Article III § 2 clause 1 (cont’d):

(1) Unconscionable Contracts:

To see what’s meant by unconscionable contracts, consider the following hypothetical case: A woman has transmission trouble. She goes to a local mechanic to have it worked on. Before beginning the work, the mechanic has the woman sign a contract which stipulates (i)that the mechanic has absolutely zero liability if he increases the damage to the car; and (ii)that the woman is 100 percent liable if the mechanic increases the damage to the car. The mechanic works on the car, and renders the transmission practically worthless. The woman sues the mechanic for damages. In his defense, the mechanic submits the contract as evidence to the court. The court stipulates that the contract is unconscionable, and refuses to enforce it. 2 Instead, the judge demands that the mechanic should pay half of what it costs to replace or repair the transmission, and the woman pay the other half. Is this a righteous judgment according to the hermeneutical prologue?

Practically any adult American who has ever come into possession of a Federal Reserve note (frn) has also been exposed to fine print on a contract that is so laborious to read that the average person simply signs the contract without reading it. So it’s easy for the average person to identify with this woman, to feel compassionate towards her, and to feel malevolence towards the apparently unscrupulous mechanic. But before we all say "Hurrah!" for the concept of unconscionability, consider another case.

Jack is getting old. He decides that he would rather die on his own terms, on his own property, than in a hospital, ostensibly being cared for by a cadre of medical technicians. Jack has his daughter, Nancy, sign a contract that stipulates the following: If Jack becomes bedridden and painfully incapacitated, Nancy will bring a strong dose of substance X to Jack’s bedside, and she will help Jack to self-administer substance X so that Jack will die in the manner of his choosing. — In process of time, Jack indeed becomes painfully bedridden. Nancy remembers the contract, but is afraid of going through with it because she knows that euthanasia is illegal, and she’s afraid she might be accused of that. She takes the contract to a lawyer to make sure that she will not be getting herself into legal trouble by doing what she has pledged to her father to do. The lawyer tells her that the contract is unconscionable, and she is not obligated to fulfill the obligation that she has pledged to fulfill. So she refuses to go through with the contract. Another relative discovers Jack’s plight, and forces him into the hospital, where he dies in precisely the manner that he dreaded. Was the lawyer right in claiming that the contract was unconscionable?

According to principles derived from the hermeneutical prologue, every human being has an unalienable Right to contract, and the only limits on the terms of such contract are that they not cause bloodshed against anyone. 3

(a) Unconscionable Contracts – case #1:

In the first case, the woman foolishly entered a contract to fix her transmission, and no one forced her to enter it. According to law (i.e., common law) 4 she was probably obligated to fulfill the terms of the contract, meaning that she probably had no standing in an at law court to sue the mechanic. 5 But she certainly had standing to sue in an equity court. If we endeavor to keep these circumstances within the context of the principles we find in the hermeneutical prologue, we come to the following conclusion about this case: There was neither gross delict nor subtle delict. This is because the damage caused by the mechanic was damage that she consented contractually to absorb. If she had been coerced into the contract, then that would have been totally different. If she had been coerced or defrauded, then such coercion / fraud would have been grounds for nullifying the contract. 6 The fact that the court found that it was an unconscionable contract, even though there was no delict, means that the unconscionable contract finding must have been made in an ecclesiastical court, rather than a jural court. This is because jural courts only address delictual issues, and there is no delict in this case. So there is this rough equivalence here between the court of equity and the strictly defined ecclesiastical court.

If we assume – because this is the case in most such situations – that the woman and the mechanic are total strangers to each other at the time of their signings of the contract, and if we assume that they have absolutely no knowledge of one-another’s religious beliefs or backgrounds, and no interest in knowing such things, then we’re driven inevitably to conclude that their contract is by default under the jurisdiction of a secular social compact. This means that the ecclesiastical side of this secular social compact will have default jurisdiction over the case. A secular ecclesiastical compact has, by definition, the bare minimal ecclesiastical features necessary to establish a strict ecclesiastical jurisdiction over all ethnic groups, religions, races, and religious social compacts. According to all rational and rigorous readings of Scripture, the only human law that is globally applicable is against bloodshed. So we’re driven inevitably to conclude one of the following. If the woman and the mechanic are in a court that genuinely, truly, and lawfully has subject matter jurisdiction, then: (i)This doctrine of unconscionability has global application. OR (ii)The judge in this presumably secular court is applying a legal doctrine that is not secular, but is instead religious. OR (iii)The woman and the mechanic have somehow found themselves in a religious court, even though they did not get there through consent. OR (iv)Contrary to what was originally assumed, the woman and the mechanic had given prior consent to being under the jurisdiction of the same religious ecclesiastical compact.

