Consent To Authority

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My biggest issue with "authority figures" is that i do not consent to their authority. As far as i am concerned, I was created by God, and He is the only authority in my life.

Why is it assumed that everyone born in this country gives their consent to be governed? Take a policeman for example, he has arrest powers, i never agreed to that. Why is it that the justice system can legally "kidnap" someone?

Why does the government think its ok to steal money from me and spend it on things that i think are wrong? I never gave the IRS my consent to steal from me, why is it ok for them and not for me? If stealing is defined as taking one's property without their consent, why cant i defend myself? Also, why do they assume i wont pay? The IRS takes from our paychecks before we even see it.

Ive never committed a crime, i dont plan on any in the future, why do i "need" to be under the umbrella of government?

Even if i moved to an unorganized area (aka, the middle of nowhere) i would still be subject to the laws of the country. I guess my point is:

Why can i not be personally autonomous? Our political system is utterly screwed, why cant i stand up and say "NO, i dont wish to be a part of this!"

I do not consent to Barack Obama being my "president", i never agreed to be governed by him.

I have the same kind of issue with authority drawn at the point of a gun rather than by my having granted it.


Do you grant His right to rule over us as He sees fit? He does not use the point of a gun to extract complaince.


Status quo, I suppose.


Because it has guns.


Because it has guns.


Bigger guns, and more of them.


Not enough big guns.


They know few people ever willingly comply with thieves.


In reality, the money is already theirs and we merely receive certain allowances.


Because "mob rule" is even worse than alleged democracy.


You and I certainly can say anything we wish, yet we just do not have enough guns to back anything up.

So, what is it that you want to do that the "Authorities" aren't allowing? What lifestyle are you prevented from having? Yes, Obama is my president, but my life is pretty much unchanged since when Bush was president and Clinton before him. Yes, I have to pay taxes and obey laws, but the laws are for things I'd generally do anyway or don't apply to me, and the taxes pay for things I use, like roads, police protection, etc... Strictly speaking, no one person is 'in charge' of you. If the president called you and ordered you to do something, you don't have to do it, cause he's not a king, and his powers don't work that way. So again, what laws are you chafing under?

Look at this from another angle. It isn't just you who is subject to the laws of the country. It is everybody else, too. And you are benefitting from that even if you don't think about those benefits.

If laws didn't exist, that guy who just leaned out a car window and swore at you could pull over and kill you for fun. He may want to do that now but a mandatory life sentence (or death sentence, depending on where you live) may be all that's stopping him. Thank goodness for you that there are laws which make it illegal for other people to randomly decide they are going to kill you.

The taxes you hate paying are what funds the enforcement of the laws against pulling over the car and killing you.

You may think it would be better in a world devoid of any laws or taxes, but you would surive in it only if you were the only person...and then only if you had excellent survival skills and could not only get your own food in any condition but also set your own bones if they broke in an accident.

Want to live in a place where people are not chafing under laws? Try Darfur. The laws and taxes may feel oppressive but they are all that stands between you and brutal anarchy where the strongest get to kill whoever they want with no consequences.

Try living in North Korea - then you'll know what consenting to authority really means. Besides, all these laws are decided on mostly by the politicans WE vote in, where WE means the majority. So in a sense, WE are choosing to obey the laws of the people WE voted for. At least WE have democracy in terms of voting, and even then you could see democracy as being stupid since a lot of people who want to live off others' from their taxes, or with racist ideas are allowed to vote (though thankfully these people are a minority). You're not consenting to the authority as in the government, but to what the majority of people want, which you could consider to be an authority if you wanted to. But anyone who isn't content living with the majority should not expect to get their services, e.g. police forces, healthcare, since they're sort of like package deals that people vote for along with their politicians and governments.

It's very easy to sit and complain about how the government "curtails your freedom", but I doubt you've seriously thought this through. I don't think you've really considered the consequences of what you're saying.

Who's going to build the highways, the bridges, the air traffic control systems? Who's going to create the regulations and standards that even allow such things to be built? Who's going to regulate the economic system? You really want the economy to be totally at the mercy of "market forces"? Except maybe for local farmer's markets it would grind to a halt in short order.

You really want anyone to be able to print their own money, assuming anyone even accepted money? You really want to have no recourse if unscrupulous businesses supply you with tainted food, tainted medicines, tainted fuel, which they would assuredly do if there weren't regulations for those things? And suppose your next door neighbor decides he wants to build a pig farm. How nice is huge piles of pig s**t ten feet from the barbecue on your back deck? Sorry, you'll have no legal recourse. For that matter, you may not have to even worry about it, because your house just fell apart from the shoddy workmanship of the contractor who didn't have to bother himself with building codes.

