Notes From Gordon 250120: Dipping Your Quill, Signing Your Rights Away

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Reading time: 811 words @ 238 wpm = 3 minutes, 24 seconds

TONE: uncomfortable yet oddly satisfying

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How To Surrender Your Rights

Yesterday we took a look at rights—how you arrived with them fully intact and how they’re stuck to you like glue. So how, then, can you convert your rights into privileges, perhaps without even realizing it?

We each enjoy the full exercise of our “inalienable rights.” But only up to the point where we infringe someone else's rights. Privileges, on the other hand, are horse play of a different color.

Rights and privileges could not be more different. Privileges are not fundamental. Privileges are granted by ruling bodies. Privileges can be regulated and taxed, approved and denied, renewed or withdrawn.

And there may be penalties to be paid! To whom? Why, to the administrator whose family is fed and clothed from the very fees, fines and taxes that are paid under threat of fees, fines, and incarceration by the applicant for the privilege. This would be you.

It is certainly an ironic situation when citizens volunteer to place themselves in the subservient position of being allowed certain privileges by the very government they created to protect their rights.

Case in point: millions of Americans identify themselves as being married. Did these couples get married, or did they marry each other? Are these not one and the same?

This is a fine and important point, and not merely semantic, for the one involves the acceptance of a privilege granted by a ruling authority, while the other is the exercise of a natural right.

Ask the typical married couple how it is that they came to be wed and they will say, "We were married in a church." Or, "We were married on a party boat under Niagara Falls."

But in all such cases the word "married" in not an active, but a passive verb. Someone caused the betrothed parties to become married.

But can’t they just marry each other? Exchange vows before witnesses? Or must the Governor first give his permission before the happy couple are allowed to be wed?

How exactly does this “getting married” process actually happen? Does the Governor send out premarital spies to detect when a wedding ceremony is about to commence, walk up to the startled couple and hand them their permission slip?

Or do the about-to-be-newlyweds apply for a license—which is to say, a permission voucher—of their own free will?

What benefit do you actually derive from being licensed? Certainly not so that your marriage will be real. Ask any man: we have no doubt that marriage is a form of reality. Hey, only kidding ladies. Just trying to keep it on the light side here.

When at the end of the wedding ceremony the presiding clergy intones, "By the power vested in me by the Governor of [State], I now pronounce you man and wife," is some invisible, jurisdictional marriage dust sprinkled over the blissful couple? Is that why they are now married?

If that magic phrase had not been uttered, would the ceremony have stalled? Would red lights have flashed and loud klaxons sounded? Does this magic marriage phrase carry that much power and authority? Apparently so.

And money may be involved! You see, with the Governor inserted as official approver of the process, there are now three parties to the marriage: spouse A, spouse B and (ta-da!) the state which will patiently await their eventual demise so it can reach into the pockets of the deceased and extract its fair share of estate tax.

Consider if you will the license required to cut someone's hair for profit. A ten-year-old will inform you that all that is needed is a sheet, a comb, a pair of scissors and a reputation for doing a quality job at a fair price.

But, no. You must first ask permission of the Governor, otherwise you can be fined or even incarcerated for "practicing without a license."

The same set of licensure rules apply for fishing in public bodies of water, shooting game on public land, operating a motor vehicle on public roads, running a day care center, drilling teeth, selling real estate, building or improving on your own property, ad nauseam.

None of these activities can be engaged in without kneeling and getting the tap of a sword on your shoulder. And if you fail to bend over deeply enough for authority, you might get that sword somewhere else!

And how does one receive said permission? Why, by requesting that the permission be granted. And how does one go about making said request? It’s amazingly easy.

All that is required is a ball point pen. Or if you’re an historical purist, a quill and an ink pot. Same difference.