Regarding (i) – the assumption that the doctrine of unconscionability has global application – we’ve already determined in the hermeneutical prologue that the proscription against bloodshed is the only human law that has global application. If this finding of unconscionability is in essence a finding of bloodshed, then it makes perfect sense that a secular court would generate this half-and-half judgment. But the fact of the case is that this is not fraud, because the mechanic did not deceive the woman. He took advantage of her laziness, but he did not defraud her. The mechanic also did not use force against her in any way. She signed the contract voluntarily, without coercion or deception. So this is clearly not a case of bloodshed. The contract may be unconscionable in the sense that no one in his or her right mind would sign it. But that doesn’t mean that if someone does, indeed, sign it, then that’s bloodshed. — The concept of unconscionable contract is essentially an equitable doctrine that exists to protect normal people at times when they lack good judgment. It emphatically does not have global application, and therefore does not have a lawful place in a secular court. But it certainly has value in a religious ecclesiastical court.

Regarding (iv) – the assumption that the woman and the mechanic gave prior consent to being under the jurisdiction of the same religious ecclesiastical compact – we assumed in our original description of the case that it takes place in early 21st century America. Practically no one in this setting believes in the compact theory of government. Virtually no one has heard that there is a legitimate distinction between secular and religious social compacts. Virtually no one takes consent seriously as the foundation of society and civilization (speaking strictly in terms of human law). So we conclude that it’s extremely unlikely that the woman and the mechanic gave, respectively, prior consent to being under the same religious social compact.

Given that options (i) and (iv) are eliminated, if we insist that the woman and the mechanic are in a court that genuinely, truly, and lawfully has subject matter jurisdiction, then we have to conclude that either (ii) is true and (iii) is not, or (iii) is true and (ii) is not. If (ii) is true, then when the woman and the mechanic went to the secular court, the secular judge applied a legal doctrine that was not secular, but religious, to resolve their case. If (iii) is true, then when the mechanic and the woman went to court, the court was a religious court, and, being secular people, they did not mean to be in a religious court. Through error, delusion, deception, or mistake, they submitted themselves to the jurisdiction of a religious court. — In either situation (ii) or situation (iii), there is a mixture of jurisdictions that does not lend itself to genuine justice. In early 21st century America, virtually all courts are secular; but the doctrine of unconscionability is inherently religious. This situation does not lend itself to genuine justice. We therefore cannot make an a priori assumption that such courts genuinely, truly, and lawfully have subject matter jurisdiction.

In spite of how much we may have compassion for the woman, and in spite of how much we may despise the mechanic, the consent rule established in the Declaration of Independence is worth fighting for, and worth living by. The woman, and, for that matter, everyone else in this country, should be extremely suspicious and cautious about signing contracts. It may have been inconvenient for her to study the contract, because she was probably in a hurry, and didn’t want to spend time thinking through all that fine print. It was inconvenient for her to spend any time considering the mechanic’s moral commitments. If she realized that he didn’t have many moral commitments, no doubt she would have found another mechanic to work on her transmission.

Given the present nature of American society, it would be irresponsible, and deeply lacking in compassion, for us to leave this woman with a damaged transmission – made irreparable by an incompetent mechanic – and to give her no relief and no remedy. She started with a damaged transmission. The mechanic made the transmission irreparable. Assuming that standards derived from the hermeneutical prologue determine the final judgment in her case – rather than the standards of a duplicitous judge in a duplicitous court – we have to come to this conclusion: She has to pay not only for the original damage, but also for the added damage, only because she was too hurried to study the contract. This is the kind of situation that made equity courts popular, and that made massive regulation of the economy the presumed solution. How would we get relief or remedy for this woman in a technologically advanced society that honors consent, liberty to contract, 7 personal responsibility, and the welfare of ordinary people like this woman who have temporary lapses in judgment? — To address this issue of finding remedy, we’ll take a two step approach: (i)We’ll look at our present circumstances, so that we know what they are. (ii)We’ll consider what our society would look like if it were based on consent.

