Wednesday, December 9, 2009

Political Versus Consensual

This story should give you a good idea why flag waving is a bad thing. This man signed a voluntary agreement with his homeowners association, which meant he was accepting certain constraints on his behavior in return for whatever it is homeowner associations do. He violates the contract and, since he's a veteran he is able to use political pressure to make the homeowner's association back down.

This is why conservatives always lose, and why that flag no longer means what he think it means.

Our personal agreements should always have more force, more meaning than whatever they make up in Congress, because this is where we form society and exercise our freedoms. Would you like a situation in which you can cheat on your spouse and have the government absolve you from all responsibility. Oh, wait, we already have that, especially if you happen to be female.

The contracts are there to protect the innocent parties, the people who incur the costs to follow the terms. If you void the contracts through political means, you destroy the incentive to make any contracts. Civilization dies. The old soldier gets his flag, but he kills whatever it was he thought he was fighting for.

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