In order to "secure the Blessing of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity," the American Founders relied on the concept of common sovereignty. " Popular [or common] sovereignty is the notion that no law or rule is legitimate unless it rests directly or indirectly on the consent of the individuals concerned. [John] Locke in his...'Second Treatise of Government,' published 1690, claimed as Hobbes before him, that the social contract was permanent and irrevocable, but the legislative was only empowered to legislate for the public good."
http://www.basiclaw.net/Principles/Popular%20sovereignty.htmThe public good was described in the Constitution as the "general Welfare." But in "securing the Blessings of Liberty upon ourselves and our Posterity," we are forced to recognize that "ourselves" are selves which belong to individuals.
There is no general, public self except as defined as being those democratic decisions of the people and/or their representatives when such decisions do not violate the individual sovereignty left to each individual after he/she has given up a tiny portion of it to the "popular" sovereignty, from which it must be derived.
The idea of a federal and limited government is the idea that it is proper to ask of each individual the he/she give up only a tiny portion of his/her individual, natural sovereignty, i.e., only as much as is required for the empowerment of the government to protect the remaining sovereignty. Any powers not necessary to the government to protect individual sovereignty remains with the individual.
"The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." So reads The Constitution.
Better phrasing would have been "or remain with the people." It was the explicit position of the Founders that sovereignty rested in the individual, because each of them felt themselves free for the first time in their lives--as individuals--and knew that the precedent they were trying to set for the world was that individual sovereignty would historically free all men for the first time.
"Individual sovereignty was not a peculiar conceit of Thomas Jefferson: It was the common assumption of the day..." Joseph J. Ellis; "American Sphinx,The Character of Thomas Jefferson" The only purpose a government can have when constricted by the reservation of sovereignty as residing with the individual is the function of protecting that reservation of sovereignty that resides with the individual.
The right to use one's own capital as one sees fit resides with the individual, so long as such use does not violate the sovereignty that resides with any other individual.
It is in this way that the natural state of every man born into the world gives him/her the sovereignty to do with his/her possessions, whether of material or immaterial nature, as he/she would so freely do with such possessions when confronted with choices such as life offers.
It is the immaterial possession of religious beliefs that is protected by what Thomas Jefferson described as the "wall of separation between church and state." The government regulations upon choices of how one uses ones immaterial possessions ought to be no different than those which regulate the choices of how one uses one's material possessions. For example, it is the initiation of force to use a blunt object on the back of someone else's head, except in cases of self defence. The initiation of force is therefore a criminal act.
In what way is it the initiation of force to use one's capital as one sees fit just as long as one is not initiating the use of force against another person? It is no more the use of such force as is having the belief in a Babtist God, or a Catholic God. That such believers subject themselves to the dogma of their denominations is a choice freely made.
But for the same reason the immaterial placement of one's beliefs is protected by law, the placement of immaterial capital also ought to be protected by law. Instead, the American people are not protected by a "wall of separation" between their immaterial possession of capital, and state. They are subjected to the fascism of the Internal Revenue Service; to laws which stretch far and wide in Federal, State, and local goverment to control the use of immaterial capital; and must suffer unto those governments the control of what a government instead is Constitutionally designed to protect.
Do not hide behind such superficialities
as whether or not coins, paper money, gold, silver, and other demonstrations of wealth are material or immaterial. The metaphysical reality behind any such demonstration of wealth rests solely with what value the market places on it. In some markets paper money has no value at all. In that market Warren Buffet would be a pauper--unless he could convert his money into the standard used by the market. In one known market that standard is strictly gold; in another it is strictly diamonds. The largest home in California would not, as collateral or as barter, purchase a speck of dust in those markets.When the President has done some good work and gains the confidence of the people, he is said to have "political capital." Political capital is metaphysically no different in any way, shape or form from capital wealth we normally define in terms of money. The President cannot "spend" his political capital if the public isn't willing to take it as a form of political currency.
The Free Assemblage of Metaphysical Naturalists is the sm of the
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