(i)Our society has almost totally abandoned the compact theory of government – and with it, the centrality of consent – since the War Between the States. Instead, we have gone gung-ho into the Hamiltonian national consolidation. As a result, most contracts that ordinary people sign these days are not ordinary contracts, but are rather adhesion contracts. So ordinary people are totally lacking in the skills necessary to analyze a contract and haggle over terms. So ordinary people don’t make the attempt to do so. — An adhesion contract is a "Standardized contract form offered to consumers of goods and services on essentially ‘take it or leave it’ basis without affording consumer realistic opportunity to bargain and under such conditions that consumer cannot obtain desired product or services except in acquiescing in form of contract. Distinctive feature of adhesion contract is that weaker party has no realistic choice as to its terms. . . .  Not every such contract is unconscionable.". 8 — Anyone who has signed a contract to get a credit card is a "weaker party" to an adhesion contract. The same is true for most bank loans, mortgages, software use licenses, etc. In fact, adhesion contracts are everywhere. They appear convenient. But they generally have a hidden cost that will eventually preempt their convenience.

After the national consolidation began at the War Between the States, – Surprise! – huge corporations, trusts, and other enterprises started developing and dominating the American marketplace. The growth of businesses dedicated to mass production and distribution led inevitably to development of standardized contracts. Since it’s too much trouble for huge enterprises to haggle with every customer, these enterprises developed boilerplate that they offered to customers on a take-it-or-leave-it basis. — There’s no doubt that these enterprises have in many respects benefited all of us. But it’s mandatory that we ask: At what price? What rights have we been required to surrender?

As indicated in the definition, not all adhesion contracts are unconscionable. In other words, according to our courts, not all adhesion contracts are lopsided, favoring too much one party over the other. Even so, by definition, they are lopsided in the sense that there is presumably a strong party and a weak party, and the former creates the boilerplate, and the latter approaches the boilerplate on a take-it-or-leave-it basis.

As far as we can tell, "adhesion contract" was first used as a legal term in France by Raymond Salleilles. He described it as a contract "in which one predominate unilateral will dictates its law to an undetermined multitude rather than to an individual . . .  as in all employment contracts of big industry, transportation contracts of big railroad companies and all those contracts which, as the Romans said, resemble a law much more than a meeting of the minds.". 9 The expression apparently first appeared in the united States in 1919. 10 In 1943, Kessler described it like this: "Freedom of contract enables enterprisers to legislate by contract and, what is even more important, to legislate in a substantially authoritarian manner without using the appearance of authoritarian forms. Standard contracts in particular could thus become effective instruments in the hands of powerful industrial and commercial overlords enabling them to impose a new feudal order of their own making upon a vast host of vassals.". 11

There’s nothing inherently wrong with an adhesion contract, as long as the contract is not inherently one-sided in the same way that unconscionable contracts are one-sided. Given current technology, the contrast between "weaker" and stronger parties largely evaporates in some instances. For example, a relatively impoverished individual could run a web site from his one-bedroom apartment, and offer software developed by him, using an adhesion contract. So adhesion contracts are not necessarily lopsided, and they are not necessarily unconscionable. But there’s no doubt that huge corporations have often used them in a manner that is dubious. What’s even more undeniable is that they continue to be used by government agencies in a way that clearly abuses rights.

One feature of adhesion contracts that is inevitably prone to favoring one party over the other, is the fact that the party that develops the boilerplate has the advantage of time, study, and perhaps expert advice, in preparing the contract. In contrast, the "weaker party", in our case, the woman, has no real opportunity to study it. In our case, and in most cases, this advantage is compounded by fine print and convoluted clauses. This advantage exists even in the case where a single programmer in a one-bedroom apartment develops the adhesion contract. But other than this advantage that one party has over the other, there might be no other, unless the stronger party is the government, or some industry (like banking) that is protected and/or subsidized by the government.

When legislation is passed by a city council, a county board of commissioners, a State legislature, or the legislature of the general government, and such legislation is turned as law over to an administrative agency, and the government has a legal monopoly over the product or service at hand, the strong party in any resulting adhesion contract is extremely strong, and the weak party is extremely weak. Such adhesion contracts exist to undergird practically every government-issued license. Driver’s licenses, vehicle tags, hunting licenses, fishing licenses, building permits, etc., ad nauseam, all fit this form. This is where the real abuse of adhesion contracts is: in government, and in businesses that receive inordinate support from government. Feudal fiefdoms essentially dictate terms to feudal serfs through statutory legislation and administrative regulations. — This is the current state of things in nationally consolidated America.

