Does Anyone Consent to Government?

in #anarchism8 years ago (edited)

Well to answer that question that would require questioning many actions by that of the  statist and even the anarchist. Are there statists that consent because of their worship of the state and belief in its utter necessity? Or does the fact the states relationships are non consenting mean that the consent is non existent, and its due to Stockholm Syndrome and Cognitive Dissonance that they "consent".  I've heard arguments for both sides but I'm more inclinded myself to believe that noone consents to government.     Besides the great work of Lysander Spooners 'No Treason: The constitution of no authority', I've had many chats with statists that make non consent clear. No-one really ever likes government or all of it. Or really any if it. Anyone who has been in this movement knows its not about them actually liking government. Its about the fear of the unknown or potential 'what if' scenarios they can create. They dont actually like the government. They just can't imagine how it could work without one.

     Does paying taxes, voting, or use of public services  mean consent?

    

I will say obviously being stolen from then using or accepting social services is not consent of the actual act of theft. The fact that one may indulge in social services to ease the fact they've been stolen from for so long is not consent. Paying taxes obviously is done at the point of a gun. If it was consent it would not require a gun.     Now voting, although i see voting as a pointless and unworthy act especially on a federal level. I do not think that one, completely submerged in a world where the state exists, can possibly consent to a government by voting. Although i myself have little faith that an election or ballot will result in freedom, i dont see this as consent. Its nothing more than picking the least evil candidate which one is convinced best serves their personal and immediate interests. Even an anarchist can do so without giving consent.    The reality of the situation is noone really consents to government. Government is an agent of force and any action within this body of force is often due to fear of the force of government being used on them. It is not because they consent to the actual institution of government at all.

Here is a bit of Spooner:“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 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 peril of weighty punishments. 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 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 takes 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.NT.6.2.9

“Doubtless the most miserable of men, under the most oppressive government in the world, if allowed the ballot, would use it, if they could see any chance of thereby meliorating 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.

NT.6.2.9

“Therefore, a man’s 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.”      .  -Lysander Spooners 'No Treason: The constitution of no authority'
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