You really think a volunteer fire department using horse-drawn wagons is sufficient to adequately protect our cities?

You really think the school system, despite its flaws and imperfections, would even be able to function without being regulated?

You really want to rely on somebody to run through the city yelling "a tornado is coming, a tornado is coming"?

You really want anyone to be able to print their own medical licenses?

You really want the utility companies to be required to build the nation's infrastructure? How well do you think they would be able to standardize on electrical transmission systems, on urban wastewater systems, on toxic waste disposal?

I could go on and on, but the point is .... as much as you may chafe at what you see as the "authority figures" of 21st century civilization, the fact is you've got to deal with 'em, whether you like it or not.


If it really bothers you this much, here's what you should do: move to northern Canada or Alaska and build yourself a cabin. Naturally, you'll be obliged to fashion your own stone ax with which to fell the trees for building materials, and you'll need to make your own spears and/or bow and arrow for hunting, because there won't be any fuel for a chainsaw. And there won't be any ammunition for a hunting rifle, because remember that it's the government that sets the standards and regulations for mining and metallurgical operations, so there's no steel available.

And don't get sick or injured, because there won't be any medicine other than what you can concoct yourself out of local medicinal plants.

I understand bristling at authority figures. But we are part of a society and everybody has to make some concessions to each other so that we can get along.

I suppose Aspies might be more frustrated at how societies arrange themselves, because Aspies generally are not as adept at getting the benefits that society offers. Society tends to be optimized for the majority and we, being a minority, get the short end of the stick.

Anarchy is an ideal that simply cannot work. The idea is that there should be no government to tell us what to do, that we should be able to lead our lives exactly as we see fit, hopefully applying the golden rule as we go along. But so long as one person is stronger, more aggressive and greedy, that person will attempt to control another person.

Governments are a necessary evil. They demand that we give up some rights and throw some money into the general pool that everyone shares, but with these sacrifices, we gain protection from tyrants. As far as I can see, with all its faults, American democracy is one of the best necessary evils we can come up with. Done right, it can protect the weak, support the needy and provide for the common good without funneling all the wealth to a small number of powerful people. Hopefully one day we can get closer to that ideal.

Even as a kid, I knew America being a free country was just a lie. If America was so free, I wouldn't have to be tourtured on the daily basis in a place where I was supposedly being educated.

People in power didn't hand over laws to protect people from tyrants. It's s been a long process of decentralizing power such as the property owning classes wrestling land from the fuedal system. Now it's been a process of people on the lower rungs asserting themselves and so concessions are made~ 8 hour work days, weekends, laws to protect workers on job sites, minimum wage, etc. from the powers of the property owning.

If no one chaffed under rule than people would be in even worse shape.

I agree with decentralized federated communities and workplaces as opposed to top down hierarchical organizing. If there's always going to be people trying to rule over and oppress people, I think it'd best to take into account that negative impulse in some humans, and think about making the structure of your society and it's organizations harder for one person, or a handful of people, to take the reigns on control.

Amen to that!

may i suggest a minor edit... replace "educated" with "indoctrinated"

also to Jediscraps: I think we need to get back to colonialism. We the people should choose our associations, not have a central government do that for us. A like-minded groupof individuals should be able to form a colony of sorts, independent of a national government, if we dont like it, we can join a different colony or start our own.

I did not vote for, nor do i approve of how obama is running the country. Those of us who voted for mccain or a 3rd party candidate should have recourse. If we were colonized we could do that. Colony A is run by obama, colony b is run my mccain, colony c.....and so on.

Majority rule leaves alot of people out of the loop.

His decisions will impact your life regardless of your will in the matter. The only way to get out from under the President is to leave the country. But then you will be under the authority of someone else that you never consented to have governance over you.

Perhaps you should become a hermit. Then you will have yourself and only yourself.

ruveyn

Unfortunately, there is no place on Earth that isn't claimed as territory by SOME government, including any new land that may rise out of the sea. It would be nice to have a place that people could go if they wanted to opt out of the consistently broken system we have now and live their lives in peace and free from interference.

I would bet that there are a fair number of Aspies who are libertarian since so many of us have been hassled simply for being different in our lives.