wellspring/01-principles/01-01-principles.md

Wellspring: Principles.

Prologue

This constitution is a broad template of sorts which is meant to be adapted and adopted by a new era of nations. Its name is Wellspring -- it aims to be a wellspring from which oases of reason and individualism will flourish in a world of coercion and collectivism.

Wellspring, hereafter "WS", exists to improve upon the mistakes of the forerunner American republic and form a more perfect union. WS is intended to establish a free market, minarchist, constitutional republic (i.e., emphatically not a democracy) with a strong bias against wealth redistribution.

Interpretation

WS shall always be interpreted in an originalist fashion consistent with the doctrine of Antonin Scalia (1936-2016). In order to assist with its interpretation, each file also includes an Apologia to explain what the text was understood to mean to its framers and the surrounding zeitgeist at the time of its adoption.

Where unclear, the text is to be interpreted to favour as wealth little redistribution as possible, preferring always none if that is an option.

Symbols, celebrations and rituals.

Motto: "The individual outranks the collective."

Anthem: The Westerner by Badger Clark.

Pledge of Allegiance/Oath of Office: "I swear by my life and my love of it that I will never attempt to force, threaten or defraud another indeperson into living for me."

Republic Holidays: Each of the cornerstone principles of the republic shall have its own holiday to keep it in remembrance. Working on a republic holiday incurs no penalty.

• First month:
  • Day 1: Not A Democracy, but a Republic if you can keep it (ReNoDem) day.
  • Day 2: Common Law and Magna Carta (Magnificata) day.
• 2nd quarter month:
  • Day 1: Intentional Gridlock (InteGrid) day.
  • Day 15: Sic Semper Tyrannis (Sictember) day.
• Middle month:
  • Day 1: Private Property Law (PrivaLa) day.
  • Day 15: Rights are Unimpeded Capabilities, Not Obligations On Others (RaNO) day.
• 3rd-quarter month:
  • Day 1: Tyranny is unenforceable day.
  • Day 15: Existence Exists (Exis) day.
• Final month:
  • Penultimate day: Reason Grasps Reality (ReGRe) day.
  • Final day: Existence is Identity and Consciousness is Identification (EIConI) day.

Theory of rights and law:

Definition of Rights

There is only one fundamental right: that of the individual to its own life and by inference, its right to use its own capabilities (mental and physical) in the pursuit thereof. No indepagent has a moral claim on the life (and by extension, the capabilities) of other indepagents and no indepagent can morally claim to own another indepagent. Rights are capabilities and nothing more. That is, a right is a capability which an indepagent can fully exercise on its own, "by right" of its own nature/design, if left unimpeded. A right is not a claim on the capabilities, mind/consciouness or labour of another indepagent.

Rights and private property law go hand in hand; rights are capabilities, and private property law ensures non-interference: to wit, that no indepagent's capabilities are used to injur or impede another indepagent's ability to exercise its rights.

Individual rights precede and give occasion for, government. Private property law exists to preserve and protect individual rights. Government exists to enforce private property law.

Definition of Private Property

Private Property law is that set of restrictions which stem from the recognition of the sovereignty of every indepagent over its own self (both consciousness and "body") and the produce of its labour (both cognitive and physical). In order to protect the sovereignty of indepagents, private property law secures each indepagent against interference in the forms of force, duress and fraud. Any claim by any indepagent to ownership of another indepagent shall be null and void in a WS court.

The private property of the individual may only be breached in the pursuit of the following exceptions:

• In as much as preconagents are unfit to sensibly manage their own lives and property:
  • There shall be laws to designate both the automatic and explicit guardianship, trusteeship and powers of attorney to others for the unsound of mind during such time that they are unsound (pueragency, senesagency, diagnosed mental unsoundness, accident, etc).
  • WS does not espouse the notion that parents have absolute power over their children since children are individuals as much as sui juris conagents are. Biological parents are the explicit, legally enforced guardians of their children owing to the fact that it was the parents' unilateral choice to bring the child into existence and the child was not consulted. Hence parents take on legal accountability for the protection of the life and property of their children until such time that they reach sui juris. There shall be laws to protect the life and property of children while they have not yet matured to sui juris.
• In as much also, as communicable diseases and biohazards are a market failure whose urgency demands that the gradual hand of the market to reach equilibrium be bypassed for expeditious measures: communicable (and only communicable) diseases and biohazards shall be an exception to individual sovereignty, within the parameters outlined in SovCBio law.
• The preparedness of the nation for war to protect the private property of WS residents, within the parameters outlined in SovWI law.
• Finally in order to resolve information asymmetries and discourage fraud: laws which force the publication of component ingredients in a product or service (but not the method thereof), and which force the prominent display of expiry dates; as well as warnings of danger (e.g., warnings about epileptic siezures or safety hazards) are a permissible exception to the non-negotiability of private property law. Furthermore, the government may make laws requiring corpagents to publish openly, or maintain privately (for the purpose of subpeona for evidence in trials by jury) records which are of interest to common law plaintiffs.

