Fallacy:
Statists assert that because you live somewhere (or have a birth certificate, or citizenship, or paid taxes at one point, have a driver's license, have driven on state-owned roads, etc.), you have agreed to an implicit, unwritten contract to follow the state's laws and pay whatever taxes they demand.
E.g., "[O]ur government was here before you. You may not have signed up but your parents signed you up. It's called a birth certificate and it says you're a citizen of this country and with that title comes all the financial and legal obligations and responsibilities."
Response:
A contract requires two parties; it is not a unilateral instrument. Furthermore, it requires a meeting of the minds (effectively, both parties understand what they're agreeing to), clear terms, actual agreement, and exchange of considerations (you don't need a contract to give a gift).
Old papers signed by the dead are not contracts binding on the living. You can't sign a contract for other people (without their explicit permission, e.g., power of attorney).
To the assertion that a birth certificate is such a contract (agreement), I point out that one person may not sign a contract for another. A parent may act as guardian, and act on a child's behalf, but that still does not entitle them to make promises and enter into obligations for that person. (DBR)
A constitution is nothing more than a piece of paper that people running government "agree" to abide by. It is not an agreement with the "citizens" (or should I say "subjects") of the government. It is a unilateral set of edicts. (DV)
An excellent illustration of this principle of the tyrant goes like this:
- A Wolf, meeting with a Lamb astray from the fold, resolved not to lay violent hands on him, but to find some plea to justify to the Lamb the Wolf's right to eat him.
- He thus addressed him: "Sirrah, last year you grossly insulted me."
- "Indeed," bleated the Lamb in a mournful tone of voice, "I was not then born."
- Then said the Wolf, "You feed in my pasture."
- "No, good sir," replied the Lamb, "I have not yet tasted grass."
- Again said the Wolf, "You drink of my well."
- "No," exclaimed the Lamb, "I never yet drank water, for as yet my mother's milk is both food and drink to me."
- Upon which the Wolf seized him and ate him up, saying, "Well! I won't remain supperless, even though you refute every one of my imputations."
- The tyrant will always find a pretext for his tyranny.
-The Wolf and the Lamb, Aesop's Fables (DV)
See also: Larken Rose's Videos/I'mAllowedToRobYou.
Related: ../SocialContract, ../RestaurantAnalogy, ../ForceHappens.