The general feeling expressed about the mass revolt currently taking place in France, is that the country is falling. But that assumes that France is composed of just it’s government and not composed of its people. If it is the people of France revolting against their neoliberal government, is it really falling? Or, is it rising? Who makes France what it is? Is it the government or is it the people?
The answer can be found in asking another question: who consented to authorize the French government? The same group that consents to authorize any government. The People. It is the exclusive right of the People to create and consent to social contracts which transfer their Natural Creator endowed authority to a system of vassals (government). Power structures come and go, but the People, the living human beings remain because they are the creators/authors of those structures.
The vassals we endow with our authority are not meant to act in an individual capacity, they are meant to carry out the will of the people who authorized them. They are Not meant to serve the corporations and rich who pay them, or the bottom-feeding lobbyists courting them, or the banks and financial institutions who leverage them. It’s us, they owe their allegiance to the common man and woman who call that “nation” home.
When the vassals of the people no longer honor their obligations to act only on behalf of the people, the masses have the right and authority to withdraw their consent to the social contract which created the government. They have the right to engage in self-defense against state violence being committed against them. And they have the right both legally and morally to do whatever is necessary to end their oppression, including killing their oppressors and those who trespass against their right to dissent.
I don’t say these things to be hyperbolic or promote violence in any way, violence is always a last resort. But when the time comes that peaceful revolution is known to be impossible then the only option left to oppressed people is violence. In preparation for that time, and in the context of what is going on in France right now, I want all human beings to begin to wrap their minds around what their rights truly are. I want the populace at large to start to comprehend the hierarchy upon which civil authority rests, and that they are on the top of it, the source of it in fact.
I also want to challenge people to begin to contemplate the morality of our system and its laws. All civil lawmaking should be bound by morality, yet history shows us it often is not. Slavery was legal, the Jewish holocaust was legal, the genocide of Indigenous peoples across the globe and the theft of their land and resources is still considered legal, Jim Crow was legal, Segregation and so many other immoral things have been and are currently the law in this country.
If it is our authority giving power to such laws then it is up to us to reject those laws, up to and including ending the authority of the governments which continue to enforce them. We must demand that all laws rely on morality as the guiding force, even in the face of state violence…especially then. That’s when it counts the most actually.
If we do not do this, if we do not make this change as a society, to a standard which always asks the fundamental question of right and wrong, then we are doomed to tear ourselves apart from within. We cannot be bound in a social contract which is immoral or forces immorality upon us and expect that unity and fraternity will grow from that. If a law or government is immoral, then we are morally bound to disobey it, fight it, and end it. It is our unalienable right to do what is moral no matter what the civil law says. Click To Tweet
The people of all nations must recognize that they have the absolute right and authority to sever the authority of their vassal systems (governments) at any time, for any reason. That any suggestion otherwise is a promotion of enslavement. Governments do not own us, they did not create us…we created them.
Governments cannot force humans to consent to anything, they must gain our consent willingly or else they have used violence and duress to enslave us. Any people enslaved have the moral and legal right to end their enslavement by any means necessary. That is the truth, and there is no other way for me to say it. Governments have no power over us, but that which we allow them to have.
As I watch eagerly to see if enough of the French people remember the vital lesson of where authority comes from, I hope to see them collectively create a new social contract for themselves. I hope to see them reclaim their self-determination and I very much hope that other people follow suit.
And, don’t let anyone gaslight you. Any violence that occurs is Not a result of citizens rising up to dissent, it is always the result of the corrupt status quo using violence to force them back into compliance and servitude. It always the system which uses violence as a control method, whereas human beings use violence to defend themselves against tyranny. One is moral and the other is not.
It is our consent to be governed and our participation in the systems rituals of voting, civility politics, and supposedly free and fair elections, which empowers the government to increasingly act as though it is our master and we its slaves. The powerful are using our ignorance against us. They have too many of us convinced we have no other choice. But we do. We always have, and its time for us to reclaim that knowledge.
It is a lie to say we have a democratic system, that politics is a viable means of having grievances addressed. The longer the mass of people believe these lies, the longer the illusionary system stays in place. It is people’s belief in it which makes it real. But the opposite is true as well, it only takes a small percentage of people challenging a system, a government, a law, or a power structure to bring it crashing down. The French people know this, their history is rich with such rebellion, and I am inspired by their courage and fortitude today.
There is a lot of hope to be gained and many lessons to be learned from the French people’s revolt against their tyrannical neoliberal government. I hope everyone begins tuning in to independent coverage of the events in France, with the knowledge that this revolt is a reflection of the will of the French people, these are our brothers and sisters and they are fighting for the same libération that each of us craves.
I want to leave you with this final thought, the fall of governments only occurs when the people rise up to challenge them because they are corrupt and tyrannical. So, do not mourn “the fall of France,” instead celebrate the French people breaking their chains, and celebrate the fraternity with which they are doing it. It is they we owe our allegiance to, not the government oppressing them.
‘Je suis aux côtés des Français’ : I stand with the French people
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Bree Hood
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