That is a shame, because I honestly think we could both learn things from one another by challenging each other's viewpoints...
Look, I'll be the first to praise you, because you have challenged my viewpoints!
Now, I don't agree with everything you say -- but that's what makes for lively and interesting conversation! If we agreed completely on all points, that wouldn't be an interesting conversation, now would it?
>"It is, also, unfortunately (most unfortunately, for I, too, enjoy the work of Locke, and Hume, and Hobbes), a bit irrelevant. Because as you've observed, nost people don't interest themselves in law, and don't read the various books, the various documents, etc., that bring it to a consistent philosophy."
On this point, we agree completely!
>"The governing philosophy in America today is one of the elected over, mostly, the ignorant. Any practical approach we take to understanding how things work in reality must factor that in."
We're also completely agreed on this point; although I will add this: Government doesn't teach what a court is or how one works, i.e., it doesn't give people a "users manual" or "operator training" (no civics classes in public schools anymore), and yet, police, in their duty, when arresting people, bring people to the courts.
If there are apparent problems with the police these days, it is my own belief that the problems are not with the Police -- but rather with the lack of law/legal/process/civics education surrounding courts -- what they are, how they function, etc., etc.
(Fun side story: I remember a test in a 9th grade math class, where a buddy of mine had the audacity to write "when the hell did we learn this?" on the test, on one of the harder problems! <g>. Needless to say, the teacher was not amused! <g>)
Well, psychologically, psychologically then, what's the psychological effect -- when someone who is uneducated or undereducted -- is forced to show up at court by police arresting them?
To understand this, let's use "Jumanji" (the original Robin Williams movie) as an example.
Jumanji -- is a very strange, hostile and extremely dangerous place for those who haven't lived there; for those that don't understand its rules. Make a move to try learn something, do the wrong thing, and punishment is swift and painful!
Well, you see, you live in an America today which is split.
One the one hand, you have Lawyers, educated in Law School school, with prestigious Law School degrees -- who understand (and know how to use!) courts and the legal system! To them (because it works for them, because they know how to use it) it's a beautiful thing, a "thing of great beauty", unquestionable and inviolate.
On the other, you have people who are not educated in, nor understand any part of that system.
To them, should they get there, what seems like a thing of great beauty, unquestionable and inviolate to Lawyers and others knowledgable in Law -- seems to them like "Jumanji World".
If you wanted to understand this perspective further, you would want to read the works of Franz Kafka -- which is where we get the word "Kafkaesque" from.
But anyway, who put these people into Jumanji-world? The most obvious observable thing is that the police brought them there forcefully!
So you see, what happens psychologically then in an uneducated/undereducated in (courts/law/civics/legal processes/etc.) mind -- is that they blame the most obvious thing, they blame the police!
Now, Police are not exactly innocent in all cases -- but 99.9% of them are basically good hardworking people.
But I've outlined the underlying psychology of WHY all of the protests, etc. It's not a single instance of police misconduct that created them. The George Floyd incident -- was only the proverbial "straw that broke the camels back" (you need a lot more incidents prior to that -- this is only the most recent crack in the dyke where now so much water is leaking that it may be impossible to fix it...)
>"-) We have a country where circumstances matter and alter our interpretation of law. That's why we have courts."
Now that is music to my ears! We agree completely on this point! The fact that we have courts -- is actually PROOF (self-evident) that Law is subject to Circumstance! (Because why else would we have them?) If the Law is not subject to Circumstance, then you wouldn't need a group of people with different roles to decide the Law, a single person could do it, and you know what we call that single person? We call that person a Tyrant! (because this has happened over and over again in history!).
Also, Juries are self-evident proof that the Law is subject to Circumstance -- because, again, why else would you need them if it wasn't? If it wasn't, a single person or machine could make the determination.
Remember Judge Dredd? ("I am the Law!")? That's what can happen when a single individual is allowed to interpret the Law.
