Nov 15, 2023·edited Nov 15, 2023Liked by Max Borders
Nice. Looks like everyone did beautiful work. There were more entrants than I expected and that is phenomenal. I am happy with the outcome, as this was an amazing experience for Gav and myself. I'll be sharing these results with the Logos team; I also publish ours via my Substack and other spaces for folks to review. Keep up the good work as per usual, Max. Props to you and the judges who put so much time and energy into this exercise. A worthwhile endeavor if I have seen one. Cheers.
Oh, and another thing. I could not imagine running this contest through ChatGPT and hoping no one would notice. That is intellectual dishonesty at its worst in my opinion. Do not get me wrong, ChatGPT is nice for a lot of things, but not for an activity that takes more human rigor and creativity. Shame. Shame.
I am not sure which is more troubling—the intellectual dishonesty or the thought of actually one day being governed by a constitution written by AI. Yikes!
Thank you for making this competition. I was one of the submitters in the contest (as named Som Mathur) and I really appreciate you setting this to help me hone in on some ideas for a new constitution that I've been sitting on for a long time. While I wasn't one of the winners, I see many great ideas coming out of the well-deserved wins you described in this article, and I would like to further help develop the new constitution you envision, perhaps as a legal innovator you mentioned here:
"We are currently in talks with donors to take the Constitution of Consent to the next level: to assemble a working group of legal innovators. These professionals will take the best of the contest ideas to ensure our open-source Constitution of Consent 1.0 has the best chance of seeing future implementation. "
If there's any opportunity available to help with this, please feel free to let me know the best way to reach you.
Thank you for entering and for your interest. I will try to be in touch soon. If you are a free subscriber, you should be able to reply to the newsletter, which goes to my email. I am hoping to be able to enter a next phase soon! Otherwise, if you have problems, you can find me on X via @socialevol
Thanks a lot for the shout-out, Max! It was a very creative and stimulating competition. I felt a certain absurdity in even making the attempt. I would never have done it without the pretext of the competition. But I learned a lot, and it made an impression. Ever since, it's echoed in my mind and my imagination. I keep refining it. For example, it ought to be one of the duties of the Judges' Guild to submit for reauthorization by the Assembly laws that have lapsed, IF the laws have proved enforceable and consistent with other laws, with such revisions as are necessary to enhance administrative efficiency and fairness and the coherence of the legal code as a whole. Also, when local governments are organized, they should be required to compensate residents who choose to leave because they didn't consent to the organization of that local government, and one of the duties of the Assembly can be to determine whether the compensation is fair. And... Etc.
I've also started to imagine futuristic historical scenarios where the constitution might actually be implemented. Suppose a religious commune, wanting to escape corrupt mainstream society in the West, secures sovereign title to uninhabited island somewhere, where they plan to grow food and to telework by satellite internet. Others join them, fishermen and refugees and relatives, until there's a substantial body of residents, in need of some way of governing themselves. And so they could run a constitution competition of this kind for proposals on how to do that, and if I adapted this, submitted it, and won, then... Etc.
Readers of this threat might be interested in the political philosophy I wrote 12 years ago, entitled Principles of a Free Society. https://a.co/d/bgHRdMD
It starts from natural rights and freedom of conscience, then leads into the social contract, after which it deals with property rights, then scathingly critiques the concept of "sovereignty." It covers free trade and foreign intervention, but the most striking is your position it takes is for open borders. Government is legitimate up to a point, but immigration restrictions are not. There is fulsome praise for civil disobedience, as the great force for liberty, without which we would forever deteriorate on the dilemmas of the "who guards the guards?" problem. The chapter on Christianity and freedom is also key: I think the historic group of human freedom is inseparable from the continual influence of Christianity raising the moral level of mankind.
This is beautiful and exactly what I hoped to catalyze. While I don't agree with you on many of the subtler points, for example, I am happy to acknowledge the rootedness of the West in Christianity, Judaism, and even Zoroastrianism. For me, there is an emerging liberal trunk and limbs of pluralism. I am also turning away from Open Borders as a principle towards a more pragmatic view, which we might call Porous Borders. On this more later. Still, you created something beautiful, interesting, and potentially useful. If I were you, I'd start trying to form a small fraternal society with your constitution at its center. Find your community. Let it build out. And of course, Go with God.
Thank you for creating this contest. In my research, I came across constituteproject.org which catalogs all the constitutions in the world. Definitely eye opening. I also realized that there needs to be a testing lab for these ideas. Struggling with the second and third order effects of even one simple line in a constitution stymied my ability to complete a submission in time. Personally, I concluded that there cannot be a one size fits all for a constitution. At the core of a constitution, I believe, is an idea worth fighting for and risking your life for. The world is full of people and ideologies that are willing to do just that. A constitution written by you or me that, at its core, is based on self interest will probably not stand up to the afore mentioned evolutionary forces. Please, someone, change my mind!
