voting , if there are any such, done so secretly by secret ballot, and in way to avoid all personal responsibility for the acts of his agents or representatives, it cannot legally or reasonably be said that anyone at all supports the current government or constitution by voting. No man can legally or reasonably be said to do such a thing as to assent to or support the current government and constitution, unless he does it openly and in a way to make him personally responsible for the acts of his agents, so long as they act within the limits of the power he delegates to them. 10) As all voting is secret by secret ballot, and as all secret governments are necessarily secret bands of robbers, tyrants and murderers, a general fact that our government is practically carried on by means of such voting only proves that there is among us a secret band of robbers, tyrants and murderers, whose purpose is to rob, enslave and murder the rest of the people. The simple fact of the existence of such a band does nothing towards proving that the people of the UNITED STATES, or any one of them , voluntarily supports such a government. It therefore furnishes no legal evidence that anybody supports it voluntarily. So far, therefore as voting is concerned, the current government and constitution, legally speaking, has no supporters at all. As a matter of fact, there is not the slightest probability that the constitution or current government has a single, bonafied supporter in the country. That is to say that there is not the slightest probability that there is a single man in the country who both understands what government and the constitution really is and sincerely supports either for what they really are.
Posted on: Sun, 09 Mar 2014 16:39:43 +0000
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