>"There is some flexibility and some mitigation (especially around punishment), though the law acts as guidelines. But under almost no circumstances does the law flex as far as "I withdrew my consent to be governed, therefore I cannot be justly coerced by this court or this government.""
First of all, calm down! <g> The government (as implemented by Judges(Magistrates), Prosecutors, Lawyers and the legal system) and has all sorts of tricks at its disposal that it uses to make sure that the above doesn't happen!
(That's of course, if you take the government perspective! <g>)
From my (non-government!) perspective, I quote to you Plato:
"Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly -- while bad people will find a way around the laws."
But let's revisit this sentence again:
>"But under almost no circumstances does the law flex as far as "I withdrew my consent to be governed, therefore I cannot be justly coerced by this court or this government.""
Here we disagree just a little bit...
You used the words justly coerced.
If you are using the word "coercion" in any context in Law, then I suggest that this is proof that you were (unknowingly, not your fault) not given the proper education as to what Law really is.
In order to understand what I'm going to tell you, I want you to think back in time, back in history.
You see, a long time ago, there wasn't a government as we know it today -- to enforce legal decisions with the force of government.
But Law still existed back then.
So then, how did the Law exist back then -- without the ability to enforce legal decisions with the force of government?
?
You see, if two people, back then, had a beef (disagreement, issue, contention, "cause of action", difficulty, or just plain "beef" as I like to call it) with one another, a beef that they could not resolve by themselves, what would they do?
They would find a man that both of them trusted, usually a wise man, a chief or village elder.
(That wise man, chief or village elder, is where we get the first Judge from, incidentally...)
But they would go to this wise man, and ask for this wise man's help -- in resolving the situation for them; in problem solving; in working out the issues.
That, incidentally, is the true purpose of a true court, to "make both parties whole" (to disentagle them, etc.)
But you see, at this time, there could be no contract, because there could be no enforcement of that contract (contracts are only as good as the ability to enforce them is, otherwise, people could just say, "I didn't agree to that", and walk away, as previously pointed out).
But the Law still existed -- and in its most pure form back then!
What is Law, in its most pure form, then?
Law, in its most pure form -- is the power to persuade.
You see, if you can't make people budge by enforcement, your only other option is to persuade them.
Persuasion.
All of the early legal texts, documents and doctrines -- all point to this understanding, in one way or another.
You see, a long time ago, wise individuals who could do this, that is, Judges (from a long time ago), were prized and sought-after, but their decisions were not backed by the threat of force!
They were backed by logic, understanding, and persuasion!
They made people do things -- that they otherwise wouldn't do! (As any good persuasion would!).
So what happened if something didn't work out?
Well, you went back to the Judge (with your neighbor, or whoever you had the beef with) and you tried again!
And, that system worked!
It how early, pre-printing press, pre-big-government, pre-Internet societies made peace amongst its members!
So if you really want to understand Law -- then you want to understand that early history, and you want to understand it exceedingly, exceedingly well!
I will reply to the rest of your comments in my next response...
I previously posted that I would write an additional post to address all of your points, but I think that on HN, for this article, for the orginal subject posted on, it goes too much off topic.
But that being said -- I would address all of your points if you emailed me: [email protected]
It is, also, unfortunately (most unfortunately, for I, too, enjoy the work of Locke, and Hume, and Hobbes), a bit irrelevant. Because as you've observed, nost people don't interest themselves in law, and don't read the various books, the various documents, etc., that bring it to a consistent philosophy.
The governing philosophy in America today is one of the elected over, mostly, the ignorant. Any practical approach we take to understanding how things work in reality must factor that in.
To address a few concrete points:
-) We have a country where circumstances matter and alter our interpretation of law. That's why we have courts. There is some flexibility and some mitigation (especially around punishment), though the law acts as guidelines. But under almost no circumstances does the law flex as far as "I withdrew my consent to be governed, therefore I cannot be justly coerced by this court or this government." I'm thinking of 'sovereign citizens' specifically, and they in general wind up in prison (unless they use force to make it inconvenient to apply counter-force, which is rare and risky, since one cannot guarantee the various arms of the US government will stay their hands at application of force).