This is exactly why this project is for a proto-constitution that will lead to a 1.0 for a wider open source effort. There is no perfect constitution, so forking should be viewed as a feature and not a bug. It’s a discovery process. Perfection is not an option, but experimentation could and should be. Thank you so much for you interest and for putting thought into it. That was more the goal for this than the results.
Max Borders has done an important thing, basically saying, 'Put up or shut up. Let's see a working, nuts-an-bolts constitution derived from your political theorizing.'
However, the snippets above from those who were recognized do not say much about their entries. Yes human rights good, yes individualism good, yes small government good, but I don't see any institutionalized mechanism that would guarantee those things.
Max, since you own all the entries, you should post them all, so that each of us can judge whether they indeed 'put up' a working system.
First, I chose my snippets in haste after burning the midnight oil as the judges deliberated for the last 3-4 days. They probably don't reflect the entire document. Still, you put your finger on the nature of some of the background debates. Some judges wanted to see MORE about how to operationalize governance in detail, while others felt too much operational detail would restrict the emergence of creative solutions grounded in principle. These competing theories are ongoing. Go too far, and we're being overly rationalist and mechanistic, not far enough, and we're being idealistic and potentially toothless. In any case, the good part of this is that we can use the best of the best to create a more perfect Open Source constitution. That is the goal, anyway.
Now, I appreciate the suggestion to publish all the entries, but I'm not sure that would yield much besides a lot of additional work for me (I've already spent months doing unpaid work on this contest), and I don't relish the idea of submitters with sour grapes comparing all the entries obsessively, sending me angry emails about why the judges suck and made the wrong decision. I'm ready to move forward, first with rest, then the next phase. If I thought there was a way easily to create a legible version of 42 entries totaling an average of about 4500 words a piece (plus formatting), I still don't see how that gets published here besides a very big, clunky attachment. At that point, I'd have to pray that there would be more interest in the discovery process than criticism of the judges’ choices–which, again, does very little for the project moving forward.
Before I hit post, I saw that you also asked about blind judging:
“Note on Blind Judging. We placed all entries into a separate document for judging, so no single judge knew who submitted what. Even I, who ran the Survey Monkey, was tempted to look but did not yield to temptation.” So, today was the first day I got to put names with entries."
"Some judges wanted to see MORE about how to operationalize governance in detail, while others felt too much operational detail would restrict the emergence of creative solutions grounded in principle."
I am glad to know that both approaches were appreciated and that this was the subject of robust debate. It’s a tough call—there is value in both.
I had that same debate internally, but I ultimately chose the latter approach. I wanted the statement of principles to be comprehensive and ironclad—creating a foundation upon which many different rights-respecting polities could be built (and protected). At the end of the day, I believe that some sort of anarcho-phylarchy is the most likely (and most desirable) scenario that would arise in a condition of voluntary order and the absence (or diminished dominance) of involuntary governance. I wanted to create a sort of meta-constitution to nurture such a scenario.
That approach has its pros and cons, but it is the direction my passion and convictions took me.
I am sure the constitutions that took the other approach (an intense focus on operational detail) were mind-blowingly cool. I know you judges had a really hard job, but it also had to be an amazing experience—to have these debates and consider these important ideas. You have blazed a trail to the future!
>>Marriage is a special contract to bring a conceived child to adulthood. It is misleading to apply it to other kinds of contract.
"I still think there is a fundamental disconnect. I am not trying to create a single society. I am trying to create a framework [...]. You see what I mean?"
>>I do see. The disconnect must remain.
"[P]eople are CHOOSING the set of rules by which they abide".
>>A rule whimsically observed or ignored is no longer a rule.
a) “Lionizing consent [...] does not solve all problems, but it helps.”
b) “I do not think large territories are workable, moral, or a particularly good idea.”
c) “Freedom of association means [total] freedom of association.”
d) “Yes [I want total private property ownership.]”
2. I’m familiar with Mises.org, Hoppe, Rothbard references to insurance/protective societies. The libertarian weakness is to typically start with a conjectural bare stage, when the real work is in providing transitional institutions to the desideratum.
3. “I am not quite getting your objection [to marriage as anything but a commitment to raise any conceived children].”
>>My point is to insist on the clear definition of “marriage,” apart from ordinary interpersonal contracts. I think the popular muddying of its meaning to apply to both really seeks to steal the sanctity of the term. It has greater sanctity entirely apart from any supernatural claims, since conceiving a child casts a ripple across all eternity.
4. “[Unoccupied territory exists in] Seasteading and the colonization of space, mostly.”
>>Werner K. Stiefel: Operation Atlantis in the Caribbean, failed in 1972.
