Yes it is. If I lend you $10 and you refuse to pay it back, it is generally deemed "morally okay" for me to be mean about it. Courts, and by extension, police enforcement of court rulings are that principle writ large.

The whole concept of ownership is based on social contract. What is "mine" versus "yours" arises from that contract. Theft, because it is rooted in ownership, is thus a relative construct.

Except a social contract is not a contract at all. There's no offer, no acceptance, no consideration, no capacity to contract, etc.

> Theft, because it is rooted in ownership, is thus a relative construct

I don't disagree here. But I'd like to see the social contract be an actual contract that you opt-into. Specifically, one that can be arbitrated on and dissolved upon violating terms of the agreement.

Of course there's a million reasons why people would disagree with that statement. Which is fine, but let's not pretend the government and governed have a voluntary relationship established in some sort of contract.

Fine, don't call it a social contract. Call it a foo. People, collectively wielding more power than any individual, agreed on a set of rules that make collective life better (in the view of those people). These rules are the foo. If you are in the geography where these people, your fellow citizens, have power then you must follow the foo or face consequences. If you don't like the foo, you can leave.

> I'd like to see the social contract be an actual contract that you opt-into

How would you propose enforcing laws? The U.S. Constitution and its ensuing legal corpus is the law of the land. If you don't like it, you can "opt out" by leaving.

Are you saying that because you agree? Because that was the only point I was making..

We can all agree that gangs, mafias and cartels have collective power and use the threat of force to govern territories. The distinction we're making is whether these cartels constitute a "legitimate" government - whatever that means.

I think legitimacy should be measured by consent (crazy idea I know), and that not leaving a territory doesn't constitute consent. Mexican families living in cartel-land do not give consent because they're too poor to leave. Because a said cartel provides "protection" from other cartels does not mean a service was provided.

I'm just asking people reason about government in principle, rather than in terms of what they think a government should be.

No. I just find discussing ideas more meaningful than arguing definitions.

> "legitimate" government - whatever that means

Don't handwaive this away. The boot-up process, which builds founding myths and their related constructs, is integral as much as with any other venture.

Ignore it and you will be advocating for the unrealistic (e.g. "everyone signs a contract at 18 or gets banished") or the abominable (e.g. "we will have an efficient, culturally homogenous society once we kill the Jews").

If the law is just. Otherwise it's literally a Crime Against Humanity to force that choice on someone.

We recognize that a person cannot be deprived of statehood. (Or, put in a situation where they must deprive themselves of their own statehood to escape, such as threatening them for their religion, sexual orientation, etc.)

Most people view theft as wrong because it takes someone's property from them by force, not because it's illegal.

You don't get to both 'give away a freedom to the government via the social contract in exchange for protection of your other freedoms' and then also say "hey, it's immoral to not have this freedom; Give it back!". It's one or the other.

A group of people calling themselves the government and creating ideological constructs like "social contract" are still committing a human rights violation when they throw someone in prison for refusing to hand over a share of the currency they receive in private trade.

Hum, the whole point of anarchism is that they don't even recognize the first as valid, let alone wanting both.

Seriously, this is some of the craziest doublethink imaginable. Something is not made just just because the majority say so, or just because the state says so. There are unjust laws.

This is the opposite: you seem utterly incapable of understanding basic, well-known positions, and you imagine I am delusional (lizards? really?) when your comprehension fails you.

The state as a concept is not the same as a normal person, obviously. It is subject to different rules.

Something is made just because the governing system that the people have agreed to says it is just. That's the theory that our system of government operates under. You don't have to like that, but you're ignorant if you just say it's false without going and doing some learning.

I am also wondering if you know what a 'law' is and how it differs from 'the text of the constitution'.

That's not an accepted definition in most of the world, including the US, which accepts stuff like the UDHR. We in the West consider many States unjust if we consider that they violate human rights, even if their population supports that.

A person acting under the auspices of a state has no right to violate human rights. A state is merely a human construct. No human construct grants a person a right to violate human rights.

Human rights are a human construct. Moreover, they only make sense within the context of social contract which only becomes practical when enforced by a government.

And 'social contract' is double speak. It's an attempt to misappropriate the concept of a contract to confer moral legitimacy to majority dictates.