(ii)In a society dedicated to honoring the fact that every human being is created in the image of God 12 – and therefore to honoring consent / assent as essential to all adult activities – this woman would live in a community of like-minded people. In other words, in a society dedicated to the compact theory of government, this woman would live in a community in which each adult was party to a religious social compact. The religious ecclesiastical compact that operated under her religious social compact would have jurisdiction over her contract with the mechanic, as long as the mechanic was also a member / party of her religious social compact. If both the mechanic and the woman were party to this religious compact, the compact’s ecclesiastical society would almost inevitably find that the contract was unconscionable, and would thereby find some way of relieving the damages to the woman. Under such conditions, their local religious social compact would exist under the umbrella of their county’s secular social compact, which would exist under the umbrella of their State’s secular social compact, which would exist under the umbrella of the general government’s secular social compact.

What if this woman lived in a society dedicated to the compact theory of government, but she and the mechanic were not party to the same religious social compact? Then a secular social compact’s secular ecclesiastical society would have jurisdiction. Since a secular ecclesiastical compact has very limited jurisdiction, the woman would be in the same very hard place that we originally discovered. In the eyes of the lawful secular ecclesiastical compact, there is no such thing as an unconscionable contract, unless the contract is an agreement to commit a delict (such a contract being void from inception). The same judges who hold court under the immediate authority of this secular ecclesiastical compact may be – when not operating in their official capacity, in other words, when operating as private citizens – privately party to a religious social compact that recognizes unconscionability. But a secular social compact cannot recognize it because a contract to commit a delict is not a contract. So these judges cannot recognize it, qua judges. The unavoidable view of the secular ecclesiastical compact is that she entered the contract she made with the mechanic voluntarily, with eyes wide open, and the contract is therefore not bloodshed. So in accordance with the contract, she would be 100% liable.

Conclusion regarding case #1: In a society thus dedicated to the compact theory of government, compassion still exists. But it does not exist in a form in which the secular government presumes to force people to be compassionate, and thereby commits bloodshed against them. Compassion exists in a much more local and voluntary form. Such a society takes consent seriously, and therefore takes every contract seriously. In every contract, there is an assumption of obligations, and a reception of (at least potential) benefits. Such a society will inevitably take the exchange of such privileges and duties seriously. The positive law of the contract is contained as a term in the body of the contract, as long as such contractual law does not violate the positive law of the larger society. By definition, a contract contains consideration, meaning that it is entered with "caution and deliberation (consideration)". 13 It demands consideration because of this assumption of obligations. For people to cease to enter contracts with due "caution and deliberation" is for the positive law imposed by the contract to be treated as frivolous. When respect for the law erodes, societies crumble.

In order to come to a final conclusion about this case, it’s critical to make a distinction between a contract marked by constructive fraud and one that is not marked by constructive fraud. The mechanic’s contract may be an adhesion contract in the sense that he is strong and she is weak, but he’s not running a massive monopoly on a take-it-or-leave-it basis. The fact that he offers such a contract is a sign to all that no one should do business with him. But all the other mechanics in town might be busy, making his offer tempting. If he had used coercive measures, that had been cloaked by the administrative state, to form a monopoly in his small town, then offered this contract, then the formation of the monopoly by way of such collusion would be grounds for criminal action against him. The contract would be a sign of constructive fraud, which is generally a delict when there is an injured party. Even though these things are true, the point of examining this case is to magnify the distinction between secular ecclesiastical courts and religious ecclesiastical courts, and to show that current secular ecclesiastical courts are operating by way of religious ecclesiastical principles, and are therefore jurisdictionally dysfunctional. So according to the hermeneutical prologue, the judgment of the secular ecclesiastical court to which the woman took the case was jurisdictionally dysfunctional.

(b) Unconscionable Contracts – case #2:

From the perspective of traditional Anglo-American jurisprudence, Jack’s contract with Nancy was certainly unconscionable, because he would have gained what he wanted from it, and she would apparently have gained nothing. But is this true if we examine this case from the perspective of the hermeneutical prologue? To see this case from that perspective, the first question we’re driven to ask is this: Was there bloodshed involved in this contract? Was Jack asking Nancy to commit a delict against him? Or was Jack planning on committing a delict against himself? — According to the contract, Nancy was obligated to provide Jack with substance X. She would not have forced Jack to take substance X, because Jack and Nancy both intended for Jack to self-administer substance X. So it’s impossible for anyone to prove that Nancy would have been directly committing a delict against Jack. But if Jack were committing a delict against himself, then Nancy would have been an accessory, or an abettor, to Jack’s crime. Was Jack planning to commit a delict against himself?

