There has to be some basis for people claiming that the laws of the land do not apply to them, but for the life of me, I can’t begin to understand it.
In: 89
There’s a little kernel of truth in what they’re saying. But that little sliver of knowledge won’t help them.
The basic idea is that a government is only legitimate if the people agree that the government is legitimate. That much is true.
But they go off the rails when they say that one person or a very small group of people rejecting a governments legitimacy makes it so. It just doesn’t work that way. When most people agree that the government is legitimate, then the government can compel you do something. By force. Police, legal system, prison, etc. If one person rejects the whole thing, it doesn’t matter. If that one person breaks the law, then that one person will go to prison.
There’s one other thing they are right about. If tomorrow, everyone woke up and decided that they were right… everyone… including judges, police officers, prison guards, politicians, etc… if everyone suddenly came around to their way of thinking, then, yes, the government would be illegitimate and fall.
But in practice, that won’t happen in a million years. And in practice, a couple of nut jobs wishing and hoping that the whole thing will fall apart won’t make it happen.
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