Question re: Democracy/Representative Government

Some time ago a friend asked me "If I do not have the right to tax you or to prevent you from smoking marihuana or to coerce you in any way, how can I logically delegate this right that I don't possess to a legislator or representative so that he aquires a right to coerce you? I have asked at many individualist, libertarian, and anarchist sites if anyone knew who might have first come up with this argument, and no one seems to know. I thought that I'd try a philosophy site. Anyone have any clues?

 

Hobbes' Leviathan,

Rousseau's The Social Contract, and Discourse on the Origin and Basis of Inequality Amoung Men

Locke's Second Treatise of Government.

What you are looking for is natural rights theory and Social Contract Theory.

Certain natural inalienable human rights cannot be taken/legislated away. Other rights are created through an agreement between people in a state of nature to escape the state of nature through submission to a central power.