By John Vibes
Jan Helfeld is a political journalist who has been traveling around and asking politicians some of the same awkward questions that work to expose the illegitimacy of their authority. His questions were extremely simple and many times ridiculed as “stupid” by the politicians that he interviewed, because he was attempting to establish moral principles using the Socratic method.
One of the best and most crucial questions that Helfeld has asked over the years is simple enough: “Can you delegate a right that you don’t have to someone else?”
This simple question has caused dozens of politicians to either become aggressive, run away, or both because it points out that they do not have the right to do the things that they do in the name of government.
To use an example: if an average citizen does not have the right to steal from his neighbor, then he cannot go ahead and vote for one of his friends to do it. Furthermore, if a particular group – even a group with a majority in a certain area – decided to vote for themselves or one another, to steal from innocent people, they would not be justified in doing so. In this situation, these people would essentially be granting a privilege to another person that they themselves did not have, which is obviously a ridiculous idea.
However, this is exactly how democracy and representative government works. The power of the politicians is supposedly granted by the people. However, average people don’t have the right to do things that politicians and agents of the state do on a regular basis. Therefore, the people living in a democracy never had the authority that they allegedly gave their government to begin with, which means that this authority does not exist and that the government does not have a right to use it.
Helfeld would lead the people he interviewed to this conclusion, which resulted in an incredibly entertaining encounter nearly every time.
In the video below, Helfeld explains his style of interviewing, and how he used the Socratic method to point out contradictions in people’s reasoning.
In the following video, Helfeld interviewed Senator Daniel Inouye of Hawaii and walked him down the same path of logic that was laid out in this article. He asked Inouye first whether or not people had the right to steal from one another, and then if they had the right to delegate that authority to the government; then finally he asked, “Can a person delegate a right that they do not have?” Inouye sat frozen like a deer in the headlights realizing that he had just been backed into a corner, and that’s when the interview gets really interesting.
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Inouye is not alone either, many other politicians and news pundits had similar reactions when faced with the same questions. Check out some of the most interesting below, including an encounter with Bernie Sanders where he gets angry, demands to know by whom Helfeld is funded, and runs out of the room.
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John Vibes is an author and researcher who organizes a number of large events including the Free Your Mind Conference. He also has a publishing company where he offers a censorship free platform for both fiction and non-fiction writers. You can contact him and stay connected to his work at his Facebook page. You can purchase his books, or get your own book published at his website www.JohnVibes.com.
John Vibes writes for TheFreeThoughtProject.com
Man. it took until 3:35 to finally get a straight answer from Sanders. Very interesting to watch. Richardson looked like a complete idiot at 1:30. Thanks for posting these.
“Every election is a sort of advance auction sale of stolen goods.”
– H. L. Mencken
I don’t think Helfeld’s question is a good one; of course govts have a right to do things individuals don’t, U.S, congress can levy taxes, declare war, etc. which no individual can do,
Why do governments have a right to do things that an individual doesn’t? Where does government derive the moral right to tax?
They just don’t ahve it, so they need to pretend they have.
The real enemy of a ruling class is logic.
Too bad the mass of people is not trained in logic.
Shades of Idiocracy I’m afraid. It may be worse than simply not being trained in logic, the way people are quick to say that the Socrates method of questioning is annoying and jump to the use of peforatives to describe the interviewer when rights and government are discussed speak to some serious brainwashing.
“Too bad the mass of people is not trained in logic.”:
That’s by design. What do you think the mandatory government youth propaganda camps (i.e. “public schools”) are for?
Don’t derive your answers,
parrot back what authority tells you.
Every time I hear ANY justification about the state’s “rights” I immediately digress in my head to that scene in MP’s Holy Grail.
“If I went around saying I was an emperor because some watery tart threw a scimitar at me they’d lock me away!”
The key word used by the pols was “authority”, not rights. Governments aren’t “born” with natural and unalienable rights. The question is the level of “authority” governments are granted. At the very least, they should not be able to create laws that interfere with basic natural rights, such as deciding for us what will enter our bodies (e.g. mandatory vaccines, chemtrails) or violating our privacy. The pols were basically arguing for mob rule (democracy).
