Great Quotes

[tr027 0]

[W]hoever desires liberty, should understand these vital facts, viz.:

1. That every man who puts money into the hands of a "government" (so called) puts into its hands a sword which will be used against himself, to extort more money from him, and also to keep him in subjection to its arbitrary will.
2. That those who will take his money, without his consent, in the first place, will use it for his further robbery and enslavement, if he presumes to resist their demands in the future.
3. That it is a perfect absurdity to suppose that any body of men would ever take a man's money without his consent, for any such object as they profess to take it for, viz., that of protecting him; for why should they wish to protect him, if he does not wish them to do so?...
If a man wants "protection," he is competent to make his own bargains for it; and nobody has any occasion to rob him, in order to "protect" him against his will.
4. That the only security men can have for their political liberty, consists in their keeping their money in their own pockets, until they have assurances, perfectly satisfactory to themselves, that it will be used as they wish it to be used, for their benefit, and not for their injury.
5. That no government, so called, can reasonably be trusted for a moment, or reasonably be supposed to have honest purposes in view, any longer than it depends wholly upon voluntary support.

Lysander Spooner, No Treason: the Constitution of No Authority

"The evil of the world is made possible by nothing but the sanction you give it. " -John Galt from Atlas Shrugged, 1957

[quade 3]

Spooner is an interesting guy. I doubt many folks know much about him.

The important thing to understand is that when he wrote "No Treason" he was essentially an anarchist and claimed the entire US Constitution had become invalid due to the Civil War.

quade -
The World's Most Boring Skydiver

[tr027 0]

He points out the Constitution was never signed nor delivered to anyone, therefore doesn't come close to qualifying as a binding contract or something that would provide authority to anyone.

"Where would be the end of fraud and litigation, if one party could bring into court a written instrument, without any signature, and claim to have it enforced, upon the ground that it was written for another man to sign? that this other man had promised to sign it? that he ought to have signed it? that had he had the opportunity to sign it, he would? but that he had refused or neglected to do so? Yet that is the most that could ever be said of the Constitution. The very judges, who profess to derive all their authority from the Constitution – from an instrument that nobody ever signed – would spurn any other instrument, not signed, that should be brought before them for adjudication.

The very men who drafted it, never signed it in any way to bind themselves by it, as a contract. And not one of them probably ever would have signed it in any way to bind himself by it, as a contract.

For nearly two hundred years – that is, since 1677 – there has been on the statute book of England, and the same, in substance, if not precisely in letter, has been re-enacted, and is now in force, in nearly or quite all the States of this Union, a statute, the general object of which is to declare that no action shall be brought to enforce contracts of the more important class, unless they are put in writing, and signed by the parties to be held chargeable upon them."

and further,

"It is plain, then, that on general principles of law and reason – such principles as we all act upon in courts of justice and in common life – the Constitution is no contract; that it binds nobody, and never did bind anybody; and that all those who pretend to act by its authority, are really acting without any legitimate authority at all; that, on general principles of law and reason, they are mere usurpers, and that everybody not only has the right, but is morally bound, to treat them as such. "

"The evil of the world is made possible by nothing but the sanction you give it. " -John Galt from Atlas Shrugged, 1957

[skipbelt 0]

we hold these truths to be self evident !