According to the hermeneutical prologue’s interpretation of Genesis 9:6, which is the source text for our definition of bloodshed, bloodshed can exist in two and only two forms: bloodshed ex delicto and bloodshed ex contractu, out of a delict and out of a contract. Bloodshed that arises out of a contract arises out of the breach of the contract, where such breach is governed by the terms of the contract. Such a breached contract is different from a situation in which parties enter into a contract to commit a delict against someone else. Anglo-American law has generally held that any contract to commit a delict is void from its inception, and the hermeneutical prologue’s interpretation of Genesis 9:6 agrees with that entirely. So this question about whether Nancy’s lawyer was right in claiming the contract was unconscionable appears to revolve around how unconscionability is defined. (i)If it’s defined as American courts generally define it these days, then it involves a contract in which "no sensible man not under delusion, duress, or in distress would make, and such as no honest and fair man would accept"; and it involves a "contract the terms of which are excessively overreaching and one-sided." (ii)If unconscionability is defined by principles to which a lawful secular ecclesiastical court must adhere, then it pertains to a contract that involves the perpetration of a delict. First we’ll examine whether the contract between Nancy and Jack involves the perpetration of a delict.

For the contract between Jack and Nancy to genuinely involve bloodshed ex delicto, there must be someone who commits the damage, and someone to pay, through retribution, restitution, etc., for such damage. If Jack were dead, then it would have been impossible to demand restitution from him. Likewise, if he were dead, then taking retribution against him would have been a gruesome and stupid act, trying to kill someone who was already dead. So delictual bloodshed must by definition not apply to self-mutilation, self-destruction, or suicide. For those of us committed to living by biblical standards of morality, suicide is certainly not an option, because Scripture is clear that life is precious even when it’s painful. So we’re driven inevitably to conclude that Nancy and Jack cared little or nothing about biblical standards of morality. So by default, they were under the jurisdiction of one of this country’s secular social compacts. But here, from the hermeneutical prologue’s perspective, they were being forced to abide by standards of morality to which they did not consent, both by the classification of their contract as unconscionable, and by the prospects of Nancy essentially being accused of murder by practicing euthanasia. If the ecclesiastical compact of the general government – and likewise of the State government where Jack and Nancy lived – were a genuinely secular ecclesiastical compact, then such ecclesiastical courts would not limit Jack and Nancy’s right to contract in a way that essentially forced them to live by standards to which they did not consent. Such force is lawful only in cases of bloodshed. But there is no bloodshed involved in their contract, except whatever bloodshed exists by way of the fact that Nancy breached their contract. So it is not legitimate for a secular court to find that their contract is unconscionable in the sense that the contract involved an agreement to perpetrate a delict. It may be unconscionable to Bible-believing people. But it’s not necessarily unconscionable to pagans or others unless bloodshed exists or is anticipated. So a secular social compact – like the ones that the general government and all the State governments implicitly purport to be – cannot hold that Jack and Nancy’s contract is unconscionable.

If unconscionability is defined as a contract in which "no sensible man not under delusion, duress, or in distress would make, and such as no honest and fair man would accept", where this definition also stipulates terms that are "excessively overreaching and one-sided", then where is this delusion and one-sidedness in this contract between Jack and Nancy? Jack’s not asking Nancy to do anything more than to help him to die in a way that he thinks is dignified. Given that the relationship between parent and child is almost inherently one-sided, it seems a relatively small thing for Jack to ask. So where does the delusion, distress, and one-sidedness come from? It comes from the fact that helping people to commit suicide is seen in most States in this country as being so close to euthanasia, which most States essentially treat as a form of murder. So given that kind of context, Nancy’s lawyer is right to claim that the contract is one-sided, because the contract is asking far too much of her. But that one-sidedness is not inherent in the relationship between Nancy and her father, but is rather imposed by the State by way of the State’s de-legitimizing assisted suicide.

