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Government by Contract – Article by Kyrel Zantonavitch

Government by Contract – Article by Kyrel Zantonavitch

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The New Renaissance Hat
Kyrel Zantonavitch
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Government should be by contract only. The citizen and the state should come to a mutual, official, legal agreement. All adults, upon turning 18 or 21 or so, should sign a formal, written, binding, social compact in which they agree to abide by the constitution and the laws of a given country in exchange for government services. This means in exchange for the defense of their liberty and the protection of their rights.

This essentially means the systematic, careful, full-time safeguarding of their person and property by professionally trained and armed government agents or civil servants. The would-be citizen or resident should freely agree to pay a certain fee – say 3% per year of his local income or .5% per year of his local net worth – in trade for expert police and military defense, plus court and jail services, plus the government administration thereof.

In theory the contractee of the state might be commanded to surrender some of his rights — such as serving one year of military duty, or a lifetime of no slander or defamation in speech, or being subjected to subpoena coercion at any time. But the potential citizen or resident is always perfectly free to quit, or to refuse to join, such a slightly despotic state.

It’s understood that at any time, for any reason, the citizen is free to immediately, unilaterally cancel his contractual agreement by giving brief, official, public or written notice. Thus he renounces his citizenship — and consequent legal obedience and political loyalty — to his former country and government. It’s also understood that the government can strip him of his citizenship or political rights — also by providing official, public notification slightly in advance — for major violations of the constitution or law.

In both cases the person involved can either join another government or become a temporarily or permanently stateless person. But no fines, jail terms, or other civil penalties are allowed due to his “treason,” especially not any property or wealth confiscation. If the former citizen owns land, and so chooses, he can theoretically become a one-man country. Or the previously-signed government contract may require him to sell his land for a fair price and then leave.

Because the former citizen or resident is no longer bound under political contract to some social group, and thus is no longer paying his service fees or “taxes”, the old government will now stay off his private real estate, and will no longer necessarily protect his person or property from criminals and invaders, i.e. from any attackers or rights-violators. He must defend himself.

Moreover the newly independent person can no longer visit his former country without government permission, such as a visa of some kind. When such a person does visit he must temporarily subject himself to the local laws of the foreign government, and perhaps also pay some sort of visitor’s fee.

Government by contract ensures that any given state is fully legitimate and proper in that it clearly and openly enjoys 100% of the consent of the governed, from its voluntary members. Convicted criminals may dispute this, but they freely chose to become citizens or residents prior to conviction. Their arrest, trial, and punishment should be entirely open, and a matter of public record, as well as completely based upon the principles of justice and individual rights, and a product of laws that the convicted criminal previously freely agreed to.

Any given government should follow the legitimate and proper course of attaining a formal, serious, contractual assent from the totality of its adult citizenry, and all free, sovereign individuals therein. A government not founded on the consent of the governed is a type of criminal syndicate or imposed tyranny which desperately needs to be avoided.

Kyrel Zantonavitch is the founder of The Liberal Institute  (http://www.liberalinstitute.com/) and author of Pure Liberal Fire: Brief Essays on the New, General, and Perfected Philosophy of Western Liberalism.

This TRA feature has been edited in accordance with TRA’s Statement of Policy.

Liberty Was Also Attacked in Boston – Article by Ron Paul

Liberty Was Also Attacked in Boston – Article by Ron Paul

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The New Renaissance Hat
Ron Paul
April 28, 2013
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Forced lockdown of a city. Militarized police riding tanks in the streets. Door-to-door armed searches without warrant. Families thrown out of their homes at gunpoint to be searched without probable cause. Businesses forced to close. Transport shut down.

These were not the scenes from a military coup in a far off banana republic, but rather the scenes just over a week ago in Boston as the United States got a taste of martial law. The ostensible reason for the military-style takeover of parts of Boston was that the accused perpetrator of a horrific crime was on the loose. The Boston bombing provided the opportunity for the government to turn what should have been a police investigation into a military-style occupation of an American city. This unprecedented move should frighten us as much or more than the attack itself.

What has been sadly forgotten in all the celebration of the capture of one suspect and the killing of his older brother is that the police state tactics in Boston did absolutely nothing to catch them. While the media crowed that the apprehension of the suspects was a triumph of the new surveillance state – and, predictably, many talking heads and Members of Congress called for even more government cameras pointed at the rest of us – the fact is none of this caught the suspect. Actually, it very nearly gave the suspect a chance to make a getaway.

The “shelter in place” command imposed by the governor of Massachusetts was lifted before the suspect was caught. Only after this police state move was ended did the owner of the boat go outside to check on his property, and in so doing discover the suspect.

No, the suspect was not discovered by the paramilitary troops terrorizing the public. He was discovered by a private citizen, who then placed a call to the police. And he was identified not by government surveillance cameras, but by private citizens who willingly shared their photographs with the police.

As journalist Tim Carney wrote last week:

“Law enforcement in Boston used cameras to ID the bombing suspects, but not police cameras. Instead, authorities asked the public to submit all photos and videos of the finish-line area to the FBI, just in case any of them had relevant images. The surveillance videos the FBI posted online of the suspects came from private businesses that use surveillance to punish and deter crime on their property.”

Sadly, we have been conditioned to believe that the job of the government is to keep us safe, but in reality the job of the government is to protect our liberties. Once the government decides that its role is to keep us safe, whether economically or physically, they can only do so by taking away our liberties. That is what happened in Boston.

Three people were killed in Boston and that is tragic. But what of the fact that over 40 persons are killed in the United States each day, and sometimes ten persons can be killed in one city on any given weekend? These cities are not locked-down by paramilitary police riding in tanks and pointing automatic weapons at innocent citizens.

This is unprecedented and is very dangerous. We must educate ourselves and others about our precious civil liberties to ensure that we never accept demands that we give up our Constitution so that the government can pretend to protect us.

Ron Paul, MD, is a former three-time Republican candidate for U. S. President and Congressman from Texas.

This article is reprinted with permission.