The question is ridiculous and I can understand why it infuriates those asked. While I generally don’t trust our politicians, putting them on the spot with a question that is absurd, proves nothing.
why not use the rare opportunity to confront these perps with a pointed, detailed query on a SPECIFIC issue they are violating? Real world is not academia and reporter wastes a good chance to get true answers.
EXACTLY!
…. assuming politicians give true answers, which they rarely do.
Bernie does…try him:)
Ditto!
Individual rights, morality, and how government derives its power are absurd topics..how so?
No, not at all! I just objected to the ridiculousness of Jan’s process. I am a Progressive so how our government treats people, their crimes are of great concern to me.
Progressivism is just a wish to extract property by the government in the open(I will commend them for their honesty) and with as heavy hand, as ‘the majority’ has decided to give themselves. It’s an authority which it doesn’t possess under either natural or constitutional law. Bernie has just said that the majority can murder anyone who doesn’t submit to the will of the dangerous majority. Lord, I’d rather live under the rule of a benevolent dictator wealthy enough to not to scurry around in the sewer of corruption and mendacity of cockroach lobbyists, and wise enough to know the bloodthirsty insanity of the masses and the inevitable chaos to which it aspires.
How can you possibly think government forcibly extracting private property is honest?
And yes, constitutional law does grant that authority. But it’s illegitimate as it’s immoral.
I
can see you drank the Right Wing Kool-Aid. Must be from watching all those Fox
Fake News Shows. Hang in there, Whitey. The kind of gov. you dream of is called
“Fascism” and we are rapidly headed in that direction. Hitler would have had no
difficulty recruiting you for his SS team. Just think, you can wear a black
militia outfit designed by Hugo Boss, just like his grandfather did for Hitler’s
SS. You would look spiffy in the Fourth Reich!
Progressives believe we ALL deserve to be at the table of the government, while you believe it is only for the few…yourself, of course. Hang onto that thought, Whitey, it may be all you have left after the Progressives rise to prominence to make sure there is room for all:)
A perfect example of why women are generally not intellectually capable of handling something so important as voting.
Hahhaha! Seems someone forgot to lock your cage:) Notice all the MEN in our Congress? Can’t blame our country’s many transgressions on women. Bet you blame EVE for all the world’s problems:)
A perfect example of why men are generally not intellectually capable of understanding that voting is a scam and a waste of time better spent watching football.
I much prefer the cooking shows:)
Yes!
This is why our founders didn’t want women to vote…
I just got into an argument with my sister in law over why we shouldn’t register drones.
She couldn’t understand the logic that in the name of security & safety that we’d eventually wind up living in a North Korean style nation “to protect ourselves & our children”.
It proves that from an early age we assume the paradigm we call government is an entity with “authority” and we are conditioned to respect authority and not question it. Where does that authority come from and how is it legitimized is a basic fundamental question lost in the Kabuki theater of politics.
You are very correct! I’m convinced the greater majority of our Congress are psychopaths.
Blue, I have nothing against the authority of the parents have over a child. This is for the child’s well being.
That being said, my stance is no person has any right to grant another person aka member of the state authority over people. The people that make up the state are merely thugs that threaten the populace with murder if they don’t do exactly what the thugs decree. In a way, I have more respect for organized crime than the government. Why? Well they don’t say they are legitimate. They don’t use smoke, mirrors, lies and double speak such as this money will be used to help another person. They are rather forthright about what their intentions are even though it is clearly evil and immoral. A person knows exactly where they stand with the mafia. Also, please realize that I, in no way, support or defend what organized crime does
In my opinion, government is nothing more than organized crime using another, albeit, fancier name. This is why the government wages war on organized crime. After all it is its direct competition!
