I Did Not Consent to ANY of This

The 2018 Supreme Court decision in Janus v AFSCME, written by Justice Samuel Alito, asserts that “requiring individuals to endorse ideas they disagreed with runs counter to First Amendment principles,” securing a win for government employees who had been forced to pay for union services they did not want and/or need.

Alito wrote that no attempt to collect dues or other payments could be made “unless the employee affirmatively consents to pay.”

As I review updated numbers showing that post-9/11 United States military operations have resulted in the deaths of 408,749 civilians in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Syria, and Yemen – and note that government officials have used my money (and yours) to make this a reality – I’m reminded that you and I are forced to fund ideas and actions we disagree with, and we have not consented to pay.

408,749 is a sobering number, equivalent to the entire population of Tampa, Florida, and it raises important questions about Consent – who do I talk to about ending taxes that fund things I don’t believe in? Where is the easy opt-out? Where is the taxpayer’s Janus decision?

Consent is an individual act: voluntary, informed, mutual, and ongoing. In other words, a simple way to opt out is a necessary feature of good government and just power.

There is a mistaken belief that someone else can provide your consent, most commonly on display in government, where the imagined power of a majority is believed to grant special privileges, but that’s simply not true. Auberon Herbert dismantled the various arguments for this kind of usurpation of human liberty in his brief essay, The Right and Wrong of Compulsion by the State, in 1885. He is one of many who have pointed out the hypocrisy of government coercion and the stagnation or violence that naturally follow.

“Democracy” has been a buzzword over the last few years, and it’s a convenient narrative to undercut your individual rights, especially for those who benefit from forced collectivization. Government officials’ power in the United States is derived from “the consent of the governed,” and politicians at all levels seem hellbent on pushing the narrative that you’re obligated to give up your individual pursuits of happiness because you’ve been outnumbered.

Alexis de Tocqueville predicted in 1835 that this “Tyranny of the Majority,” a twisting away from Jefferson’s “self-evident” truths, would be how America would meet an untimely end. Alexander Hamilton said much the same thing in Federalist 84 when he wrote about “men disposed to usurp” when arguing against the creation of a Bill of Rights.

Put another way, by philosopher Alan Watts, “Insecure societies are the most intolerant of those who are non-joiners. They are so unsure of the validity of their ‘game-rules’ that they say, ‘Everyone must play.’”

As a reader of Advocates for Self-Government articles, you likely know that participating in killing civilians is wrong, but you’ve been trapped in the game.

I have signed every tax check “vi coactus” for years, indicating that the action is done only under duress. If I don’t pay, some officer of the law (whose salary I am forced to fund) will try to put me in a cage, or worse.

At no point should any military be in the business of killing civilians, but tackling that question alone would be to strike at the branch, rather than the root of the problem. Theft and violence decrease happiness, harmony, and prosperity – even when done through Agency Delegation. Free exchange between consenting persons is vital to human flourishing.

That means you should be free to become a citizen of a government, and free to say no without changing your geographic location. You should be free to invest in ideas and programs you believe will help uplift others or withhold your money. You should be allowed to refuse support for killing half a million innocent people, and to hold those who did such heinous acts individually responsible.

It remains to be seen if the Supreme Court would extend Janus’s findings to taxes and other uses of force against peaceful people. Until that point, we must each commit to supporting the civily disobedient acts of peace, nonviolence, and free exchange.