Humans, We Definitely Have a Problem

You did not consent to any of this. You know you didn't. (DN 1.5)

Cover page | Preface | Introduction 1 | Introduction 2 | Introduction 3 |

(Part I) Why: 1.0 | 1.1 | 1.2 | 1.3 | 1.4 | 1.5 |

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Chapter 1: WHY

1.5 — Consent, Part 1

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We have been exploring a forest of moral ideas.

We have waded into the clear pool of natural law—from which the tree of our rights grows and drinks deep. We have basked in that tree’s shade.

It is easy to get lost. But we must remember why we’re here.

This book is about a solution to a problem. We are all here because of that problem. If the problem didn’t exist, we would be doing something else—perhaps mowing the lawn, painting a picture, or smoking cigarettes and watching Captain Kangaroo.

The title of this chapter is Why. This is where we discuss whether the problems rise to a level such that a solution is required and justified.

When Americans today think of the American Declaration of Independence, we tend to think first of the section that begins with the words, “We hold these truths….” Surprisingly, that comparatively short passage is the only part of the Declaration that focuses on the principles of natural law. Most of the rest is taken up with an enumeration of grievances against king and parliament.

Our hearts leap when we hear that statement of principles, because we sense that here in the modern era, those principles are very much under threat. But in 1776, it was the grievances, not the principles, that were of the most interest to the American colonists.

The reason was simple: in their era, what we now call “classical liberalism” was in the air. Understanding of, and belief in, the principles of natural law was at its philosophical zenith, and was about to reach its political apotheosis. They already knew the principles. They wanted to know whether the grievances rose to a level that was actionable with the extreme step of revolution.

Little did they know that soon thereafter, classical liberalism would begin a long, slow decline—as socialism slowly rose in influence throughout the nineteenth century, leading to a twentieth century dominated by various forms of statism. 

Thus, here in the twenty-first century, we find ourselves in a very different position from the people of the eighteenth.

Yes, we have grievances. Many grievances. But we also live in a time where natural-law principles are no longer taken as a given. For more than a century, statism has been the dominant zeitgeist. Natural law principles have taken a pounding to the point where they are not only no longer in the air, but many people believe that they belong in the trash heap of history, along with other quaint anachronisms.

They live in a world built on those principles. The freedom and rights they take for granted are entirely grounded in those principles. And yet they have absolutely no clue. They stand on the shoulders of giants and think their feet are firmly planted on the ground.

To whatever extent we have enjoyed relative freedom in the Anglosphere and the  broader West, it has been because of those principles. Because our forebears discovered them, cherished them, and sought to actuate them for themselves and their posterity. A civilization that forgets how it became free—that mocks as “outdated” the very principles that made it free—soon ceases to be free.

Our rapidly increasing slouch into totalitarianism today is no accident. We are the civilization that has forgotten. 

THAT is the why we are here to discuss. Our specific grievances matter, but those exist in direct proportion to the loss of those principles. If we do not rediscover and reclaim the principles, we will never be rid of the grievances. 

The principles we have been discussing cannot be ignored. They cannot be dispensed with. They exist. Their implications are inescapable.

We have explored the First Principle. The deepest truth. The spring that feeds the pool of natural law:

It is morally forbidden for any person to initiate coercive force against the person or property of any other.

Yet that is exactly what governments do, every day, to perfectly peaceful people who have harmed no one.

By what strange alchemy does a group of individuals calling themselves a government gain the authority to do what is absolutely forbidden to an individual?

We have uncovered the brute fact that no one—NO ONE—has an automatic authority to rule another. There are no fixed classes of highborn and lowborn. No divine right of kings. No one born with saddles on their backs, nor others with boots, spurs, and a riding crop. All authority must either be granted or imposed by force.

So how did a small number of people come to rule the rest of us? Where did their authority come from?

We granted it, they tell us…as they quite obviously impose it by force.

We consented to it, they tell us.

Did we?

The Declaration of Independence is a withdrawal of consent to be governed by the Mother Country. But did any of us consent to the government that was set up in its wake?

And to those of you in other lands—did you consent to be governed?

Did any of us, anywhere on Earth?

If we discover that we did not, then we have a big problem. A problem that definitely needs a solution.

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