I completely agree. I was mainly referring to institutional authority. I also think all governments have moved far along into the organized crime and mafia structure to one degree or another. The international bankers at the top of the pyramid of global mafia power are akin to the godfathers. Interestingly, because nation states are in a state of deep capture, elites use laws to punish their critics and protect their fiefdoms. Russia, the largest nation formally considered a “mafia state” with widespread systemic corruption and a tight vertical-of-power structure, has a cultural saying “For my enemies the law, for my friends anything.” Like I said, to one degree or another it’s everywhere and, IMO, by design so the masses will beg for a big global nanny world government authority to stop the corruption. Problem, reaction, solution.
Good point and very true.
Seems to me the author of this article has gotten caught up in his own socratic moment…
Which moment was that?
All of the DC ‘rats’ are well-schooled on how to avoid being painted into a corner. Truth is NOT one of the verbal currencies that they trade in. Jan is simply employing a method of questioning, non-confrontational, that leads the interviewed to a point from which truth must emerge, or the lies glare like a Kleig lamp.
Actually, Helfeld’s question is a good one. But it leaves out these facts: Under the Constitution, people have an unlimited ability to contract. The rules of contract they may have actually unknowingly contracted… are usually unknown to them. For example, if you accept a gov benefit.. you have contracted to more than your bargained for because rarely do the people examine said contracts. The government, so called, is a corporation.. whether STATE OF OHIO or the Fed Corp in DC. They get you through your ‘consent’. ha ha. If you are actually a ‘free inhabitant’ (Articles of Confederation) , or simply a man or woman who does not use the ‘entity’ name created for them to operate in ‘commerce’, e.g., John Dan Doe on the Birth Certificate… those men and woman have no obligation to consent or acquiese to anything the private corporations demand. Because there is no contract. Most people haven’t a clue that when they acquiesce to ‘citizen” (in Black’s Law.. a “subject”) status, they do give up all rights for…. government granted ‘privileges’… Which can, obviously be given…. and as obviously, be taken away…. We got F’D because we were taught to not question. But merely to Consent.
Inalienable rights you can give up.. But under common law, you can’t even give away your UNALIENABLE rights… Do you see why they try to change legal terms? All my rights are unalienable.
Good luck with that. I am yet to see a sovereign citizen live freely. They all are always in trouble with the law, thrown in jail, fined. Those arguments NEVER work in court.
‘sovereign citizen’ is an oxymoron. Either one can be sovereign, or one can be a citizen. But you’re correct in that sovereigns tend to be in trouble with the law.
But that’s a problem with tyranny, not Liberty.
Yes, ‘sovereign citizen’ is an oxymoron… and I do not advocate it. However, if one understands that, for example, the courts are private corporations, that knowledge can lead to changes in how you deal with them …. as all is contract based.
Totally agree. And I have tried over the years to understand the ins and outs of the corporate legalese concerning ‘commerce’ as you pointed out earlier but I’m convinced it’s not meant to be understood by the average person. (i.e., try telling a cop you’re ‘traveling’ and not ‘driving.’)
the cop is too ignorant to know the difference, and if he did know the difference, his job is to squeeze more money pout of the sheep, so he would play dumb even if he was not.
When i address the minions, i state that i am a sovereign man, a living soul, living upon the land of North America. I do not recognize that the minions have any dominion over me.
Well. glad to meet ya. I generally say that I am a sovereign state. 🙂
test
Harry Reid is a lying statist thug, No one voluntarily pays taxes unless they are mindless brainwashed morons or supporters of the state. Whoops! I repeated myself there. When FedGov removes the gun from the room, then let’s see how many people actually willingly contribute to FedGov so it can exist.
Definition of Government: First group of thugs that arrive in a geographical area and enslave the people living therein.
Really didn’t know muxh about Bernie, but that interview reveals that Bernie is a serious statist and world class a-hole.
Bernie watered down an Audit The Fed bill making it useless. Cindy Sheehan made a good case he’s a warmonger too. Meet the new candidate, same as…
Everyone’s missing the point – Jan Helfeld & Politicos especially…
You CAN’T give government power to use force on someone else, BUT you CAN give them the right to use force on YOU. That is the principle of how it works, simples…
By agreeing to be a Citizen of a Nation, you have an implied contract with the Govt – which ostensibly gives them the right to demand you dye your eyebrows blue, and call yourself ‘Dumbo’, if that’s today’s statute.
