236.10 The Majority in the U.S. Government Must Be Destroyed Immediately

In 1952, John Locke's writing on 'The Second Treatise of Government,' was presented by Thomas P. Peardon at Columbia University.  I want to show you how Locke made 'The Social Contract,' which begins on p xv of Peardon's Introduction, .

In Locke's use of the social contract there are at least four conspicuous features. In the first place, he used it so to preserve natural freedom as most as possible. Men surrender only the right of enforcing the law of nature. All other rights they retain as fully as before. Moreover, since men are by nature free, independent, and equal, the contract must be unanimous. Those who wish to remain in the state of nature are presented to do so. Thus, Locke hoped, government would be both limited in its power and based firmly on consent.

He was careful, secondly, as Hobbes had been for a different reason, to exclude rulers from the contract. The agreement is between free individuals, not between rulers and ruled. ...  

Now the social contract, properly speaking, can be drawn up only once.  Here is the consent of later generations to be obtained? To meet this difficult, Locke thought sometimes, perhaps, of formal ceremonies reminiscent of initiation among primitive people and of some episodes that were to occur in the  French Revolution of 1789. But he relied most on 'tacit consent.' This is given when individuals on reaching maturity continue to accept the protection and benefits of an organized government instead of withdrawing to other communities or to the open spaces of the New World. Plainly  this is not a very realistic resolution of the difficulty. For men are not so free in their movements or loyalties as this would imply. 

A fourth feature of Locke's use of the social contract was majority  rule.  The decisions of a going community cannot depend upon unanimity For this reason, Locke sensibly assumed that the majority would rule once the social contract was entered upon. But in what sense are the free and equal minority really governed by consent when they must bow to the will of the majority? How are they to be protected against a tyranny of the majority?  There is a difficulty here which is not resolved merely by saying that that consented to majority at the time of the social contract. Such consent could soon become a very unequal thing. Lock slides over this difficulty 

Some uncertainty in Locke's use of the contact arises out of the setting-up of the institutions of government. Locke was one of the first writers to recognize the distinction between society and government. 

When the U.S. founders made the Declaration of Independence in 1776. they made Locke's society  and made Locke's  government with the Second Continental Congress. Then, in 1787,  Locke's society abolished the Second Continental Congress and re instituted Locke's government with the Constitution. The tyranny of the majority in the USA has developed. out of ignorance.  Now it is time to overcome this ignorance.