Should We Consent To Be Governed

Introduces students to political philosophy by raising a relevant, practical question that each of us faces -- What attitude ought we to adopt toward governments and laws? Beginning with this question, the author introduces a variety of political philosophies, each presented as an answer to this question, and shows why it is worth understanding and learning about these views. The text involves the students in the issues and encourages active thinking and learning by stressing what the student needs to make up their mind about the question. By studying this material, students will understand how one can respect the legitimacy of laws while retaining a critical stance that permits disobedience when laws and governments fail to be just.

"Consent of the Governed," was written to remind Americans that our government is supposed to be working for us. All politicians serve at the bidding of those who elect them. Political track records do not confirm reasons for continued employment in behalf of the citizens. There is something infinitely wrong when only 537 people - out of 300 million - believe themselves to be the only ones capable of making decisions that seriously effect what happens to the rest of us. There is also something wrong when we allow them continuance of service at such low levels of competence. If you believe that everything is peachy-keen with the way government functions and that whatever the politicians want to do is OK, then this book is NOT for you. If you believe that government does not need to be accountable or efficient; that obscene waste is acceptable, then this book is NOT for you. If you believe that our children are receiving the best possible education in our public schools, then this book is NOT for you. If you believe that taxes are not high enough and that we should regress to the levels of failed old-world socialistic empires, then this book is NOT for you. If you believe that incumbent politicians should have unchallenged rights to continual re-election, then this book is NOT for you. However, if you believe that politicians and bureaucrats are not doing a good job, that the media is more motivated to provide entertainment than substance, that our children are being ill-served by a bureaucratic public school systems run amok, that our taxes are indeed too high, that our congress is spending too much money - and mostly on the wrong things, that wasteful pork projects have reached obscenelevels, and that something needs to be done about it, then this book IS for you. "Consent of the Governed," is a compilation of the many things that have left Americans distraught and angry. It is also offers suggestions regarding what can be done about it - if you're willing to put forth a little effort. America belongs to you, not the politicians. Take it back!

Citing fear that the false perceptions propagated by interest groups, advocate groups, and reckless partisanship will destabilise American Government, 25 of the largest multinational corporations form POLACO. Their avowed purpose with this secret group is to take a greater role in government and appeal to the people to increase competence in political leadership. The apparent plan, termed 'nurturing democracy', is to establish new media to forward their concepts; to win popular support; and to recruit, train and elect candidates for state offices and the Congress. Unknown even to their excellent staff, operating from a partially underground headquaters on Harbour Island in the Bahamas, the deep purpose is to subvert the Constitution and to change America into a 'corporate state'. The star company of the Dow Jones Average, PENMET, is invited to join POLACO, but its multibillionaire builder and CEO, Ian MacAulliffe, calls in advisors who surmise POLACO's real intent. Ian then resolves to defend the Constitution. His advisors recommend fixing the American political system to eliminate POLACO's reason to exist. Ian agrees and they determine to elect a competent and charismatic president in a campaign that speaks of reality against perceptions and tackles the tough issues, which are being ignored. Adrian Daggett, an outstanding business leader and popular governor of Illinois becomes the candidate to reverse America's political decomposition. POLACO discovers PENMET's intervention and rushes massive support to the opposition. The presidential campaign becomes a titanic conflict which only a few know will decide the future. The story is of characters who struggle to tell the American people the truth, however painful, and their opponent who devise perceptions which they try to make into reality; and use smears, bribes, moles, and violence.

This book introduces readers to the concepts of political philosophy. It starts by explaining why the subject is important and how it tackles basic ethical questions such as 'how should we live together in society?' It looks at political authority, the reasons why we need politics at all, the limitations of politics, and whether there are areas of life that shouldn't be governed by politics. It explores the connections between political authority and justice, a constant theme in political philosophy, and the ways in which social justice can be used to regulate rather than destroy a market economy. David Miller discusses why nations are the natural units of government and whether the rise of multiculturalism and transnational co-operation will change this: will we ever see the formation of a world government? ABOUT THE SERIES: The Very Short Introductions series from Oxford University Press contains hundreds of titles in almost every subject area. These pocket-sized books are the perfect way to get ahead in a new subject quickly. Our expert authors combine facts, analysis, perspective, new ideas, and enthusiasm to make interesting and challenging topics highly readable.

This edited volume seeks to provide guidance on how we can approach questions of governing and agency—particularly those who endeavour to embark on grounded empirical research— by rendering explicit some key challenges, tensions, dilemmas, and confluences that such endeavours elicit. Indeed, the contributions in this volume reflect the growing tendency in governmentality studies to shift focus to empirically grounded studies. The volume thus explicitly aims to move from theory to practice, and to step back from the more top-down governmentality studies approach to one that examines how one can/does study how relations of power affect lives, experience and agency. This book offers insight into the intricate relations between the workings of governing and (the possibility for) people’s agency on the one hand, and about the possible effects of our attempts to engage in such studies on the other. In numerous ways, and from different starting points, the contributions to this volume provide thoughtful insights into, and creative suggestions for, how to work with the methodological challenges of studying the agency of being governed. This work will be of great interest to students and scholars of international relations, global governance and research methods.