In our country at this time, there is a difference between euthanasia and assisted suicide. In euthanasia, someone is actively killing someone who may or may not want to die. In assisted suicide, the person doing the killing is also the person dying, and this act is assisted by someone else. So this contract between Nancy and Jack is a contract involving assisted suicide, and not euthanasia. The difficulty in having the law follow the clear distinction between these two probably revolves around the fact that the American medical profession has had strains of eugenics throughout much of its history, and doctors have thereby proven themselves to be untrustworthy stewards of assisted suicide. There is a historical propensity for doctors to practice eugenics under the pretense of euthanasia or assisted suicide. But because suicide falls outside the purview of Genesis 9:6 bloodshed, while euthanasia and eugenics do not, it’s critical to understand that assisted suicide must be allowable under the subject matter jurisdiction of a secular social compact, while the other two can never be.

Because Jack and Nancy never consented to live by biblical standards of morality, and since they clearly contracted to live (and die) by other standards, when the government’s laws act as a standing threat against Nancy, the government is guilty of bloodshed. Such a threat is a delict. The government is in effect committing assault against Nancy by threatening to execute retribution against her when she has not, and intends not, to commit bloodshed against anyone. Euthanasia is certainly wrong, because it is primarily doctors committing bloodshed against their patients. But suicide is not bloodshed, and should not be treated as such, even though it’s morally wrong from a Christian perspective. What Nancy would have gained by seeing her father die the way he wanted, is the knowledge that she did her best to honor him. If a court cannot see this as a benefit to her, then the court obviously should not be granted jurisdiction.

In this country, consent is routinely ignored. All people in the united States are essentially forced to abide by the standards of a religious ecclesiastical compact into which they have not voluntarily entered. The religion behind this religious ecclesiastical compact may now go unnamed. But this doesn’t diminish our contention that the purportedly secular or secular governments of the united States are wrongly enforcing the standards of religious social compacts, rather than of a secular social compact. These governments use force against people where contracts do not exist, and where force is not called for contractually, and where consent does not exist, and where bloodshed does not exist except that bloodshed that the government itself is perpetrating.

Conclusion regarding case #2: As a representative of the status quo, Nancy’s lawyer was right to claim that the contract was unconscionable, only because the bad laws were such a threat that those laws made the contract one-sided. But if Nancy’s lawyer had been someone who needed to tell her the whole truth, then he would not have characterized the contract as unconscionable. Instead, he would have told her that the contract was valid and good within lawful secular jurisdictions, but that she was not inhabiting such a jurisdiction.

(c) Unconscionable Contracts – summary:

The concept of unconscionable contracts is without a doubt extremely valuable. At least this is true if we assume in advance, through prior consent, that the parties to the contract all believe that unconscionable contracts are bad, and should be avoided. This is precisely the assumption that the equity courts of England made, either implicitly or explicitly, prior to the ratification of the Constitution. Since there was a national religion in England before Henry VIII – Roman Catholicism – and since there was a national religion in England after Henry VIII – Anglicanism – we conclude that the equity courts of England operated on the assumption that the entire country was under a single religious ecclesiastical compact. When the "Law and Equity" of England was adopted by the thirteen colonies, and then by all subsequent States, the united States in fact adopted most of the biases of England’s religious ecclesiastical compact. Since then, the united States have continued to operate on the assumption that there is, in fact, a full-blown religious ecclesiastical compact appended to each secular social compact in the general and State governments. In other words, all the State governments and the general government have been trying for over two hundred years to be both secular social compacts and religious social compacts. This is essentially a case of bipolar insanity. The result over the last hundred years is that the ecclesiastical compacts in these governments have been getting increasingly secular, not secular. In other words, secular humanism has been getting increasingly adopted, de facto, by the ecclesiastical compacts of these secular social compacts. Secular humanism is a religion that purports to not be a religion, because it claims that God has little or no place in its belief system. But the fact is that secular humanism generates equitable legal doctrines that it incessantly imposes on non-secular humanists without their consent. In other words, secular humanism is the "established religion" of these presumably secular social compacts, and it perpetrates bloodshed – on a random and frequent basis – against people who do not adhere to secular humanism. This situation is driving the united States into destruction. It must be stopped. The sure way to stop it is to make prior consent a prerequisite in every legal action, except in cases in which the accused is suspected of perpetrating a delict.

Footnotes

1From Sea to Shining Sea, pp.204-209. This is from a letter from John Quincy Adams to Benjamin Rush.

