United Liberty

Just because you live in a country does that mean you’ve consented to everything the government of that country has done or is doing? When you say the pledge of allegiance are you pledging to uphold the ideals of liberty, peace and free trade or are you pledging your loyalty to an entity that lies, steals and kills on a regular basis?

Consent.(Synonym: Acquiesce): To give assent or approval

I’m sure you’ve hear of government resting on the “constent of the governed”. I think that is a theory created to justify the existence of tyrannts and our current over bloated, over regulating, war machine of a federal government. I like the phrase “acquiesence of the governneed” to more accurately describe what is happneing in this country. Most individuals including myuself acquiese to the power of the state and more accurately the power of the shifting majority whose only purpose is to extract wealth from some individuals and give it to others. If there was no government force or just extermely limited government force which stuck to the constitutional limits than ”consent of the governed” maybe applicable in that situation, because what man will consent to a government that lies to him, steals from him and can execute him if it deems appropriate at the drop of a hat?

“No attempt or pretence, that was ever carried into practical operation amongst civilized men — unless possibly the pretence of a “divine right,” on the part of some, to govern and enslave others — embodied so much of shameless absurdity, falsehood, impudence, robbery, usurpation, tyranny, and villany of every kind, as the attempt or pretence of establishing a government by consent, and getting the actual consent of only so many as may be necessary to keep the rest in subjection by force. Such a government is a mere conspiracy of the strong against the weak. It no more rests on consent than does the worst government on earth” - Lysander Spooner

Now if you still feel that you haven’t given your consent to the state , it reminds you that you have an obligation to be loyal to the it because it protects you from other governments around the world. This is by the way the basis for the “social contract” theory that is bandied about by liberal pundits across the airwaves and college campuses. It states that individuals freely give up certain rights in order to be protected and taken care of by the state. This is not a new idea. It’s as old as feudalism. And today that ancient concept of feudalism is mixed with a healthy dose of “patriotism.”

Allegiance: The obligation of a feudal vassal to his feudal leige.

or The fidelity owed by a subject or a citizen to a sovereign or state.

Individuals who believe that “God, Country, Family” is the correct order of their allegiance support the state by not thinking for themselves and should be pledging their allegiance to the ideas of Liberty instead of the ideas of coercion and tyranny wrapped up in the flag of patriotism.

By the way when you say the pledge of Allegiance do you know who wrote the words you’ve said a million times? It was written by a Socialist flag salesman looking to gin up flag sales to schools. And by the way the “nnder God” part was added decades later. The original salute was not over your heart but was a raised hand salute. You maybe familiar with it not because you have done it but because it was the salute adopted by the Nazis as their salute in the 1930′s. There is actually a picure of Woodrow Wislon giving what would today be described as a “Nazi Salute” while saying the pledge with school children. My refusual to say the pledge is not because of its origins but for the words that constitute it. I don’t say the pledge because my allegiance is ot to a flag or to a non-existent Republic, my allegiance is to the natural law. Stated differently I belive that I have the God-given right to pursue my definition of happiness as long as I don’t interfere with the equal liberty of others. Why would I “pledge” my allegiance to the state which violates my natural rights and those of everyone at home on a daily basis and increasingly more and more the Natural Rights of individuals abroad as well?

Government is meant to protect all individuals life, liberty and property and no one man or collection of men should be able to violate the natural rights of a single individual even if the entire population is against him. That is what government is meant to be, a night-watchman, instituted to carry out the natural right of Each individual to protect his life and property. But what we have today is not a protector of our natural rights but a violator of them. I myself look forward to the day when everyone pledges their allegiance not to nations or states but to themselves and the upholding of the principles of natural rights as inalienable for every individual on Earth.

