The Myth of the 'Consent of the Governed'

Voting Is NOT Consent for #MemeMonday

Students of liberty know that the theoretical construct of the ‘implicit social contract’ was one of the fundamental philosophical building bricks underlying not only the American system, but the whole of the modern Western project.

Those who continue to carry the philosophical calculus out to its logical conclusions know that this kind of social contract, and the systems of governance it spawned, are morally unsupportable. Imposing any kind of authority without explicit consent violates the natural rights of the human person.

Our Founders, and the philosophers upon whose work they relied, knew this. Their workaround was to claim that your consent is “tacit” and “implied.”

You know this isn’t true. You never explicitly consented to be governed. No one does. Deep down, these statesmen and philosophers probably knew it too. The implicit social contract was the philosophical evasion—the “cheat code”—they needed to make the whole thing work.

Given their circumstances and moment in history, this is arguably the best they could have done, and we ought to be grateful for the freedoms they bequeathed to us. Yet we have also had the benefit of another 250 years of philosophy, analysis, and experience, and we know now that while their principles were spot on, the system they created does not properly actuate those principles.

Consent only exists when you agree to do something or have something done to you.

Obviously there are times when consent is understood. I frequently walk up to my wife and kiss the top of her head (I am significantly taller). We do not have to sign a contract before every kiss, because we know that our consent is ongoing. Either party can withdraw that consent, but unless that happens, the relationship just proceeds organically.

In the case of governance and force, however, consent cannot be ‘implied,’ ‘tacit,’ or ‘understood.’

Democracy (yes, even our constitutional republican kind) says the following:

We are going to force you to do things, force you not to do things, take your money, and punish you if you resist. We have given you the right to vote, and that means that you have consented to anything and everything we do from here on in.

Do you not see how wrong that is?

When Jefferson said that legitimacy requires “the consent of the governed,” he was correct. But the system they gave us does not properly actuate that principle. Full stop.

If you have any answer to that problem, I enjoin you—speak up! Whether objection or a solution…I want to hear it.

The text of the meme below is not as short as the text of a meme ought to be, but I just love that Hoppe quote. So whoomp, there it is.