No other exceptions to the sacrosanctness of the sovereignty of the individual over his/her private property are recognized by this Constitution, including causes such as, natural disasters, non-communicable disease and climate change. Environmental protection mechanisms are specified elsewhere in this constitution.

No moral argument in any court shall stand unless it follows logically from the above definition of private property with its exceptions being taken into account. No law, bye-law or regulation shall be passed or enforceable, which does not naturally follow by strict, rigid reasoning from the above definition of private property with its exceptions being taken into account.

Rights protected by WS

WS legally recognizes only 4 fundamental rights; they only apply to indepagents. No other species' rights are recognized before WS' courts. To wit, every other species (depagents, animals and mechanimals) may be privatized as property. Pueragents and Senesagents are sub-types of indepagents.

The right to:

1. Think/associate/dissociate freely. There are no exceptions.
2. Speak/communicate freely. The exceptions to this right are where speech is employed to command or request violation of private property by proxy (i.e. "incitement") and where speech violates SovWI Secrecy law. This shall not be construed to preclude civil liability incurred from speech, where factually incorrect speech causes damage to reputation and prospects (i.e, "libel/slander" etc).
3. Contract/trade freely. The exceptions to this right are those outlined in the Contract Law.
4. Act/labour/move freely. The exception is where action violates others' private property as defined by this Constitution. This right may be abridged in respect of the exceptions outlined in this constitution's definition of private property, but only in as much as is necessary to achieve such ends and no further.

No other right is recognized before a WS court. Nothing in this section shall be construed to invalidate equitable legal remedies.

Those things declared "unenforceable" by WS

The defense, "forceful resistance of the unenforceable", even to lethality, shall form a perfect defense in every n court where the injury is inflicted against one attempting to enforce a thing deemed "unenforceable" by this constitution.

Republic, not Democracy

The rule of law (i.e., "Republicanism") is that form of government which equally subjects all conagents to a publicly published body of law (constitution + legislation) which all conagents can read, understand and make preparations to govern themselves by. It differs from other forms of government in that every other form of government is rule by whim - whether rule by whim of a single individual or rule by whim of a group or collection of groups.

WS rejects all forms of rule by whim, including rule by whim of a majority (i.e., "Democracy"). WS establishes a republic. The separation of powers in a republic pits contending interests against one another in an intentional gridlock, ensuring that any legislative changes which do get past the gridlock are those with extremely broad consensus. A republic's constitution most importantly, resists impulsive changes and protects minorities against the tyranny of majorities (i.e, "Democracy") by identifying rival minority and majority interests and giving them representation in government, so as to impose intentional political gridlock using the separation of powers.

The rule of law:

WS, being a Republic, enforces the Rule of Law; which is that the law applies equally to all and no individual is above the law and every individual has an equal claim to the enforcement of their sovereignty over their private property. To give force to this principle, a WS government is permitted to provide redistributive and subsidy programs to pursue the following goal only:

• Access to legal representation services for plaintiffs and defendants who can't afford representation. When an individual suffers a private property violation, their financial position should not be their primary concern when deciding whether or not to seek redress in court.
  • This shall not be construed to antagonize or invalidate private legal service providers, whether private prosecutors or defenders.
  • This shall not be construed as a justification to attempt to equalize disparities in outcome caused by differences in the quality and skill of legal representation.

Government shall pass no law, bye-law or other form of policy seeking to redistribute/subsidize in order to pursue "equality", whether equality of opportunity or outcome, with the sole exception of the goal stated above.

Role of Government

WS Government is a corporation which monopolizes the legitimate use of force within its jurisdiction in order to guarantee private property law an undisputed monopoly on policy through its court system. Government shall have the power to pass laws which preserve the undisputed monopoly position of its courts and their jurisdiction over criminal and tort law.