“When you see that trading is done, not by consent, but by compulsion — when you see that in order to produce, you need to obtain permission from men who produce nothing — when you see money flowing to those who deal, not in goods, but in favors — when you see that men get richer by graft and pull than by work, and your laws don’t protect you against them, but protect them against you — when you see corruption being rewarded and honesty becoming a self-sacrifice — you may know that your society is doomed.” - Ayn Rand

I don’t think we are doomed. I am an optimist and everything that man has done was done because of his thoughts. Are job is to educate ourselves about the blessings of Liberty, incorporate that into our thoughts, words and deeds and share with others the slice of the truth that we’ve discovered, to those who don’t understand what they are “consenting” to or “pledging their loyalty” to.

Lysander Spooner, in his essay “No Treason,” does a beautiful job eliminating any pretense to the idea of consent of the minority being ruled by the majority. His take is that not no “contract” is valid unless two parties agree to it VOLUNTARILY. And this alone is what destroys the statist idea of “social xontract theory”. That is because I can not forego my end of the “social contract” by refusing to pay my taxes or more accurately defend my property as its being stolen every two weeks out of my paycheck, without the police power of the State being used to punish me until I submit. This is the xoncept of not “Consent of the Governed” but “Acquiescence of the Governed”.

“In truth, in 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 ever 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 peril of weighty punishments. He sees, too, that other men practise 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 from this tyranny of others, by subjecting them to his own. In short, he finds himself, without his consent, so situated that, if he use the ballot, he may become a master; if he does not use it, he must become a slave. And he has no other alternative than these two. In self-defence, he attempts the former. His case is analogous to that of a man who has been forced into battle, where he must either 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 bullet — because, as his only chance of self-preservation, a man uses a ballot, is it to be inferred that the contest is one into which he voluntarily entered; that he voluntarily set up all his own 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-defence offered, he, as a matter of necessity, used the only one that was left to him.”

The idea that we consent to the government we live under is ridiculous. Social Contract theory and the idea of the ”Consent of the Governed” are used to enshrine and protect Politicians, Bureaucrats and those who suckle at Government’s teats, while at the same time enslaving individuals whose property is seized against their will to fund the very government largess used to enslave them. My ultimate goal is to see the idea of government disappear and in its stead to have everyone live in a “free market society”, where the production of defense as well as policing would be done by individuals freely contracting with one another. But until that happens I want to see the federal government chained down to the (2nd) Constitution or even go back to the first Constitution, which was the Articles of Confederation.

If any law is passed that takes a person’s life, liberty or property away from them without them first committing a crime against another’s person or property is fundamentally flawed and violates what Gustave Molinari referred to as “natural law.” The current Consitution and the Articles of Confederation are the first 13 original states’ constitutions were the first and in my opinion the closest man has ever come basing his law upon the natural lLaw. But how many of the laws of man since those heady revolutionary days have violated the “natural law” ? And how many of these laws, regulations and executive orders that have violated the “natural law” have you yourself “consented” to?

Let me ask you this: Did you consent to the drones flying hundreds of missions over IRAN? Did you consent to the assassination of the American citizen the suspected terrorist Anwar al-Awlaki or his 16 year son by U.S. drone attacks in Yemen? Did you consent to the use of unmanned drones over the skies of South Dakota to catch a suspected catte thief who was by the way a “sovereign citizen”. Did you consent to Homeland Security buying 450,000,000 .40 pistol rounds?

(To put that last figure into perspective imagine a four mile strecth of highway. Now imagine that stretch of highway with 383 semi trailers, not with a tractor attached end to end for those four miles. Now imagine that each is slam full of .40 pistol rounds not destined for a war overseas put for your own backyard which by the way has been deemed by several Senators now as a battlefield with the war on terror.)

Did you consent to the GSA throwing a lavish $820,000 party in Vegas? Did you consent to the Federal Reserve and the trillions of secret bailouts to foreign central Banks? DId you consent to the Fractional Reserve Banking System or FDIC? Did you consent to the ever-increasing inflation? Did you consent to the prohibition of Marijuana? Did you consent to the DEA given carte blanche to basically infiltrate and militarize the entire police force of Latin and South America? Did you consent to the 900 military bases overseas? Did you consent to the Korean War or the Vietnam War? Do you currently consent to the continued war in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria, Yemen, and Somalia?