Re:Government officials in Amherst, VA can now require emplo...
by anigbrowl on Monday August 31, 2015 @11:10PM
(#10150500)
every single taxpayer is a victim of unethical and immoral theft by government...
But insofar as governments are constituted or upheld by the will of the citizens, there's no moral injury. People want physical and social infrastructure and voluntarily group together to set up institutions to achieve those ends. Now, since nobody alive in the USA today was around to sign the Constitution you could argue that everyone living in the US at present was opted into a social contract without their consent, but on the other hand there's a longstanding legal principle called quantum meruit that says it's OK to charge for services that were provided out of reasonable necessity even if they weren't requested. This is why you can be knocked unconscious and later receive a bill for being transported to the hospital by ambulance, even though you were aware of or competent to contract with the ambulance operators. (This has happened to me, and it's quite a strange experience to get a large bill for a service you have no memory of receiving.)
But insofar as governments are constituted or upheld by the will of the citizens, there's no moral injury. People want physical and social infrastructure and voluntarily group together to set up institutions to achieve those ends. Now, since nobody alive in the USA today was around to sign the Constitution you could argue that everyone living in the US at present was opted into a social contract without their consent, but on the other hand there's a longstanding legal principle called quantum meruit that says it's OK to charge for services that were provided out of reasonable necessity even if they weren't requested. This is why you can be knocked unconscious and later receive a bill for being transported to the hospital by ambulance, even though you were aware of or competent to contract with the ambulance operators. (This has happened to me, and it's quite a strange experience to get a large bill for a service you have no memory of receiving.)