{"id":1416,"date":"2011-11-06T18:13:25","date_gmt":"2011-11-06T22:13:25","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.peoplevstate.com\/?p=1416"},"modified":"2011-11-13T13:20:50","modified_gmt":"2011-11-13T17:20:50","slug":"the-consensus-of-the-self-governing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.peoplevstate.com\/?p=1416","title":{"rendered":"The consensus of the self-governing . . ."},"content":{"rendered":"

. . . appears as the vital Idea of which the “consent of the governed” is a pale and passive imitation, and as what distinguishes and divides a People from a State. A few posts<\/a> ago I quoted Nietzsche:<\/p>\n

Where there are still peoples, the state is not understood, and is hated as the evil eye, and as sin against laws and customs.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I hold up as support for Nietzsche’s observation the Great Law of Peace of the Iroquois Confederacy<\/a> and the attitude of the Iroquois to the authoritarian governments brought over by the British colonists, and recommend Charles Mann’s 2005 op-ed<\/a> in the New York Times on this subject. In his book 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus<\/em><\/a>, Mann wrote:<\/p>\n

Different nations had different numbers of sachems, but the inequality meant little because all decisions had to be unanimous; the Five Nations regarded consensus as a social ideal. As in all consensus-driven bodies, though, members felt intense pressure not to impede progress with frivolous objections.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

John Hasnas correctly observes<\/a> that “law is rarely grounded in consent.” Rather, what Nietzsche refers to as “laws and customs” are ultimately grounded in consensus<\/em>.<\/p>\n

In consensus, also, appears the social embodiment of the Presumption of Innocence.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

. . . appears as the vital Idea of which the “consent of the governed” is a pale and passive imitation, and as what distinguishes and divides a People from a State. A few posts ago I quoted Nietzsche: Where there are still peoples, the state is not understood, and is hated as the evil […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[111,117,116],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1416","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-friedrich-nietzsche","category-iroquois","category-john-hasnas"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.peoplevstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1416","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.peoplevstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.peoplevstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.peoplevstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.peoplevstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1416"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.peoplevstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1416\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1457,"href":"https:\/\/www.peoplevstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1416\/revisions\/1457"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.peoplevstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1416"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.peoplevstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1416"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.peoplevstate.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1416"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}