2def.: unconscionable bargain — "An unconscionable bargain or contract is one which no man in his senses, not under delusion, would make, on the one hand, and which no fair and honest man would accept, on the other." (Black’s 5th, p. 1367).

def.: unconscionability — "Typically the cases in which unconscionability is found involve gross overall one-sidedness or gross one-sidedness of a term disclaiming a warranty, limiting damages, or granting procedural advantages. In these cases one-sidedness is often coupled with the fact that the imbalance is buried in small print and often couched in language unintelligible to even a person of moderate education." (Black’s 5th, p. 1367).

"Basic test of ‘unconscionability’ of contract is whether under circumstances existing at time of making of contract and in light of general commercial background and commercial needs of particular trade or case, clauses involved are so one-sided as to oppress or unfairly surprise party. . . .  Unconscionability is generally recognized to include an absence of meaningful choice on the part of one of the parties to a contract together with contract terms which are unreasonably favorable to the other party." (Black’s 5th, p. 1367).

"Restatement of Contracts. If a contract or term thereof is unconscionable at the time the contract is made a court may refuse to enforce the contract, or may enforce the remainder of the contract without the unconscionable term, or may so limit the application of any unconscionable term as to avoid any unconscionable result" (Black’s 5th, p. 1367).

"Uniform Commercial Code. (1)If the court as a matter of law finds the contract or any clause of the contract to have been unconscionable at the time it was made the court may refuse to enforce the contract, or it may enforce the remainder of the contract without the unconscionable clause, or it may so limit the application of any unconscionable clause as to avoid any unconscionable result. (2)When it is claimed or appears to the court that the contract or any clause thereof may be unconscionable the parties shall be afforded a reasonable opportunity to present evidence as to its commercial setting, purpose and effect to aid the court in making the determination." (Black’s 5th, p. 1367).

3For an expanded view of these ideas, see the property-interest model of contracts presented in "Memorandum of Law & Fact about Contracts", URL: ../../../../​Memos/​MemoOnContracts/​html/.

4More specifically, English common law prior to Moses v. Macferlan.

5def.: standing to sue doctrine — "‘Standing to sue’ means that party has sufficient stake in an otherwise justiciable controversy to obtain judicial resolution of that controversy. . . .  Standing is a concept utilized to determine if a party is sufficiently affected so as to insure that a justiciable controversy is presented to the court. The requirement of ‘standing’ is satisfied if it can be said that the plaintiff has a legally protectible and tangible interest at stake in the litigation." (Black’s 5th, p. 1260).

6There are five valid reasons for voiding (or nullifying) a contract: (1)lack of capacity; (2)coercion; (3)fraud (Constructive fraud is significantly different from plain fraud. The burden of proof is more difficult under plain fraud, because proving plain fraud requires (a)proof of intent, which is difficult, or (b)establishment of a pattern of behavior. Constructive fraud is where all the details of the contract are not revealed because one of the parties is withholding information.); (4)misunderstanding (that is, mutual misunderstanding); (5)misrepresentation.

7"There is . . .  no absolute freedom to contract. The government may regulate or forbid any contract reasonably calculated to affect injuriously public interest." (Black’s 5th, p. 828) — Under the global covenant, the liberty to contract is limited only by the global mandate to avoid committing bloodshed against other people. But this quote from the legal definition of liberty to contract makes it obvious that in modern America, government infringes upon the liberty to contract far more frequently and arbitrarily than is allowable under the global covenant. In other words, government frequently perpetrates bloodshed with regard to this liberty, and does so by having a definition of "public interest" that is at grandiose variance with the bloodshed standard.

8Black’s 5th, p. 38.

953 Columbia Law Review, p. 1075, footnote 17, "Adhesion Contracts in the Conflict of Laws", by Albert A. Ehrenzweig. Ehrenzweig is quoting Raymond Salleilles’ book, De la Declaration de Volonté, p. 229.. In this footnote, Ehrenzweig also credits Salleilles with coining the phrase, "contrat d’adhésion".

1033 Harvard Law Review, p. 222 (1919), "The Delivery of a Life Insurance Policy", by Edwin W. Patterson.

1143 Columbia Law Review, p. 640, "Contracts of Adhesion–Some Thoughts about Freedom of Contract", by Friedrich Kessler.

12Being created in the image of God is not a license for self-aggrandizement. It is instead an obligation to recognize that image in other people, as well as in oneself.

13Bouvier’s Law Dictionary, 1914, Vol. I, p. 661.