If there is any positive that has come from the COVID outbreak, it is that some Americans have awakened from their political stupor to realize their government (at all levels) is acting far beyond its given powers. For some, the alarm bell was the government lockdowns and selective business and church closures. For others, it was when the hospitals elected to become prisons in the cash-for-covid-death deal from the government. For yet others, it was in seeing any doctor who tried to publicly point out the truth in contrast to the government’s official claims was canceled and risked having his license taken. Still, more were alerted due to the persistent government mandates for vaccine after vaccine, while yet saw in their own eyes, that these jabs were neither safe nor effective. All of these actions by government were acts far outside the government’s legitimate powers. But it took a direct hit in the eyes of each individual’s life in order for most to wake up.
Awakened to the problem, does not, however, equate to being capable of correcting it. Many now awakened, have fixed their sites on treating the symptoms, while yet very few seem to be addressing the true underlying cultural disease that has led to it all. That underlying cultural disease is a cultural disease that, in part, can be seen in how Americans no longer know, let alone respect, the principle of Just Consent. My thesis here is that if we the people, do not once again learn and embrace these principles of just consent, then the entire collective efforts of every conservative and traditional libertarian today to right our nation will be for not.
Just as a physician has to learn normal physiology before he can understand the pathophysiology and, thus, how best to fix it, so too must a citizen first know what the normal principles are that the culture was built upon before he will recognize where in its government and institutions it is operating pathologically, and thus, how to fix it.
What is the principle of Just Consent?
There is much more to this principle than meets the eye. First, there is the idea of “consent.” Generally, this is giving one’s agreement to another’s plan or idea. However, in order to give one’s just consent, one must actually be in charge over, or have the right over that which is the subject matter of the consented-to act or idea. When the idea or plan at point has to do with civil government powers and how they may be enacted or enforced, unless that person first has within him the right over the object or action being planned, nor then can he give his just consent to the government to perform such an act either. He has not the power in himself to consent to the government that power he has not. He cannot empower the government with a power he does not have natural to himself in the first place.
For example, if a person asks me if he can use my car because the car is mine, I can give him my consent to use it. That would be giving my just consent. If the car was not mine, though, I could agree with him to take it, and one could argue that this is me giving my consent to the plan or idea. However, that would not be me giving my just consent. As it is not my car, I have no right over it, and thus have just authority to give to another the consent to take it, use it, or drive it. I do not have the capacity to give my just consent to its use – even if asked. This is the second natural limit of just civil governments – just governments are justly limited to the powers that are recognized to exist naturally within the individuals of the society of said government. If, in a given society, we the people, are not recognized to possess a particular power natural to themselves (an idea to be explored in an article to follow), then, by the principles of their own culture, they have no capacity to justly consent that power (which they do not first see themselves as possessing in themselves) to their government. If the government were to claim such a power, it would (by America’s founding principles) be an unjust government.
What does this principle have to do with the Federal Government?
Here now, I am about to commit what will be, to many, a great heresy and claim that our nation – our society – is not founded on the Constitution. The Constitution, though a great work, is not, as some claim, the greatest document next to The Scriptures; it is not the best political document that man has ever produced; it is not even (though it claims to be) the Supreme Law of the Land. It is, when interpreted properly, the supreme legal order of the land, but it is not the supreme law of the land, for even within our own legal system, under The Constitution, we Americans claim that there is indeed a Law above the law – a Law above that of The Constitution. (Examine the legal argument the defendants at the Nuremberg trials used and what legal argument against their claim was employed – by the lead American lawyer.)
Accordingly, The Constitution is not where we need to turn in order to learn what makes for a legitimate and just government – or how then to fix one that is not just. Like any constitution, ours is the instrument through which the morals of a people were to become physically and culturally operational into a civil order at the federal level. But today, it has long become an instrument through which the people running the government act to force their own morals and principles into the culture and upon the people. And yet they get away with what they do because the majority of we the people, have been politically asleep and have failed to learn and respect the principles in the Declaration of Independence that the Constitution relies for it to be and remain the framework of a just government.
The Declaration of Independence is the greatest man-authored political document. The Constitution relies completely upon it. It is in the Declaration’s second paragraph, where the key political ethos and principles of our society are laid out – not the Constitution. It is in the Declaration where we Americans claimed to the world our beliefs – our ethics – and our worldview.
“We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal…” It is in this second paragraph of the Declaration where we find the principle of Just Consent, and where we find the one true and legitimate purpose of government, and the one source of just government power. “…that in order to secure these rights, governments are instituted amongst men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed.”
What is the Principle of Just Consent as mentioned in the Declaration of Independence?
It is the principle which holds that in order for any civil government to have any particular authority, that power must first be consented to the civil government, by the citizens of the various states. Should any government agency or branch declare a new law or mandate upon the citizens, it must therefore have, within the records of that government, clear evidence of a positive act by the people, consenting to that government, the particular power to do what that government agent is claiming the authority to do – and too – the specific limited purpose of that law or action. Lacking such a clear positive act by the people, the government cannot justly claim the authority, for it is not over the people, but is subordinate to the people. It cannot make up its own rules over the people. If we the people would seek to understand and embrace this principle of just consent, our eyes will recognize the true pathology present in the culture and the underlying political disease which needs to be treated today in the US.
Over the next several articles, each of the principles laid out in the Declaration of Independence will be presented so as to build a foundation for understanding just what is meant by Just Consent. With that we may all be able to come together as a unified force to reform the present evil that is behind our present government leadership in DC.
Source: The underlying political disease which needs to be treated today in the US – America Out Loud News