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

Wellspring: Principles: Apologia

Interpretation.

WS fixes a shortcoming of the forerunning republic's constitution by explicitly specifying a framework for interpretation and construction in order to ensure consistency in interpretation, since phrases such as "shall not be infringed" have tended to confuse even the most erudite of scholars.

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 founders of the forerunning republic 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.
• InteGrid: 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.
• Tyranny is Unenforceable: Ensure that the polity is reminded that they need not submit to the enforcement of government overreach.

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

Notice that it says that rights and private property law go hand in hand. It does not say that rights and "responsibilities" go hand in hand. The individual is only required at his/her own peril to ensure that their activities do not interfere with the exercise of the capabilities of others - this is a negative injunction. The individual is not beholden to any positive obligations to any other individual, except those obligations which s/he takes on voluntarily in contract. The individual is an end unto himself and not the means to any other individual or group's ends.

Man is not a social animal but a contractual animal.

Definition of Private Property

WS recognizes and respects the sovereignty of the individual with exceptions applied for individuals with cognitive and physical disabilities, communicalble contagions/biohazards, the keeping of records for common law plaintiffs, the display of warnings and cautions, and war readiness.

On laws which require the maintenance of logs and records which are of interest to common law plaintiffs, the aim here is to encourage papertrails at those entities which sit between parties as a witness or service provider in order to act as a disincentive against violations of private property law. Such papertrails may be mandated by the legislature for such things as telecomms companies being required to maintain X years of text message backlog or call logs; or mail (both physical and electronic) service providers being required to preserve X years of logs.

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).

On the right to freely associate/dissociate: one could argue that restraining orders should have been listed here as an exception but implicit in the request for a restraining order is the acknowledgment that at least one party (the plaintiff) wishes to dissociate from the other so restraining orders aren't an exception, but part of the rule.

Here are two 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.

Those things declared "unenforceable" by WS

This mechanism is intended to allow people to resist government overreach by making certain classes of edict "unenforceable". It amounts to making government overreach in those areas null and void since overreaching laws would theoretically never gain actuating force. Any conagent taking orders to enforce an unenforceable thing should understand that it does so at its own peril.

Republic, not Democracy.

It has became common for politicians of the forerunner republic to call that republic a Democracy or to speak highly of Democracy. The forerunner polity's constitution specifically calls itself a Republic and mandates that a "Republican form of government" be guaranteed to all of its states. WS goes further and rectifies this shortcoming of the forerunner constitution by making it clear that not only is WS a Republican constitution, but further, that it is intentionally not a Democracy.

WS rejects rule by whim, in all of its forms. WS is founded upon rule of law. Here are some examples of rule by whim:

• Democracy : Rule of some defined majority. In a democracy the changing whims of some defined majority is the law. Irrespective of what may be written down in the law books at any given time, if a shift in the mind of that controlling majority occurs, the laws on the books will soon follow. The law is what inhabits the minds (i.e., the whim) of that defined majority.
• Kakistocracy : Rule of judges. In a Kakistocracy, the changing whims of some subset of the Judiciary is the law. Irrespective of what may be written down in the law books at any given time, if a shift in the mind of that controlling group in the Judiciary occurs, the laws on the books will soon follow. The law is what inhabits the minds (i.e., the whim) of that subset of the judiciary.
• Monarchy : Rule of kings. In a Monarchy, the changing whims of some defined royal lineage is the law. Irrespective of what may be written down in the law books at any given time, if a shift in the mind of that royal lineage occurs, the laws on the books will soon follow. The law is what inhabits the minds (i.e., the whim) of some royal lineage.

The rule of law:

On the "no justification to attempt to equalize disparities in outcome" point: by design, WS includes the following mechanisms to ensure that disparities in outcome caused by differences in the skill of legal representation are kept to their plausible minimum (we do not claim that they will be zero: rather, we point out that even among public lawyers, there are also disparities in skill which would produce the same outcome):

• WS Grants a heavy tax discount to all legal representation insurance/subscription schemes to ensure they're always in abundant supply (and therefore, highly affordable).
• WS's legislative process is designed to ensure that the laws on the books are both few in number and predictable and easy to understand (since they should all be strict inferences from private property sovereignty as their premise).
  • For this reason, pro-se representation should be feasible and practical.

By design, public legal representation is not likely to become the widespread norm, and even if it does, the alternative options (including pro-se representation) should always be practical, feasible options. The provision of public legal representation is solely a windfall for the most unfortunate.

Role of government:

Courts:

Open governance:

Freedom of citizenship:

We do not wish to hold anyone born within a WS polity captive to our borders, and we wish to make it materially plausible for persons unhappy in WS polities to leave, and to encourage those people to leave. Overwhelmingly, collectivists born within the forerunner republic argued that they had no choice but to transform it into a collectivist polity because they didn't have the material means to leave it - we empathize with those individuals who felt this way, and provide these mechanisms to make it materially practical for them to pursue the life they prefer outside of WS's jurisdiction. In return, we ask that they actually make use of these programs and not attempt to subvert WS polities.

The right to leave program:

WS does not wish to hold anyone captive to its borders, who wishes to leave. This program makes it practical for indepagents who are not happy living in a free market to establish a life elsewhere. It is available only to citizens of WS. Indepagents who immigrate willingly to WS will not have access to this program.

The citizenship swap program:

Again, WS does not with to hold captive to its borders, anyone who wishes to leave. An individual born in a WS polity who prefers a different polity, is welcome to take advantage of this program to leave, and we welcome the new individual whom they swap citizenship with, with open arms.

Individual private property sovereignty has veto power over the government

The forerunner American republic was an experiment in self-governance. It was imperfect, and this constitution seeks to improve on the forerunner republic and patch up its holes. In the same way that the forerunner republic was degraded over time, so also will polities based on this constitution. This constitution is not an end unto itself - it is the blueprint for a successor experiment to follow its forerunner. It will eventually be succeeded by a better consitution which will assert and preserve individual private property sovereignty even better than this one does.

As seen in the forerunner republic, the careful wording of a constitution is no guarantee against the insipient, persistent, relentless and incremental efforts by enemies of private property to subvert it and they will labour tirelessly for generations to sieze upon loopholes in the wording and open a chink in the armour of the constitution. It is therefore necessary to clarify that the end goal of this constitution is individual private property sovereignty. The wording of this constitution is merely a maze intended to frustrate the efforts of collectivists and send them off groping in myriad directions.

This constitution and any government based on it are means to the end of individual private property sovereignty and therefore private property sovereignty has veto power over this constitution and the governments based on it.

Regarding the overthrow of a government which infringes on private property sovereignty, the faction which proposes to do this must have a positive proposition. It cannot merely be fighting against tyranny. It must be fighting for liberty, and its policies must be openly known to the residents of the polity before any overthrow of the government occurs. Hence the requirement that such a faction must have a publicly published and well disemanated constitution (or amendments to this one). Such a faction must be fighting for a well-identified set of principles which are compatible with individual private property sovereignty, as assessed by the people.