How The Constitution Was Ratified (A Simplified Analogy)

in anarchism •  7 years ago 

Imagine you live in a territory with a population of 100. Someone says:

"We need some rules. A few of us got together and drafted a constitution to set the rules and now we're going to give people the opportunity to vote on it. It turns out that 10 of the 100 people here are eligible to vote."

The election is held. Five out of the ten eligible voters choose to participate. The constitution passes by a vote of 3 to 2.

That's roughly analogous to how the constitution was ratified. The percentages may be off a little, but probably no more than 10% of the population was eligible to vote and and not all eligible voters voted and not all of those voting favored the constitution.

Now if you were one of the 90 individuals who were not even allowed to participate, or one of the 5 who chose not to participate, why on earth would you think this vote was in any way binding upon you? When did you agree to accept the outcome as binding?

Why on earth would your children and grandchildren think it binding on them?

John T. Kennedy
http://theproblemofpoliticalauthority.com

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That's a good point, but I don't care if 90 out of 100 voted for the Constitution. I didn't vote for it, therefore the preamble starts with a lie. It was rotten from the beginning and certainly not morally binding on me.

You're quite right. And the constitution would still not be morally binding on you if the vote were 99-1 and you did vote against it.

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