[Osborn F Enready]

This brings to light an important issue, and thanks techno for doing so, though I don't necessarily agree.

I think the real question is this, and it would be a great poll for this board:

Is an individual able to sign away Constitutional rights, of their own free will, for whatever purpose deemed valid by the signing individual?

Why is it a valid question? Because, we have been conditioned to accept it as being legal for an individual to sign away their rights to serve the nation, so why should they not be allowed to sign away their rights for any purpose they deem valuable enough to themselves to be willing to sign for?

My answer is yes.

If we agree that a person has inherant rights, it must also be their ability to "give-up" those rights of their own volition, based on a "verifiable" documented contract entered into with free will of both parties, for an pre-agreed to sum of trade amounting to mutual benefit.

I would also say that is the foundation of this system. Inherant rights are just that, inherant by birth. People have a will, and with it they can comply or resist by all means afforded them by the physical world in their control. Our forefathers attempted to create a system of government that embodied those inherant rights, with the least amount of compromise to allow maximum freedom (as perceived at the time).

The compromise of our system is based on respect for those rights. The contract specifies that the people need not live under a government that violates those inherant rights, but it does not say that within that government people of free will may NOT submit their rights to waiver by contract, for a mutual agreement made in such contract, of free will by all parties involved.

For example.....

New Harmony Indiana's socialist experiment. This was perfectly legal, and constitutional, because it was an experiment BASED ON FREE WILL of the participants. One man owned the land, and opened to people of HIS OWN FREE WILL to people OF LIKE MIND, based on THEIR AGREEMENT to COMPLY to HIS RULES. If the rules were broken, the people who broke them could be expelled or forced to leave. If the system was no longer admired by a participant, they could leave of their own volition.

This is why the Constitution of the United States, and the Bill of Rights are SO perfect in their abillity to allow a lot of room for freedom of the individuals, the individuals as a voluntary collective, and the overall collective.

This is how cities form in many cases. Once they become large enough, they become "incorporated" meaning they have a "different" set of rules that can be enforced under law. It is the changes to THESE LAWS, that have helped destroy this nation.

Citizens of communities, in states, used to have the POWER to remove the "right" of incorporation from any corporation that ABUSED or BLATANTLY violated its charters promise for incorporation. That meant if citizens found out that LOCAL corporations were abusing their rights, their community, their "laws", they could be broken up and closed or forced to move OUT of that community AFTER making legal reparations from proven damages. These rights have been removed from the people, and the process ERASED from the history books. :rolleyes: