The Only Social Contract is the Constitution

In announcing California’s stay-at-home order on March 19th, Governor Gavin Newsom declared “there’s a social contract here.” At a Coronavirus press conference in March, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo stated, “I rely on you, you rely on me… [t]hat’s the social contract between us, I have a right to expect that from you, especially in dire circumstances.”...

Indeed, one of the more terrifying things to come out of the Coronavirus Pandemic of 2020 is not the virus itself, but the plethora of officials and ordinary citizens citing “Social Contract Theory” as a justification for the various so-called “stay-at-home orders” imposed in one form or another across our nation, many of which imposed draconian restrictions on our basic civil liberties. Don’t buy it. Unless someone is referring to the Constitution of the United States, or a state constitution, no such “social contract” exists. Nor should you want there to be one....

Social Contract Theory is an antiquated philosophy popular in the 16th, 17th, and 18th centuries making the rounds again today, primarily among authoritarian Socialist Democrat types that also believe in a living, breathing Constitution, and for the same reason: both the “social contract” and the “living Constitution” mean nothing except what those people want them to mean at the moment they want them to mean something....

Under Social Contract Theory, the “social contract” is essentially an implicit agreement among members of society to cooperate for social benefits; for example, sacrificing some individual freedom for state protection.... it’s only an illusory promise.

And who decides what social benefits are desired or what rights and protections must be sacrificed to achieve those social benefits? Not you nor I, not even society. The “social contract” means whatever the authorities with power citing the “social contract” want it to mean. That’s no contract; that’s a recipe for tyranny and abuse of power....

So the next time someone tells you we have to take action because it’s part of the “social contract,” tell them the only contracts you abide by, and that you expect them to abide by, are the U.S. and state constitutions...

Americans don't get ruled / The face mask is the clearest symbol of America's divide