True: some people are quite certain they have the right to impose their will on my person or property. If it's only one person, I'll defend myself, and that's that. If it's many, many people, then I am ultimately defenceless against them, and must simply cope in one way or another. In fact, that's precisely the situation today.
They're all wrong, though. I can demonstrate it from scripture, from reason, and from utilitarian grounds. They're as wrong as the majority that supported slavery, or witch-burning, or [insert here].
Your first paragraph is fine as a statement on your part but it doesn't end any dispute as far as I can see.
You are quite right: ultimately, all I can do is try and convince tpaine. If my statement isn't utterly self-evident, then I know lots of things about tpaine--but I'm powerless to change them. By my own principles, I cannot change his mind by force. That's why libertarian thinking isn't, and probably never will be, widely embraced. But to any reasonable person, it should be quite clear how right my statement is.
A Implied Contract is an agreement among people, though it’s not necessarily formal (and may even be hypothetical, reached through a sort of consensus).
False. An "implied" contract is actually "implied" by something--namely, the parties' own voluntary words and actions. There's no way I can bind you by an "implicit contract" against your will. It's in no way analogous to a "social contract", which binds me from birth through no action of mine.
PS:
I'll point out, though, that if you try hard you can come up with thorny questions concerning such contracts. For example, a foreigner might invite you into his house, where you might inadvertantly do something interpreted in his culture as a death threat, upon which he kills you in self defense. I call that sort of thing an "unfortunate misunderstanding," but the correct resolution of such incidents isn't obvious on its face.
Even more interestingly, law has a concept of "quasi" contracts, which are like implied contracts except that there is only one party to them. For example, if a doctor rescues an unconscious accident victim, the victim didn't agree to a contract for services, but the courts will uphold the doctor's right to charge a fee for services anyway. Let me hasten to add, I don't agree with this concept, and find quasi-contracts to be highly problematic. My gut says sometimes the doctor should be paid, but sometimes he should be sued. For example, perhaps he's interfering in a suicide...
This opens an interesting area for continued research, however! Here's a better example: you walk up to my front door and ring the bell; I blow you away. Is this proper? One would argue it isn't: people have front doors and doorbells precisely for strangers' use in requesting entry. In legal terms today, this could be regarded as a "quasi" contract, since two parties never actually met and negotiated terms.
I don't have a formal answer to that hypothetical, but I reject the "one-sided contract" theory. In some sense, the front door represents a contract lying on the sidewalk, signed by the landowner. The visitor, by entering the property, effectively signs that contract. It gives him the right to go knock on the door, but not to borrow the lawn mower.
Culture has a role in this, which would cause tpaine, say, to mistake it for a "social contract". He would say that I'm bound by a social contract to let anyone ring my doorbell who wants to. Culture isn't a "social contract". Culture handles the job of providing a common understanding: it's by virtue of culture that the visitor knows the terms of this invisible contract. And it's by virtue of culture that the homeowner knows what to expect when he leaves his porch light on on Halloween.
The difference is that culture doesn't have binding force. It's purely a matter of communication. If I don't want you knocking on my door, I'll put a gate at the end of my sidewalk with a sign saying, "Absolutely no visitors." I'll do it because I know what people will do if I don't, thanks to the communication medium of culture. I can refuse to enter into any of the implied contracts floating out there, but I must communicate the fact clearly lest I find myself in one of those "unfortunate misunderstandings" that can be so invonvenient.
The distinction between a social contract and an implied contract is sharp and clear, but folks are unused to thinking in terms of contract law because our legal system doesn't really respect it--thanks in large part to O. W. Holmes himself. I invite you to consider this distinction, and see how cleanly it resolves so many seemingly difficult problems today.
Culture has a role in this, which would cause tpaine, say, to mistake it for a "social contract". He would say that I'm bound by a social contract to let anyone ring my doorbell who wants to.
Insane comment izzy.. -- I would say, just as you did:
"--- If I don't want you knocking on my door, I'll put a gate at the end of my sidewalk with a sign saying, "Absolutely no visitors." ---"
Try to rise above such schoolyard tactics my boy. -- You'll look less foolish.
I’d say they also have to have a mutual understanding of the voluntary words and actions and I think that leads back to the social contract.
Shalom Israel wrote: “There's no way I can bind you by an "implicit contract" against your will. It's in no way analogous to a "social contract", which binds me from birth through no action of mine.”
Disregarding the truth or falsity of your first sentence, neither I nor tpaine (if I recall correctly) have said a “social contract” binds you from birth through no action of yours. One way or another we have both said that you can opt out. I say that you can be an outlaw and in short tpaine says that you are free to “renounce citizenship and/or leave.”
I’m not a professional user of logic, but it seems to me that you offered an approximation of what we say, knock it down, and gave the appearance (at least superficially) of negating it.
I see most of your PS as containing arguments in favor of the concept of the social contract, but it does not please me to address that right now.