It ALL hinges on the ‘Social Contract’ between govt & citizen, and that’s where the fraud is. No actual contract. That’s it.
Jan’s question is a bit silly, but the responses are totally ridiculous. Statism is just another fundamentalist religion based on wild assertions.
1) Coercion is unlawful.
2) The ONLY mechanism in law for giving or receiving consent is contract.
Think about it.
I’m 63 years old. What is this Social Contract you speak of? I’ve never read it much less signed it. As for citizenship? The state aka thugs, goons, murderers and their mindless supporters all assume since I was born in a certain geographical area that I am already a citizen of their imposed with no moral justification authority. Fish heads to them all!
Sure, the ‘Social Contract’ is a fraud. like I said… All statute is based on the assumption that there’s a valid contract in place, and if there were it actually would be lawful…
The fraudsters like to say things like “You agreed to abide by the ‘law’ by choosing to live here” etc. They *always* use contractual terminology to describe the relationship between people & govt, but it’s just a common fraud, backed up by violence, there’s no contract…
In terms of this article Jan’s right and wrong, but they all miss the point. Govt works by an implied (hence fraudulent) contract with YOU, that they can do violence to YOU if they see fit, and EVERYONE is under that same contract. So logically, Jan’s question is wrong: You’re not giving the right to harm someone else to the govt, you’re giving the right for them to harm you.
Jan’s question exposes the fraud of the social contract, the unstated assumption the statist pols dodged like a land mine. Jan is getting some people think critically about their assumptions.
Yeah…they all are following the Alinsky “Rules for Radicals” 101 playbook;
rule # 666: – ” If you cannot dazzle them with brilliance, baffle them with bulls#it.”
These are great interviews in that they expose the core element of (mostly democrat/leftwing) ideology.
Those that thrive under this type of “force by government by majority vote” racket get fidgety as they realize they’re being exposed for what they are.
Under this mindset, it would be “lawful” for the government to delegate the right to rape any teenage girls living with their parents, “as long as the majority voted for it”
No wonder our founders never wrote the words “democratic” or “democracy” into the entire constitution!
It looked odd, however, that was the only way to highlight a logical fallacy. Notice that statist pols don’t DIRECTLY answer the question. You can’t delegate a right you don’t have in the first place, or least should not have in a free society. Sanders believes in authoritarian states, he is a self-described socialist. The answer to the question is he and people like him believe states can take on NEW powers that are not considered lawful (or moral) in non-state interactions. What gives them the right? Majority rule? That’s democracy, a form of rule America’s founders knew posed a long term threat to a free society..
I would like to debate this guy, and I do not blame the politicians for getting pissed at him, his style of questioning is aggressive and misleading. You CAN delegate a right that you do not have , when you are delegating it to an INSTITUTION made up of supposedly elected representatives who in turn will VOTE and discuss and decide beforehand whether a law (tax etc) should be enacted! It comes down to this: AN individual citizen cannot hold such a right INDIVIDUALLY…but said citizen may delegate a BODY of elected representatives to hold such authority (rights) ! where the problems occur is when the functioning of the system becomes completely compromised due to corruption and vice!! THIS is where things no longer have checks and balances the way they were envisioned by the founding fathers!! SO this joker JAN is really spewing dribble if you ask me!
No, Jan is right, you can’t do what he suggests. You can’t give anyone the right to break the law. No one can ever have the right to break the law under any circumstances. That’s why it’s “The Law”.(!)
You can only delegate your legal responsibility via CONTRACT. Without one, no delegation has occurred.
Elections are not contracts. They confer no lawful status, of any sort.
Judging by your rather spurious logic, I would love to see you get destroyed 30 seconds into a debate. I understand your fallback position of “because I said so” and “nanny nanny boo boo” and “I will scream over you” are probably doozies, but I don’t think it will give you the win.
I am a champion of the LGBT community. Your accusations go beyond moronic…
What sort of answer do you expect from politicians in a country with a constitution written by slave owners, traitors and Indian killers that spend their time starting illegal wars on every continent.