The WS government provides law enforcement personnel and external defense via a standing military; an Externality Exchange Auction market service; Courts/Franchisee Courts; intelligence and diplomacy; Contagion and Biohazard Management (SovCBio); government estate/asset management; and incentives for certain categories of insurance and products (using tax reductions only).

Branches of govt: Diplomatic, Military, Judicial, Informative, Estate, CBio, and Legislative. There is no executive. Only the Military, Estate and CBio branches shall have the power to deficit spend. Deficit spending by any other branch shall be directly funded by its employees.

No regulatory committee or administrative agency (not even supposedly "independent" ones) shall be established by govt or given power to create or change law or bye-law.

Courts

A polity with competing bodies of law is effectively a polity where the residents live under different rules. In WS, private property law shall enjoy an undisputed monoply in legislation. To this end, the court system is a nationalized monopoly. This shall not be construed to antagonize private legal settlements over civil disputes.

Open governance

No information shall be made secret by the government unless it pertains to war, and war secrets shall be kept under the auspices of the War Secrets section of this constitution.

All affairs of government not concerning war secrets shall be open to attendance by the public. If there is insufficient room to host all those interested in attending, all the "seating" shall be auctioned off to the highest bidders on the Externality Auction. There shall be no public spending on broadcast agencies/businesses. There shall be no nationalized or government owned or subsidized media agencies. Each branch of government shall arrange to make such "seating" or other means of attendance as are required, physical or otherwise (digital, etc) available for auction.

Freedom of citizenship:

The right to leave

Citizens shall have a valid claim to the "Right to leave" program which shall be effectuated by a department under the Estate branch. Citizens who claim the Right to Leave shall not be allowed to return until they have paid back the debt incurred to effectuate the program on their behalf. While the ex-citizen is outside of the jurisdiction of WS, they shall not be chargeable for the debt. Upon leaving the jurisdiction as the final step of the Right to Leave program, the citizen loses citizenship. The right to leave program grants:

• One way travel to a destination chosen by the applicant.
  • Should the applicant desire to relocate to a different domicile location during the 2 years, no new transportation coverage shall be offered or granted; however the accomodations funds will continue being paid according to the original schedule.
• 2 years' coverage of accomodations. The level of comfort afforded shall be subject to the legislature.
  • The coverage shall be given in monetary form.
  • There is no requirement that the applicant spend the money on accomodations; merely that they leave the jurisdiction.
• It is up to the applicant to procure any visas/authorization for residency, transit, etc required to reach and domicile themselves in their end destination.

The government shall not impose obstacles that make it difficult to claim this program's benefits. Citizens shall be freely allowed to leave. Notwithstanding, government may suspend the program at times where it becomes difficult to balance other higher priorities against it, such as SovWI and SovCBio emergencies.

The right to seek greener pastures

Citizens shall have a valid claim to the "Greener Pastures" program. Under this program, an individual possessing citizenship of a WS polity shall have the right to trade their citizenship with a citizen of another, non-WS polity. If the government of the polity of the trade partner agrees to the trade, then upon successfully completing the application process, the applicant WS citizen shall lose citizenship of WS, and their citizenship shall be transferred to trade partner. An applicant to this program may file a joint application for both this program and the "Right to leave" program in order to benefit from the "Right to Leave" program as their means of departure to their greener pastures.

Individual private property sovereignty has veto power over the government

This constitution is a means to an end, and not an end unto itself. The end goal is individual private property sovereignty. If at any point collectivist tyranny has arisen from within due to the neverending labours of the collectivists within the polity, it is legitimate for the residents of the polity to overthrow the political order of that day and re-establish a form of government which will again assert and enforce the private property sovereignty of the individual. At such a time the principle of legitimacy is as simple as this: the faction which meets the following two requirements shall have the right to claim legitimacy to overthrow the government and install a new government.

• The faction must have a complete, publicly published and well disemanated constitution which asserts and enforces the private property sovereignty of the individual. This constitution need not be remarkably original. It may consist of this existing WS constitution with some amendments.
• The faction must already be actively serving the residents of the polity by asserting and enforcing their private property sovereignty against the tyranny of the government of that era.

This constitution preserves the right of residents to keep and bear arms subject to the terms outlined in the "Possession of private weaponry" section, in order to enable such factions to arise and serve their fellow residents and amass reputation and credibility and build legitimacy. This should serve both as a means to discourage the government from becoming tyrannical by ensuring that it will clearly see its rival rising and hopefully reform itself; and also as a means to ensure that such a rival has the room required to establish itself should it be needed.