Jason's awe-inspiring deep dive into how the grand jury operated for centuries, and is meant to operate today, earned him the title, "political archaeologist." Simply stated, he has uncovered the most powerful tool in government accountability which has been there all along. With amazing research and his easy-to-comprehend conversational style, Hoyt delivers a knock-out punch to deep state actors and swamp creatures all over America. Politicians and government bureaucrats alike fear the grand jury as a powerful yet misunderstood independent body of We The People. Be forewarned, though. The deep state doesn't want you to read this book! Do you know how a grand jury works? Do you know why the grand jury, as a powerful independent body of We The People, makes the deep state tremble with fear? If you haven't served on a grand jury and conducted your own research, it's likely you have no idea what it can do. Presiding judges and prosecutors are most definitely not going to tell you what you're able to accomplish. The grand jury's secret proceedings and powerful investigative functions have been kept from the public's eye for over a century, and there's a reason. For example, did you know your local grand jury can audit the government from top to bottom and force any elected official or government worker to testify about their operations? In the book, Hoyt reveals an often-missed paragraph in the Florida Grand Jury Instructions that discusses the most powerful word in the Constitution where a grand jury can open an investigation on their own initiative on any topic they choose. Imagine how your government would operate if they knew at any minute they could be called to testify before a grand jury about their operations. Imagine if the government feared the people, and not the other way around. Is there such a thing as "accountability" anymore? Unfortunately, we've been trained to think the only way We The People can hold our government accountable is by waiting for the next election. That's just not the case. In the book Hoyt explores true, real, and impactful consequences in government and how the most powerful word in the Constitution, sitting right there in the fifth amendment's grand jury clause, has been hijacked. The good news is the people still have the power to act as a sword and shield, protecting against wrongful accusations by government while reaching inside the government to root out corruption. The deep state bureaucracy is out of control, but not for long. Grand juries across the country are opening investigations, looking at evidence, and holding government officials accountable. In the book, you'll discover... ...How to restore government accountability. ...How the most powerful word in the Constitution was hijacked. ...How to reach inside the government and root out corruption. - What if every single move the government made was under the watchful eye of a grand jury with real, tangible, and immediate consequences? - What if We The People could operate on an official capacity outside the branches of government and provide our "consent of the governed" on a daily basis? - What if an independent grand jury, acting on its own initiative, could reach inside our government and root out corruption with indictments? - What if the Supreme Court, as recent as 1992, said the grand jury, "...belongs to no branch of the institutional government, serving as a kind of buffer or referee between the government and the people?" - What if one of the most powerful tools to check and balance the government was already protected by the Constitution? Fortunately, Hoyt isn't proposing a new idea. Like a political archaeologist, he has uncovered what has been there all along and has worked for 800 years. The bottom line: the grand jury is feared by the deep state, establishment politicians, and the entrenched Washington, D.C. bureaucratic swamp. Read CONSENT OF THE GOVERNED to find out why!

In this second installment of The Wilson Files, we collect some of Dr. Wilson's most sagacious writings on the topic of nullification and the unenumerated rights reserved to the several sovereign States that comprise the confederation known as the United States of America. For half a century historian Clyde Wilson has been writing about what he calls "our lost and stolen heritage of states' rights." As Dr. Donald Livingston, founder of the Abbeville Institute, has remarked of current devolutionary strategies, "Clyde Wilson had been plowing the ground long before any of us came to plant." Excerpts from Nullification: Reclaiming the Consent of the Governed: "The cause of states' rights is the cause of liberty; they rise or fall together. . . . We know the problems. Where should we look for solutions? . . . . Thomas Jefferson gives us the answer: our most ancient and best tradition, states' rights: 'the support of the State governments in all their rights, as the most competent administrations for our domestic concerns and the surest bulwarks against anti-republican tendencies' . . . . Some of the Founders hoped that the division of legislative, executive, and judicial power in the general government would help. . . . these checks and balances do not work. They ceased to work a long time ago. There is no serious conflict of power among the federal branches. The acts of all of them are directed toward checking the people of the States. . . . States' rights are historically sound, constitutionally sound, ethically sound, and sound from the point of view of democracy. Where they fall short is simply in the realm of political will and agenda. . . . if we are to speak of curbing the central power, the States are what we have got. They exist. They are historical, political, cultural realities, the indestructible bottom line of the American system. It would be a shame if, in this world-historical time of devolution, Americans did not look back to an ancient and honourable tradition that lies readily at hand."