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

Wellspring: Principles: Apologia

Disclaimers and disavowals:

We have been very careful to ensure that no charges of original sin can be brought against WS by extracting only the good ideas from various intellectuals while painstakingly dissociating the project from the reputations and shortcomings of each of them. There are scant few ideological icons who are untainted by identitarianism or some other form of exclusionary bias that serves to turn potential individualists away from individualism.

We would like to emphatically assert that the principles espoused in WS are to be taken as stated. If a particular principle is sourced from an intellectual leader who also espouses other ideas that run counter to those expressed in this constitution, it is to be understood that WS disavows those other ideas categorically and unreservedly. We would like to unambiguously state that the goal of WS is to create polities that express and live out the idea of individualism -- that every person is judged (at law) not by the colour of their skin (or their sex, or any other immutable/irrelevant characteristic) but by the content of their character and their actual actions in practice.

To be even more cautious, we have decided to explicitly address each of the reputations of the people we have referenced in WS, here, and explicitly disavow any ideas they professed which antagonize people/groups on the basis of immutable/irrelevant attributes:

• Aristotle:
  • We disavow his views on slavery, etc.
• Ayn Rand:
  • We disavow her views on the European settlers' treatment of the Native Americans, etc.
• Leonard Peikoff:
  • We disavow his views on the way that America should have approached the Iraq war. We do not espouse the view that in war, the civilian populace of an enemy nation is in effect, fair game and acceptable collateral damage. We assert that in war, the ideological and political leaders of the enemy entity should be targeted directly where possible, and where it is necessary to engage in large scale destruction in order to destroy the enemy entity, all measures should be taken to be as surgical as is reasonable and practical (while also being sure not to paralyze ourselves with inaction in the face of a threat of our own destruction), and if practical, to warn civilians to get to safety beforehand.
• Antonin Scalia:

Symbols, celebrations and rituals.

These symbolic paraphernalia are not intended to imply any collectivist/tribal/nationalist cohesion among individuals but rather to serve as exhortations to the exact opposite. Whereas other polities use mottos, watchwords, anthems, flags, coats of arms, national animals and so on to engender a sense of shared stake in the population, we use these elements to assert the individualist nature of our values and to encourage people to reject collectivist cultural maypoles.

• ReNoDem: The American founding fathers omitted an explicit statement that the US Constitution was designed specifically to resist Democracy, and this negligence left the door open for the US Republic to be broken down into a Democracy.
• Magnificata: We chose this name because we didn't want to overload the word "magna" in search engine results - ideally, people should easily be able to find information about the magna carta without dealing with overloaded results.
• GrInt: It is important to explicitly put down arguments that the legislature is supposed to be passing new laws for their own sake. Legislative stagnation is a value; not a dysvalue.
• Sictember: Tyranny is not to be born with longsuffering.
• RaNO: Leave no room for arguments that conflate rights with benefits.

The last few holidays (Exis, ReGRe and EIConI) assert positive philosophical arguments which, being included in the body of the text, leave paltry room for certain destructive philosophies to gain purchase in any discussion of the "meaning" of the text.

Rights

Definition of Rights

Definition of Private Property

We recognize and respect the sovereignty of the individual with exceptions applied for contagions/biohazards and war readiness.

Contagions do not respect private property and do not limit their deleterious effects only to those actors who volitionally put themselves at risk. In order to enforce non-interference, controls on the behaviours of infected/contagious entities may be required. Biohazard may materials into the same category, though not as frequently as contagions because contagions actively seek to propagate themselves, independent of whether or not their host intends to assist them in propagation.

In the same way, the preparation for war readiness may require the government to purchase assets, geographical locations etc whose control is essential.

Rights protected by WS

Left unimpeded, most indepagents are capable of exercising each of these rights. It is therefore their right, by right, to exercise them subject only to the principle of non-interference (private property law).

Here are examples of things which are not the exercise of rights, but rather impositions of obligations on other indepagents -- i.e., they impede the free exercise of the rights of some other indepagent:

• A "right to healthcare". : A claim to a "right to healthcare" amounts to a claim on the ability to compel a healthcare worker to perform medical labour on the indepagent claiming the right, even if the healthcare worker does not voluntarily agree to be bound by the claim.
• A "right to housing". : A claim to a "right to housing" amounts to a claim on the labour of a construction worker to perform labour for the benefit of the indepagent claiming the right, or a claim to sieze the existing housing property owned by another indepagent, even if the construction worker or landlord does not voluntarily agree to be bound by the claim.
• And so on.

Republic, not Democracy.

We specifically wanted to make it clear that we are a Republic and not a Democracy in the body of the document because one of the biggest problems liberty defenders have had to contend with in the American constitution is that it is never explicitly stated that the US Constitution is not a Democracy. It has even become common for US politicians to call the USA a Democracy or to speak highly of Democracy. The US constitution specifically calls itself a Republic and mandates that a "Republican form of government" be guaranteed to all of the states. We go further and make rectify the shortcoming of the US constitution by making it clear that we are intentionally not a Democracy.

The need for change

In a republic, changes to law may sometimes come rapidly where the values of an overwhelming majority demand those changes; otherwise they come after level headed consideration. We can already hear the chorus of historical examples (mainly from the USA's constitutional history) purporting to show that the intentionally inflexible nature of Republics denies individual sovereignty to oppressed groups. Allow us to address some of those arguments.

• Slavery :
• LGBT+ rights :
• Womens' rights :

...And here are some arguments we will pre-empt by showing that we have also considered the rights of groups of entities which do not yet even exist, but may exist in the future:

• Artificial Intelligences :
• Extra-terrestrials :

A word on "Equality"

WS would like to make it clear and unambiguous that it the only form of equality which it values is equality of the application of laws (i.e., "Rule of Law", or "Republicanism"). WS explicitly does not value equality of opportunity or equality of outcome as policy goals. This is not to in any way disparage efforts to create equality of opportunity or equality of outcome pursued in the private sector via market mechanisms. The Gov't however shall not pursue equality of opportunity or outcome through policy. The gov't notwithstanding shall pursue equality of the enforcement of the laws on all conagents.

• Any law which pursues equality of outcome shall be unenforceable.
• Any law which pursues equality of opportunity outside of equality of access to the courts for justice, shall be unenforceable.

Equality is a false doctrine which destroys liberty. Judeo-christian morality does not state that all men are equal. It states that you should treat your neighbour as yourself because he was made in God's image, and has value in the eyes of his creator in spite of inadequacies clearly visible in him; not because he is your equal. A fool could see with the naked eye no two humans are equal.

This constitution however, not being founded on torah, but on private property morality, states that every man is sovereign and his private property rights absolute without exception. Upon this foundation no two humans are equal, but every claim of individual sovereignty over private property is equally sacrosanct, because the dignity, liberty and potential of every person is worth protecting.