-) We are a country that was founded in breaking the existing law, this is true. When I said "The social contract is not lightly broken. If one breaks it without a plan for an alternative that can be at least as powerful as the previous arrangement..." the fact that the Revolutionary War succeeded is what I meant by 'at least as powerful as.' Contrast the Civil War, where the South attempted a similar feat and failed (and Reconstruction after, where the North over-extended by attempting to enforce federal law and, arguably, also failed).
-) Freedom to dissociate
... is generous but limited. One cannot practically escape a murder charge by fleeing to the nearest mountain-top. One cannot avoid shared responsibilities like runoff abatement by declaring oneself a sovereign country within the US territory. And we have very specific carve-outs for protected classes of individuals where if we associate with anyone for a purpose (such as employer-employee relationship), we are banned from basing that association on certain qualities, such as gender or skin color.
-) Name two people in authority who have broken the social contract
Well, there was Richard Nixon, who stepped down before being impeached for using his Presidency to bug his political opponents. A judge in Pennsylvania was sentenced to a couple decades in jail for a bribery scandal (https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2011/08/11/139536686...) which led to the overturning of dozens of convictions because the process was corrupt. But the unrest right now is related to police authority and support for said authority. Depending on how you slice it, the blame spreads around here; to my mind, some blame is on police for acting as they do in the moment, and a lot is on training and policy for telling police their actions are correct (in contrast to the person-on-the-street response; video evidence has made it hard for people to viscerally turn away and assume police are "just doing their jobs" when they see how policing is done and they contrast it with other countries).
-) How does America treat black Americans? I know I am exceedingly polite towards them. Also, why do you call them "black Americans" and not "Americans"?
This is not something I will invest the time to explain to you here, but I suggest, if you are American, you seek out answers on this topic. There are open riots and civil protests on this topic right now; it's a good idea to be educated on what that fighting is about.
-) what happens to a society, a free society -- when it violates one or more of its founding principles?
It depends on the nature of the violation. But to my mind, we're currently on America 3.0. So major changes can be made and major founding principles compromised without the destruction of the society. Societies can change.
Beta version was the Articles of the Confederacy. They didn't pan out because, fundamentally, they didn't address the practical issue of how to pay for a continent-sized federated government.
Version 1 was the US Constitution, as initially written: main document, 10 amendments out of the starting gate. A hell of a piece of work, but riddled with contradictions and compromises (including, most glaringly, the treatment of enslaved people as 3/5ths a person for the purposes of naked horse-trading over the power of Northern v. Southern states).
Version 2 was after the Civil War. The contradiction that glued two culturally-and-morally-disparate halves of the country together broke down. One half the states tried to declare themselves out of the social contract, and they were "informed" via most brutal force that it doesn't work that way. The country passed laws to make formerly-enslaved black Americans full citizens (but those laws were not universally enforced, and part of the reason we can speak of "black Americans" vs. "Americans" is the law did and the enforcement of the law still does treat them differently). Still, America 2.0 had 3 stark changes from America 1.0: No slavery, full citizenship of black American former slaves, and a clarification that the federal government has authority to use force over the states to ensure the civil rights of all Americans.
America 3 came after the Great Depression and expanded the federal authority over civil rights to the economy. Whereas the authority to regulate interstate trade was understood in the original Constitution, the New Deal established federal authority to regulate intrastate trade as well, because economies have nation-spanning impact. Thus if the government sets a price floor for milk, Kansas can't just ignore it in all sales from Kansas dairy farmers to Kansas consumers. It's less talked about than the changes at the Civil War, but the re-interpretation of federal authority that let the Fed unify the country to pull out of the Great Depression persists to today, in the authority of everything from the ATF to the EPA.
All this to say, a nation that violates its founding principles isn't doomed. America has violated its recognition of the right to own slaves and the right of intrastate fully-free trade and been stronger for these changes.