Dear Friends,
It seems to me, any supposed agreement, where one party can change the terms at will, while the other is held strictly to those new terms, is not an agreement… but a slave title. Moreover, any court that upholds such an, ahem, “cough cough,” agreement, is a diligent servant of injustice. In a contract, both sides give something of value for something of value. That is contract law 101. When you buy a car, you sign a contract. In that contract, you give something of value for something of value, ie, you give money and get a car. The car dealership does the same. They give you a car and in return get money. Simple. If, on the other hand, the dealership could take your money and withhold the car… that would not be a contract, it would be something else… something unjust.
The entire capitalist mindset is based on contracts, profit/loss and individualism. An ancient Roman didn’t think that way nor did an American Indian. That capitalist mindset is a consequence of the overt acceptance of a market system, Adam Smith’s book that introduced the ideas into the zeitgeist, and the Industrial Revolution. Today most average people in the West think that way. We weigh our options for an outcome based on profit and loss. The elite have evolved beyond the capitalist mindset, and back to a more pure way of looking at the world, that of Thrasymachus’ Great men. Psychopaths who would rule others by whatever means possible. They are cut from the same poorly woven burlap as Mao, Hitler and Tamerlane. So… contracts don’t have the weight for them it does us.
One of the advances made possible by the introduction of the capitalist mindset, was what we today call, The Enlightenment. It coevolved with the market system. In fact, Adam Smith, Ben Franklin and Thomas Jefferson were leading intellectuals of the Enlightenment. One of the pervasive fears of all Enlightenment thinkers, was of Thrasymachus’ Great men, and that they be limited. Back then they were called kings, princes and aristocracy, today they are called Presidents, parliaments and bureaucracy. Even those who would be the fathers of the French Revolution, and all its crimes against humanity, were dedicated to limiting the power of arbitrary authority. Until they seized unlimited power, then it needed to be wielded ruthlessly, for the sake of Liberty, Equality and Fraternity.
One of the means Enlightenment thinkers came up with to limit those “great men” was by a contract between the governed and the governors. They called the contract a “Constitution.” That contract was written in plain English of the time so everyone, learned and laborer, understood what it meant and how it limited government. The court system was set up as the protector of that Constitution by another innovation by a fellow named Montesquieu. He had the idea to break the courts from the executive, and create a third branch of government, the Judicial. Wiley codgers they were, so the US founding fathers seized on the idea and incorporated it into the US Constitution, as a further bulwark against the elite becoming Thrasymachus’ Great men. The new court system would keep the elite in line!
The courts have become captured by the same ideology as the rest of the elite. This didn’t happen overnight. There has been a slow chipping away at our Constitution since it was created. Lately the elite have adopted jackhammers to quicken the pace. So much so, that we now stand upon a pile of rubble, where a great constitutional republic once stood. Our, “living breathing constitution,” can be changed by fiat, the legislative process, the administrative state and the courts, as the elite see fit. The elite violate it at will with the blessing of our vaunted courts. Making our Constitution, the contract between us and the elite, a slave title. Which means, the contract is become null and void. Isn’t it time we put them on notice, we have a contract and they are violating it, or does slavery suit us?
Sincerely,
John Pepin