Michael Oliver: Republic of Minerva in the South Pacific, failed in 1972.
Michael Oliver: Minerva on the island of Abaco in the Bahamas, failed in 1973.
Michael Oliver: Minerva on the island of Vanuatu in the South Pacific, failed in 1980.
As for the colonization of space, I leave that to Robert Zubrin and the sci-fi crowd.
5. “We claim these principles to be universal and true, but we're not going to force you to live any particular way.”
“[Supernatural authority] is as bad as Locke's appeals to ‘right reason’.”
>>This is my point. Not only are the various ‘polities’ free to live as they please, but so is EVERY MEMBER of each polity. Since you deny any authority, supernatural or reasoned, each one is “bound” solely by consent, which is no bind at all, since it can be changed on a whim, without consequences.
6. “I chose to write a constitution that is entirely consent-based.”
>>And since members of this society can cancel or amend its terms at any time, they are bound by nothing. I see no difference between it and The Land of Cockaigne, or Rabelais’ Abbaye of Thélème, where the only rule is ‘Fais ce que tu voudras.’
Please put your thoughts on its Amazon comments page. The "Look Inside" feature is quite long, but if it really gives you a heartburn to buy the book, I'll send it to you free, provided 1) That you observe CC BY ND, 2) that you give an Amazon comment and 3) that you pass it along to another, under these same three conditions.
I'd love to read the complete systems of the other 41 entries.
Vibhu Vikramaditya, know that my comments regarding your constitution, however blunt, are meant as collegial and friendly.
1, Section 2.
"Magistrates [are...] bound to act with utmost transparency, responsibility"
>>Comment>> Without an architecture of enforcement, this would remain only a wish.
1, Section 3.
"Rewards or recognitions [are] not bestowed based on birthright or any form of predetermined status."
>>Comment>> Does this permit confiscatory death taxes? You will say no, but in every codified constitution, jurists of the state will force a pry bar into any tiny crack to expand state power.
1, Section 5.
"this Republic affirms the legitimacy of polycentric legal orders."
>>Comment>> 1) You accept Sharia Law, then? 2) What's mechanism to bring unwilling accused parties into some adjudication?
1, Section 6.
"the individual's inviolable right to privacy and anonymity."
>>Comment>> If your residence is public, not private, knowledge, does doxxing then cease to be a crime?
1, Section 7.
"[All legitimate money creators must] contribute to the general welfare of society"
>>Comment>> In every codified constitution, jurists of the state will force a pry bar into any tiny crack to expand state power. They will drive a truck through this one.
1, Section 8 and Section 9.
>>Comment>> Ditto previous for entire section.
1, Section 10.
"[A one-time entry fee] is the sole mandatory contribution expected from the members" yet "additional fees may be instituted".
>>Comment>> Despite the polite wording, the qualifier really means "mandatory taxes will be extracted."
2, Sections 1 & 2.
"Democratic Leadership Councils"
>>Comment>> I'm sure you mean to champion the associationism of Althusius, as I do, but the details are the Bolshevik "all power to the Soviets."
And are the associations formed by popular elections? Any purely electoral scheme means politics, in the worst sense.
2, Section 3.
"the Republic operates not as an authoritarian force but as a collaborative facilitator".
>>Comment>> This is a desire to magically square the circle.
3, Section 1.
"The General League"
>>Comment>> How its representatives function is unclear, as is their nomination from the equally unclear associations.
3, Section 2.
Nomination of Supreme Court judges to 2-year terms is "'rooted'[?] in the assemblies of associations."
>>Comment>> This is vague to me, and the brief term reduces their independence.
3, Section 3.
"the Republic entrusts executive responsibilities to temporary bodies formed by the General League."
>>Comment>> This is altogether vague to me, and is subject to a variety of interpretations.
Consent and Continuity, Section 2: Periodic Reaffirmation of Consent
"Should any association choose to withdraw its consent, a clearly defined, constitutionally enshrined process ensures this transition is conducted peacefully".
>>Comment>> Good idea, but you are obliged to detail some process that does not enshrine continual social upheaval.
MY OPINION: The constitution lacks the indispensable self-enforcement architecture. It is more optative than operational.
I am sincerely grateful for your comments, The dept and exploration of your thought on my work are quite insightful and would require me write perhaps another 10000 words . My attempt in this work has been to lay out a common structure based on shared common understanding of the principles needed for a free society and an attempt only a graph of dots for the institutions that would be necessary to attempt it. Thanks a lot once again
Of course I love the inclusion of allodial title. You've read mine, so you know I think that is a must!
Interposition is cool too. Nullification is good.
