[glenra]

There's a difference between "refuted" and "dubiously asserted, ignoring all arguments to the contrary". :-)

Looking back on this exchange, the core of our disagreement is the word "explicit". A contract is an agreement. If I sign a piece of paper saying I agree to something, that is an "explicit" contract. But if you merely infer based on my actions in some context that I've agreed to something, you are arguing for the existence of an implied contract.

Huben's text confuses the agreement with the terms being agreed to. The legal codes might be written down explicitly but my consent to them is not written down - it is at best implied. There is no explicit social contract. If you claim there is, what's the basis for your claim? When you say agreement is established by doing X or Y, how do you know that? Just because Huben said so? What is the source of your knowledge that these ten acts establish a contract and some other set of acts don't? Could I not with equal justification claim that, say, picking your nose makes you a citizen of Hackerstan and subject to some random set of laws I've written down?

[Locke1689]

Your citizenship is the explicit signature on the contract. As long as you are a citizen you are a signatory. You can remove your name at any time.

[glenra]

> Your citizenship is the explicit signature on the contract.

A "citizenship" is not a tangible thing. I didn't do anything specific to get a "citizenship", so how can my allegedly "having" one constitute an explicit anything?

Do you not see how circular the argument is? Is your claim really that (a) I'm bound to the US legal code because I "have a citizenship", and (b) I "have a citizenship" because the US legal code says I do? Are you sure you've thought this through?

> As long as you are a citizen you are a signatory.

I'm sorry, but to me the word "signatory" implies having signed something. Your claim makes about as much sense as saying "as long as you have red hair you are a signatory".

> You can remove your name at any time.

That is not actually true; you can't renounce citizenship without the government's consent which it only grants in limited circumstances. You can't do it while residing in the US and if you have significant assets or income in many cases you need to either keep paying income tax for TEN YEARS after you leave or are required to pay a huge one-time lump sum. The practicality of the situation is a bit like being born a slave and having the (limited) right to purchase your freedom later in life.