The Modernist Papers

I think there is a misconception, in society, about what is Liberty and what is Civil Government.

One of the theories, that I hold to, was something I learned when I read the Second Treatise of Civil Government by John Locke, who has been called the primary philosopher of the United States Contitutional Convention (as many of his writings are echoed in the Federalist Papers as well as the works of James Madison, and many of the Constitutional Framers)

In particular, I point the readers of Jeremy-Gilby-dot-com to Chaper 7 of the above text: Chapter 7: Of Political of Civil Society and Chapter 8: Chapter 8: Of the Beginning of Political Societies

In this day of history, there is a lot of noise from the press (and opponents of the current administration) about the unwarrented NSA Wiretaps on U.S. Citizens and their communications with known terrorists. The noise is that American rights are being abused.

My argument is that American citizens do not have the rights they might think.

Locke is a master at the philosophy of government. In his Second Treatise of Civil Government he starts with the postulate that all human beings are ruled by Natural Law; which he calls, the The State of Nature (Chapter 2).
In the state of nature, each man or woman is master of his own destiny. His only obedience is to his/her Creator. No other being has any control or jurisprudence over the man/woman. There are no rules, no guidlines, no expectations. The man/woman has perfect liberty.

A wise man once told me that all personal liberty essentially enslaves the liberty of another.
ie. If one man has the liberty to steal, the person he steals from is enslaved, and does not have the liberty of safety.
Or if I have the liberty to speak my mind, you do not have the liberty to silence me.
Locke desribed this conflict of liberty as the State of War (Chapter 3) [I expound of the State of War in a previous post]
Loche argues that in the State of War, neither of the two men can enjoy their liberty until the State of War is resolved.

Here, Loche is the master of philsophical proof; like a mathematical wizard, he then frames his arguements around why mankind forms political societies. Mankind forms civil societies to preserve their individual liberties as defined by the State of Nature.

Sec. 95. Men being, as has been said, by nature, all free, equal, and independent, no one can be put out of this estate, and subjected to the political power of another, without his own consent. The only way whereby any one divests himself of his natural liberty, and puts on the bonds of civil society, is by agreeing with other men to join and unite into a community for their comfortable, safe, and peaceable living one amongst another, in a secure enjoyment of their properties, and a greater security against any, that are not of it. This any number of men may do, because it injures not the freedom of the rest; they are left as they were in the liberty of the state of nature. When any number of men have so consented to make one community or government, they are thereby presently incorporated, and make one body politic, wherein the majority have a right to act and conclude the rest.

So, to preserve themselves from their potential enemies, mankind has the option to join into a union with other men.
To avoid a state of war, the union of men must ALL surrender certain rights as to preserve the majority of thier rights as provided by the State of Nature. (This was the basis that many of the Constitutional Founders used to draft the U.S. Constitution, the first representative democracy the world has ever seen.)

Sec. 97. And thus every man, by consenting with others to make one body politic under one government, puts himself under an obligation, to every one of that society, to submit to the determination of the majority, and to be concluded by it; or else this original compact, whereby he with others incorporates into one society, would signify nothing, and be no compact, if he be left free, and under no other ties than he was in before in the state of nature. For what appearance would there be of any compact? what new engagement if he were no farther tied by any decrees of the society, than he himself thought fit, and did actually consent to? This would be still as great a liberty, as he himself had before his compact, or any one else in the state of nature hath, who may submit himself, and consent to any acts of it if he thinks fit.

This my friends in the beginning of all civil goverment in the human realm.
Independent men, joining together, to protect themselves from enemies foreign and domestic. Submitting themselves to the will of the majority. If the union says that man does not have a specific right, none of the members of this union have that right, lest they be in a State of War.
You may not realize it, but as a citizen of the United States, you have voluntarily surrendered certain rights to the United States government, and submitted yourself to the will of the majority. A majority that, once upon a time, submitted their obediece to a series of government offices, as outlined in the United States Constitution and many proceeding documents which were brought forth.

Sec. 99. Whosoever therefore out of a state of nature unite into a community, must be understood to give up all the power, necessary to the ends for which they unite into society, to the majority of the community, unless they expresly agreed in any number greater than the majority. And this is done by barely agreeing to unite into one political society, which is all the compact that is, or needs be, between the individuals, that enter into, or make up a commonwealth. And thus that, which begins and actually constitutes any political society, is nothing but the consent of any number of freemen capable of a majority to unite and incorporate into such a society. And this is that, and that only, which did, or could give beginning to any lawful government in the world.

