KrisKrinkle:
When tpaine used the word "sign" I infer he meant: The subscription of one's name; signature.
Izzy responds:
I know he did, but he's wrong.
Contracts are created all the time with a word or a handshake. If you read up on contract law, you'll be surprised to learn that the signature is not in fact what creates a contract. A contract is made when a party makes an offer, and another party accepts the offer. A signature is optional, and does not play an integral role. Rather, the signature constitutes evidence that you accepted the offer.
--- you don't understand the actual role of signature in contracts.
--- if you understand contract law: an implied contract is an agreement which, although not explcitly stated, nevertheless exists between the two parties.
To prove that it exists, you must prove that there's an agreement between us. To prove that, you look at whatever explicit agreements we've made, and at our interactions.
--- you can't select two people at random and claim that they have an "implicit contract" between them. There must be evidence of the existence of an agreement.
-407- Shalom Israel
tpaine here:
Izzy, -- anyone could pick two people, at random, off the streets of the USA, and establish with two questions whether they have an "implicit Constitutional contract" between them.
-- The first question: -- Have you ever pledged allegiance to the flag of the USA, and to the Republic for which it stands?
The second: -- Did your pledge mean or imply that you agree with the principles of our Constitution?
The response would overwhelmingly prove that there's an agreement between most ALL of us.
Granted, a few, like you, would answer no. -- Which is fine, - rational people learn to ignore aberrations.
KrisKrinkle comments on #407:
If we can ever agree on the existence of the Social Contract (or Compact as they used to say) perhaps someday we can discuss its nature.
Izzy riposts:
Um, yes: that's exactly the subject under debate.
The founders were quite mistaken in that they did believe in this notion.
I can prove that no actual contract was involved, though!
When the Constitutional convention was over, Mrs. Powel approached Benjie Franklin and asked, "Well Doctor, what have we got, a republic or a monarchy?" In other words, she didn't even know what the new government was--and yet, inside the convention, the founders glibly spoke of a "compact" to which Mrs. Powel was supposedly a signatory.
-411-
Kris, when izzy presents definitive smash down proof like Mrs Powells words, -- what more need be said?
The Social Contract and Constitutional Republics
Address:
http://www.constitution.org/soclcont.htm
-- Duties under the Social Contract --
While a constitution prescribes the legal rights of individuals and the powers of government, the social contract also includes certain duties which members assume upon entry.
Those duties include the duty to avoid infringing on the rights of other members, to obey just laws, to comply with and help enforce just contracts, to serve on juries, and to defend the community.
It is important to recognize that although individuals have a right of self-defense in the state of nature, when they enter into society under the social contract, the pooling of that right transforms it into a duty to defend the community, and therefore to risk or sacrifice one's life, liberty, or property if such defense should require it.
The right of self-defense is no longer supreme, although it survives the transition to society as a duty to defend oneself as part of the community.
Pacifism in the face of mortal danger to oneself or others is therefore not consistent with the social contract, and persons who insist on that position must be considered not to be members of society or entitled to its benefits, and if they live in the same country, have the status of resident aliens.
This duty implies not only individual action to defend the community, but the duty to do so in concert with others as an organized and trained militia.
Since public officials may themselves pose a threat to the community, such militias may be subject to call-up by officials, but may not be subject to their control except insofar as they are acting in accordance with the constitution and laws pursuant thereto, and in defense of the community. Since any official designated to call up the militia may be an enemy of the constitution and laws, and may fail to issue a call-up when appropriate, militias must remain able to be called up by any credible person and independent of official control.
Another important duty is jury duty. Since officials may be corrupt or abusive or their power, grand jurors have the duty not only to bring an indictment upon evidence presented to it by a prosecutor, but to conduct their own investigations and if necessary, to appoint their own prosecutors to conduct a trial on the evidence.
Petit jurors have the duty to not only follow the instructions of the judge to bring a verdict on the "facts" in a case, but to rule on all issues before the court, overriding the judge if necessary.
No matter how despicable an accused defendant might be or how heinous his acts, they have the duty to find that accused not guilty if the court lacks jurisdiction, if the rights of the accused were seriously violated in the course of the investigation or trial, or if the law under which the accused is charged is misapplied to the case or is unconstitutional; and to find the law unconstitutional if it is in violation of the constitutional rights of the accused, if it is not based on any power delegated to the government, if it is unequally enforced, or if it is so vague that honest persons could disagree on how to obey or enforce it.