MTV: The Holocaust Happened to People Like Us

Thank you. This needs to go far and wide.

Hello everyone! I’m a first-time poster on the DailyPaul.com forum, but I became very distressed when I began to read some of the grossly fallacious things that people (especially Ron Paul supporters) were saying in this thread. For this reason I became compelled to register and bring up my own opinion on the matter of the contractual nature of the Constitution.

By no means am I a Constitutional scholar, political philosopher, or contract attorney (and so I encourage those with dissenting outlooks to voice them), and thusly I must prelude my argument with several axioms set by people who do have more years of Constitutional study under their belts. We need not look further than to the man that this entire website promotes, the so-called “Champion of the Constitution”, Dr. Ron Paul himself.

Back in February of 2008, the LA Times reported on a very important quote by Dr. Paul when he stated that “the Constitution was written for one specific purpose, and that was to restrain government, not to restrain the people." Paul is even further supported ironically by Patrick Henry (who unlike Paul was as an anti-federalist who was vehemently against the ratification of the Constitution) when he echoes in a very similar fashion that “the Constitution is not an instrument for the government to restrain the people; it is an instrument for the people to restrain the government—lest it come to dominate our lives and interests.” Therefore, I would argue that Spooner is absolutely right that there is no binding nature of the Constitution when it applies to the people. There was never supposed to be one.

So, what about the application to government officials? Do they have an absolute obligation to uphold the Constitution? Let’s look at this a bit further. If we were to abandon Rousseau’s implicit social contract idea (although we can still accept social contract theory and retain our individualism philosophy through Proudhon’s interpretation), and instead accept Spooner’s perspective that the Constitution necessitates explicit consent—then yes, as I established above, we (the people) are absolutely not bound by the Constitution, but our governmental representatives ARE bound when they proclaim their explicit voluntary consent to “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States” in their oath of office. Therefore, we must remember that the Constitution retrains the power of the GOVERNMENT not the PEOPLE.

I would like to close my rather verbose diatribe, by saying to those that seek the destruction of the Constitution to end the State, are very wrong in their thoughts, but I suppose that is my Minarchist beliefs that anarchy is (although ideal) impossible due to the inherent human need for power, and thusly robber barons would replace Washington bureaucrats in a society void of government.

Anyways, stay involved and active everyone!

Spooner's powerful argument against the legitimacy of the Constitution (accurately described by one reviewer as "the most subversive document ever penned in this nation"), will not sit well with most RP followers, especially to those new to RP's ideas who agree with Ron's focus on adhering to the words of the Constitution. Essentially, Spooner, basing his argument on contract theory, claims those few people who signed on to the Constitution had no right to thereby bind the rest of the population much less future generations. The only people bound by any contract are those who assented to it. Those of us who have not assented to being subject to the Constitution are not bound by it.

Nor does Ron's pro-Constitution view sit well with those historians and their followers who maintain the creation of the Constitution was a coup d' etat over the Articles of Confederation thereby allowing the emergence of a powerful federal government that would over-power the people's freedom. And in fact we see today the Constitution has not prevented an ever more powerful federal government from controlling ever more aspects of our lives while preventing the abundance we'd enjoy under the freer Articles. Under the Articles of Confederation the federal government had no taxing power and any expansion of its powers required the approval of all state governments.

RP well knows these arguments - and I'd guess probably agrees with them. However, he's called a kook now. Imagine the howling response he'd receive if he expressed preference for the Articles of Confederation or worse, the Spoonerian view that all Constitutions are in the nature of conspiricies to deprive the masses of people of their freedom and property. So the next best thing he can do is try to garner support for a strict interpretation of the Constitution and attempt to wind back governmental power in such manner. Once achieved, perhaps he'd then entertain discussion of a libertarian stateless society as envsioned by one of his heroes, Murray Rothbard, and the writings of Hans Herman Hoppe.
Check out thier writings at http://www.mises.org/.

marlow

I'll be the one craving a cigarette.

reminded me of George bernard Shaw's "Androcles and the Lion" ,a delightful play.

Libera me, let the truth break, what my fears make--Leslie Phillips

Sorry to point this out, but I don't see any evidence that this is really an MTV production. Where is it on the think.mtv.com website?