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It seems Mr Spooner is (was) of the opinion that the present Constitution is null and void and without force of law.
Sounds like he would have fit in well in certain parts of Idaho. I see no practical value in this missive other than a call to anarchy, such as was his method.
Just a few thoughts:
I see the Constitution as a framework of laws that protects the citizen from his/her government. Certainly it not as effective as it might be but we the citizenry, in our own greed, allow the government to take liberties against us that we should not allow... That, Jarrod is unhappily our fault!
As to taxes, we want certain things, does it not follow, that we should in some way, pay for them? The "government" cannot, since they are penniless without our hard earned dollars.
Should I, because I have no school age children, pay nothing toward public education? The consequences of that policy would be immediate and detrimental to the collective citizens of the nation, would they not?
Asa nation, it is a cooperative effort that we are enjoined. I we elevate our own self interest then the interests of the citizenry, as a whole, are adversely impacted!
Spooner is dead, but has adherents even today. His views are, in my opinion, decidedly imbalanced and not practical in any way that I can accept. Narrow focused ideologues and their ideologies are rarely the basis for stable and enlightened societies.
Words of a man that clearly disagreed with Mr. Spooner can be found here:
http://showcase.netins.net/web/creative/lincoln/speeches/1inaug.htm
This is the central argument Mr. L advanced:
"I hold, that in contemplation of universal law, and of the Constitution, the Union of these States is perpetual. Perpetuity is implied, if not expressed, in the fundamental law of all national governments. It is safe to assert that no government proper, ever had a provision in its organic law for its own termination. Continue to execute all the express provisions of our national Constitution, and the Union will endure forever -- it being impossible to destroy it, except by some action not provided for in the instrument itself.
Again, if the United States be not a government proper, but an association of States in the nature of contract merely, can it, as a contract, be peaceably unmade, by less than all the parties who made it? One party to a contract may violate it -- break it, so to speak; but does it not require all to lawfully rescind it?
Descending from these general principles, we find the proposition that, in legal contemplation, the Union is perpetual, confirmed by the history of the Union itself. The Union is much older than the Constitution. It was formed in fact, by the Articles of Association in 1774. It was matured and continued by the Declaration of Independence in 1776. It was further matured and the faith of all the then thirteen States expressly plighted and engaged that it should be perpetual, by the Articles of Confederation in 1778. And finally, in 1787, one of the declared objects for ordaining and establishing the Constitution, was "to form a more perfect Union." But if [the] destruction of the Union, by one, or by a part only, of the States, be lawfully possible, the Union is less perfect than before the Constitution, having lost the vital element of perpetuity.
It follows from these views that no State, upon its own mere motion, can lawfully get out of the Union, -- that resolves and ordinances to that effect are legally void, and that acts of violence, within any State or States, against the authority of the United States, are insurrectionary or revolutionary, according to circumstances.
I therefore consider that in view of the Constitution and the laws, the Union is unbroken; and to the extent of my ability I shall take care, as the Constitution itself expressly enjoins upon me, that the laws of the Union be faithfully executed in all the States. Doing this I deem to be only a simple duty on my part; and I shall perform it, so far as practicable, unless my rightful masters, the American people, shall withhold the requisite means, or in some authoritative manner, direct the contrary. I trust this will not be regarded as a menace, but only as the declared purpose of the Union that will constitutionally defend and maintain itself."
Mr. L made a strong logical (legal) argument that the Constitution was binding on an ongoing basis even without the assent of the present day citizens of this nation.
regards
mike
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64 220 (RIP, now he's parts on the hoof) - 65 220 - 68 220 (almost ready for the road), and a 66 130 (35k miles last year)
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