This is where we get the term Commonweath from:

COMMONWEALTH, n.

1. An established form of government, or civil polity; or more generally, a state; a body politic, consisting of a certain portion of men united by compact or tacit agreement, under one form of government and system of laws. This term is applied to the government of Great Britain, which is of a mixed character, and to other governments which are considered as free or popular, but rarely or improperly, to an absolute government. A commonwealth is properly a free state; a popular or representative government; a republic; as the commonwealth of Massachusetts. The word signifies strictly, the common good or happiness; and hence, the form of government supposed best to secure the public good.
2. The whole body of people in a state the public.
3. The territory of a state; as, all the land within the limits of the commonwealth.

Moreover,

Sec. 120. To understand this the better, it is fit to consider, that every man, when he at first incorporates himself into any commonwealth, he, by his uniting himself thereunto, annexed also, and submits to the community, those possessions, which he has, or shall acquire, that do not already belong to any other government: for it would be a direct contradiction, for any one to enter into society with others for the securing and regulating of property; and yet to suppose his land, whose property is to be regulated by the laws of the society, should be exempt from the jurisdiction of that government, to which he himself, the proprietor of the land, is a subject. By the same act therefore, whereby any one unites his person, which was before free, to any common-wealth, by the same he unites his possessions, which were before free, to it also; and they become, both of them, person and possession, subject to the government and dominion of that common-wealth, as long as it hath a being. Whoever therefore, from thenceforth, by inheritance, purchase, permission, or otherwise, enjoys any part of the land, so annexed to, and under the government of that common-wealth, must take it with the condition it is under; that is, of submitting to the government of the common-wealth, under whose jurisdiction it is, as far forth as any subject of it.

Sec. 121. But since the government has a direct jurisdiction only over the land, and reaches the possessor of it, (before he has actually incorporated himself in the society) only as he dwells upon, and enjoys that; the obligation any one is under, by virtue of such enjoyment, to submit to the government, begins and ends with the enjoyment; so that whenever the owner, who has given nothing but such a tacit consent to the government, will, by donation, sale, or otherwise, quit the said possession, he is at liberty to go and incorporate himself into any other common-wealth; or to agree with others to begin a new one, in vacuis locis, in any part of the world, they can find free and unpossessed: whereas he, that has once, by actual agreement, and any express declaration, given his consent to be of any common- wealth, is perpetually and indispensably obliged to be, and remain unalterably a subject to it, and can never be again in the liberty of the state of nature; unless, by any calamity, the government he was under comes to be dissolved; or else by some public act cuts him off from being any longer a member of it.

Sec. 122. But submitting to the laws of any country, living quietly, and enjoying privileges and protection under them, makes not a man a member of that society: this is only a local protection and homage due to and from all those, who, not being in a state of war, come within the territories belonging to any government, to all parts whereof the force of its laws extends. But this no more makes a man a member of that society, a perpetual subject of that common-wealth, than it would make a man a subject to another, in whose family he found it convenient to abide for some time; though, whilst he continued in it, he were obliged to comply with the laws, and submit to the government he found there. And thus we see, that foreigners, by living all their lives under another government, and enjoying the privileges and protection of it, though they are bound, even in conscience, to submit to its administration, as far forth as any denizen; yet do not thereby come to be subjects or members of that common- wealth. Nothing can make any man so, but his actually entering into it by positive engagement, and express promise and compact. This is that, which I think, concerning the beginning of political societies, and that consent which makes any one a member of any common-wealth.

Does that mean we have given up our right to protest, or to argue? (Not exactly.)
We have submitted ourselves to the laws that are written by the Legislative Branch of the above government. We have submitted outselves to the observances of those laws, enforced by the Executve Branch of our Govermnet. We have also submitted outselves to the advocacy of our rights, under those laws, by the Judicial Branch of our Goverment.

We have said to those powers, “We submit to you, and your duty to us is to keep us safe.”

We have the ability to appeal, and to protest, but only because those that went before us were wise enough to allow such dissent.

But, it is important to realize, some of our individual rights have been surrendered; and it is possible that our allegence to the United States may result in the removal of additional rights, for the benefit of our security. It was Ben Franklin who said:

Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.

He knew his Loche; he knew that Safety comes with a cost, and that cost is Liberty.
…and that Liberty isn’t cheap.