You forgot mass murderers but I guess Indian killers works and is accurate enough. Although today it’s the psychotic criminal neocons and their bankster enablers behind all the world-wide chaos and havoc trying to keep everything stirred up for the military/industrial complex who’s the greatest seller of weapons on this planet earth. Maybe whack these miscreants, make their evil deeds a crime, punish the criminals and our financial and moral problems would be all but over. Baring that, I think as soon as the thing that gives them their power – the dollar fades and dies mother nature is going to take care of the rest of this…problem. Their (petro) dollar is going on life support soon. Their time is short. And they know it too. The magic is gone…
I don’t forget about the mass murder, but that is only part of a greater list. Like much of the rest of the world, USA needs a violent revolution and the use of the guillotine to sort the bankers and neo-cons.
Wow. That was an eye-opener…
Jan came across as a complete tyrant, with psychopathic traits – advocating murder to save himself, for example. He seemed drunk too. Larken is a legend.
Great find. It turns out that when the tables are turned, Jan does not have the testicular fortitude that he desires his own interviewees to have. If the politicians listened to Jan here, they might be tempted to expose him, but then they would be acknowledging some legitimacy to an anarchist structure of governance. That would be counter productive.
The country was founded as a Republic. All these morons would be considered target practice for zeroing their muskets by the Founding Fathers. Foreign trash and rats bringing alien ideologies to our shores, Tom Jefferson and John Adams would physically march them down to the loading docks to be deported back to whatever toilet their ancestors came from. Some of these guys were born on American soil but that doesn’t make them Americans anymore than pigeons born in the eaves of a barn are farmers.
I have a case on appeal in Washington state. I was arrested with 2 others in January for reading a redress of grievances ( not putting Oaths of Office filing onto the public record as required by state law to have the authority to complete duties of office and dozens of witnessed due process violations) to the traffic court judge before court was put into session. I was arrested after 50 seconds. My appeal is based solely on their use of force to criminalize the exercise of rights. The US constitution is designated as the Supreme Law of the Land in the 2d section of our state constitution. By using force of arms and imprisoning us they have committed an act of war against the People. Yes its a losing battle because they are all corrupt all the way to the top. We are simply hoping to expose the truth–that this is war against the People’s legitimate government. Let’s call it what it is, and we are–TREASON!.
I’m sure Bernie Sanders is a “world class a-hole” as the 1st commenter says,.. aren’t they all..; but I’m afraid Bernie’s right.
We have given authority, as a democracy it seems, to Gov to slap us around, and they bloody well do it every bloody day, and they are bloody good at it.
Perhaps we need a “safe word” to use; not only for when one might be engaging in autoerotic asphyxiation; but also for when one might be engaging with government instrumentalities. They can both be fatal predicaments, after all.
“Give”? Are you crazy? So, someone gets raped repeatedly before they are taught what the word rape means, so now it’s consensual?
No one asked me, and if I object I get killed or go to jail, what part of that is “given”?
By your logic every thief, rapist, murderer, etc. are all legitimate in their actions if they get away with it?
You are definitely preaching to the choir here, but thank you for sharing your thoughts and expertise. Voting fraud is only part of the reason I don’t vote. The other involves withdrawing my energy from the process, which means energetically withdrawing my consent to be “governed” by criminals. You could think of it as a personal declaration of sovereignty. I pay absolutely no attention to any politicians because I get annoyed at being lied to constantly and told what they think I want to hear. It’s insulting, really. The only reason I read this article was due to the journalism angle. I do appreciate your thoughts though, but you’re still giving them your energy by agreeing that they are worth your time to cast a vote at all. I dream of a day when no one casts a single vote so that the whole stupid campaign process falls on its sword.
Bernie you where a bullshitter then and you are a bullshitter now.
Exposing politicians for the useless, arrogant, resource
deleting idiots they are.
In the pictionary, above the caption ‘natural born shyster’
there is a photo of Bernie.
They don’t read the Constitution, they have trouble understanding the common definition of words (voluntary), and insist that they have powers NEVER delegated to them.
Their delusions have resulted in our government today…….