Human Social Contract

Greetings good citizen,

Most ‘major’ posts are setting down their ‘predictions’ for next year. Odd duck that I am, I’m filtering those predictions through the lens of the ‘Human social contract’.

Here, Ilargi provides us with an admittedly purloined top ten list that doesn’t stand up too well under the social contract prism.

I am sure most of you are scratching your head, wondering just what the hell I’m yapping about. There is no such thing as a formal ‘human social contract’ that has the force of law anywhere on the fucking planet. The only thing that comes close are a few religious tenants the might get you ‘ex-communicated’ if your are found guilty of breaking them.

Worse is the general ‘who gives a fuck’ attitude most people have towards this gaping omission from our legal statutes.

It’s like that tune by ‘The Clash’ back in the 80’s titled ‘Know your rights’.

You had precisely 3 of them…and the canny musicians gave each in turn as well as how each could be negated by the elite on a whim…

Which is to point out the frightening obvious. When it comes to ‘rights’ you have precisely zero.

So why don’t you kill the next person who crosses your path on general principles?

Ah ha! Now we’re getting somewhere! We all ‘agree’ not to fuck with (murder, maim, molest) those who don’t threaten us with such undesirable outcomes first.

It’s the ‘I’m okay, You’re okay’ contract that makes civilization itself possible. If you can’t trust people any farther than you can throw them, you can’t form a working society.

Now we get down to the real ‘nitty gritty’, what does this society ‘owe’ you for not attacking it or endangering its safety?

Is the answer ‘nothing’?

There are many who operate on precisely this principle (Fuck’ em all and the dumb ones twice!)

Sadly, ‘society’ has come to protect those who, er, operate under the ‘buyer beware’ system. Mostly because those who would screw you into the woodwork for their own gain have made ‘justifiable homicide’ illegal.

This is an extreme violation of the basic human contract…and it was only voided by ‘promising’ that ‘justice’ would be done, IF the system were allowed to work as intended.

What do you suppose the big flaw in this system has become? The ‘average person’ has, for a very long time, been unable to afford to bring a wrongdoer to court to seek justice.

You see, the (fucking) capitalist turned ‘justice’ into a ‘for profit’ venture. This in turn made it profitable to break the law (as well as the social contract) because the average victim couldn’t afford to seek justice!

This would NOT happen if wrongdoers faced being killed out of hand for their crimes. (But this tends to leave a lot of unanswered questions, as dead people tell no tales.)

What am I saying? A legal system that prevents you from seeking justice is itself unjust.

Perhaps part of the problem lies with the question ‘What is Justice?’

But I digress considerably from the point I’m trying to make.

We need to back up a couple of steps and return to the question of what does civil society ‘owe’ you, the law abiding citizen?

Let’s start with the single most basic question, what’s the point of being a member of society if that membership DOES NOT include THE IMPLICIT PROMISE of participation in that society? If your participation in a society does not GUARANTEE that you will be allowed access to what you need to survive, then membership in that society is USELESS!

What’s the single scariest feature of Libertarianism? The central concept of Libertarianism is that NOBODY OWES YOU ANYTHING!

And that is flat wrong! If this were true, Libertarians wouldn’t exist, they’d all be DEAD!

We keep returning to the ‘message of the season’ which tells us in no uncertain terms that the ‘business of humanity is NOT BUSINESS, the business of humanity IS HUMANITY!

Yet, somehow, most don’t seem to be able to grasp this simple concept…mostly because it conflicts with their instinct to grab as much as they can, as fast as they can, and screw everybody else!

And THAT’S not nice!

For that matter, neither is this, (it is not the charts but the commentary) that make this link worth following, it’s a dose of Jesse at his finest!

The human social contract, good citizen, it’s the reason we don’t kill one another on sight!

Most of you haven’t thought about it much but we really DO need to have this ‘bargain’ we are all forced to comply with ‘etched in stone’ somewhere.

Otherwise, your right to basic human dignity will continue to be violated by anyone with deeper pockets than your own…

Thanks for letting me inside your head,

Gegner