No Treason: The Constitution of No Authority
Offline Thread title is the name of an essay written in 1869 by Lysander Spooner, an American Individualist Anarchist and Constitutional Lawyer.
An audio reading of it can be found here, it's 96 minutes 36 seconds long in full. A text version for those who want it can be found here.
It's essentially a refutation of the legitimacy of the United States. It is thorough, rigorous, and while the grammar may show the age of it, the principles in it are immortal and easily understood.
The basis of the argument is that a document or "written instrument" doesn't bind anybody unless it is a contract. If I write on a piece of paper that you owe me $10, you don't actually owe me $10. If you sign it, you will, but until then, nobody would accept it as evidence to prove a debt of $10 that you owe me. The Constitution is like that piece of paper that I wrote on. Just the irrelevant scribblings of someone with no connection to you. Possibly old, elegantly worded, and being a folk version of holy writ, but not something which can show any obligation on anyone to obey, to pay, to render services, or similar, for which one may rightly be successfully sued over. It doesn't bind you because you didn't sign it. And it has never bound anybody, because nobody has ever signed it in such a way as to bind themselves by it as a contract. And an unsigned contract is a worthless, irrelevant piece of paper. And so is the Constitution a worthless, irrelevant piece of paper (or technically three). And without this piece of paper, there is no United States as such, no Federal Government, no President, no Congress, no Supreme Court, no power to make or enforce laws, nothing.
So read it, or listen to it, but do one of them, if only to hear a well-presented but unconventional viewpoint that you probably never knew existed.
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As far as I can tell, the only reason a signed contract can be enforced is because the government recognizes it and is willing to enforce it if necessary.
Who would be enforcing a contract between two parties in the absense of government? If the parties themselves are enforcing it, then in the event of a suspected breach, whichever party can muster the most force will prevail. In that case what was the point of having a contract in the first place?
It is similar to the idea of being naturalised to a certain country. Every year thousands swear some sort of oath to become an Australian citizen. Since I was born in Australia, I have never had to swear such an oath, and I never will. The idea of having such strong ties to imaginary lines called borders is much like beleiving in an imaginary thing called god. Both are enforced with guns in certain places, but doesn't make them any more real.
It's people, communities, culture that is real. Those are the things I will defend if they are threatened. I will not buy into nationalism, that hideous absraction that causes so many to value others lives less because they are from a different nation, from the other side of the imaginary line.
As an anarchist myself, this is a challenging question. Anarchy is not necessarily an abscence of governement (many anarchists may puzzle at this). Anarchy means 'without rulers'. So in your example, the person breaking the contract is a type of ruler as they are trying to do you out of what is rightly yours. So a police force, a government, or whatever is used that prevents or remedies the contract breaker (the ruler) is actually restoring anarchy.
Indeed, the situation you describe in which the person/group with the most force rules is not anarchy, it is a situation with a ruler. What it is describing is more like war-lordism.
, this makes my panties wet .... I gotta re send this,
Ever read the writtings of famous wild Anarchists? google Anarchists http://www.geocities.com/capitolHill/1931/ .... etc
Here's a pop culture fun one, I've posted before, "THE ABOLITION OF WORK"
by Bob Black, text, http://deoxy.org/endwork.htm
Here it is read as a wild podcast, Twilight of the False Gods 64k podcast
Show #16 (Sep 28, 2006) http://www.podcast.net/show/10023#SODE18
The dialog starts about 1/3 thru, then a song break, then more dialog etc.
..... Have fun, teach fun, I try ..... most people are sick .... aren't they? , but why why why ???
geezzzzzz ..... boys/girls just want to have fun,
and SHOULD !
Atheism Books.
I wasn't referring to a contract in an existing anarchist system. The description of Spooner's ideas implies that the very existance of any sort of governmental structure should be dependent on a contract between everyone involved (sounds like Rousseau's Social Contract). If this contract is being enforced by the organization that is a product of the contract itself, that seems no different than the normal situation of a small group drafting the contract (constitution) and making everyone else go along with it.
To get back to the heart of the issue (and to practical considerations) it seems reasonable to me that in a free society, by remaining a citizen you are agreeing to the existing system.