[Sailor Steve]

As I mentioned in the 'What Are You Reading Right Now?' thread on the Naval Topics board, I've just started We Hold These Truths, written by Mortimer J. Adler in 1987 for the bicentennial of the Constitutional Convention. I don't agree with everything he says, and I sometimes he seems to think too much, as true philosiphers will.

That said, he brings up a couple of fascinating ideas, at least to me. One is a discussion of natural rights vs. civil rights; the former being inherent, or 'God-given', and the latter stemming from the laws we make to protect ourselves from each other. These include things we feel obligated to grant to ourselves or to others, such as charity, which is where all the national health-care arguments should lie.

But the one that prompted me to write this is the one I just read on 'consent'. He has a chapter titled 'The Consent of the Governed', but he follows it with one titled 'The Dissent of the Governed'. In the chapter I'm currently reading, on the Preamble to the Constitution, he makes a distinction between the thirteen united States of "We the people", and the one united country called The United States at the end, under "do ordain...this Constitution". He then talks about dissent as consent, in that people who commit nonviolent but illegal protest in a just society are also ready to submit to the legal consequences of that technically criminal activity.

Under this section he asks whether the people who voted against the Constitution (or against the new president for that matter) are dissenting or consenting. He identifies local dissension with actual consent by stating that yes, while dissenting against an idea, or a person, we also consent to the system itself by submitting to the results of the vote, even while we disagree with them.

Odd, I know, but I had to put it out there for thought and reflection.