Naturally, I like the fact that secession is included :-)
I am a bit nervous about the ability of the larger body (the county) to take unilateral action against the rules and officials of the subordinate bodies. However, I did just wake up and maybe I am not seeing this clearly. I will read on…
Bond = interesting
Full reserve banking = good. As to the Consilium requiring it everywhere, I suppose that makes sense within the system you are envisioning.
Sortition intrigues me in general. I would love to see it tried on a large scale (other than the jury system we have now).
Forbidding redistribution and establishing mechanisms for private charity = good (obviously). A bunch of years ago, I conceived of a system kind of similar to your bonum sociale.
I like giving citizens the ability to nullify by line item.
Landesgemeinde is also intriguing. I met a Swiss person at FreedomFest who was very proud of it as a system.
Question—maybe I just missed it, but how are all these bodies getting their funding?
"It shall offer to any invading aggressor no target force whose defeat or surrender might signify the defeat or surrender of the Federation as a whole." The first time I heard this concept was reading Harry Browne's "How I Found Freedom…" I really like it.
However, compulsory militia service raises serious moral questions.
The right to switch to an HOA is an interesting inclusion.
I admire the care you have taken with establishing caveats within statements of rights.
Okay, all done!
I have reached philosophical conclusions (obviously similar to conclusions reached by others) that compel me to full anarchism. Ultimately, that requires a condition in which full blown market-anarchism and anarcho-phylarchic manifestations are free to form and operate. I wrote my constitution with that in mind.
Thus, at the end of the day, I want to go further than your constitution would take us. Nonetheless, I like it! I would certainly rather live under something like it than what we have now.
Thank you for the care you put into this. Most human beings just accept whatever meal they are fed. A much smaller percent of humans have the courage to create new recipes. Kudos!
(I think my choice of a food metaphor there may be evidence that it is time for breakfast.)
Thank you so much to everyone involved in this amazing and vital project. Thank you for your hard work and all the sacrifices you made to see it through.
I believe that history will look back on this as a seminal event—the first page of a new chapter in the course of human affairs.
Nice job. I liked the excerpts you chose from Voss’s entry.
Although I’m sure it was a lot of work, it sounds like you and the judges did a very thorough and fair evaluation. In any event, I think it was a very interesting and worthwhile experiment.
YOU: "nervous about [the county taking] unilateral action against the rules and officials of the subordinate bodies."
>>As described in the full treatise (https://www.amazon.com/dp/1947660853), current mega-cities constitute Bantustans within the Counties. For the County to be the locus of government, these Bantustans must be subordinate to it.
YOU: "Sortition intrigues me in general."
>>Note that sortition as currently employed is a mask for legitimizing state power because of its use of demographics. I resolve the error of demographics, and also sortition's main problem of how to constitute the initial random pool.
YOU: "compulsory militia service raises serious moral questions."
>>Militia service is not compulsory. However, voluntary withholding of service results in the loss of County citizenship (which citizenship is a prerequisite for holding allodial title within the County, as well as a prerequisite for receipt of any part of its bonum sociale).
16. “Natural authority: I'll remove "shall", as this is just an acknowledgment of natural authority”
>>No argument with that.<<
17. “Ground rent: Yes, ground rent is to be collected without compensation and it is the sole source of revenue for cities. It is to be distributed to citizens less the amount allocated for the commons and public services. This I believe this to be quite clear from the 3 sections on rent, spending, and citizen's dividend. Let me know if you find something unclear about this.”
>>As mentioned, “ground rent” lets loose an avalanche of other issues, starting with how current landowners are to be compensated, if at all.<<
18. “"Does “willing to pay its rent” allow rent charges as high as the “exclusive” users care to charge?" I don't understand this question, ground rent is ground rent. True, the matter of assessing ground rent is not trivial, but it is well-defined. Meaning there are different valid methods for charging it, but there is a conceptual ideal, which the methods may be judged against.”
>>You admit then, that deciding who is to enjoy “exclusive” use is not straightforward.<<
19. “CD vs public spending: Correct, as written it is up to the Citizen's how much to spend of public services. I have gone back and forth on this a lot in my own mind. On the one hand, I would like the dividend to be maximal in a sense. On the other, I would like to leave it open for experimentation. I believe that a CD incentivizes people to vote against public spending which isn't truly vital and pays for itself in ground rent increases; but it is unclear if that would be a sufficient check on special interest spending and other undesirable public expenses. This is an issue that I believe deserves much more attention, I will open a separate issue to discuss.”
>>It seems that without some constitutional check, the powerful dispensers of the dividend could say, “Our wise administration of 100% of the dividend constitutes your benefit.”<<
20. “Establishment of money: Correct; the problem with central bank fiat is (a) how newly created money is distributed (implicit special interest spending), and (b) legal tender laws. Both are addressed here. I see no reason why Cities may not experiment with any form of currency which needs to compete with all other private currencies.”
>>While citizens may rightly use any mutually agreed medium of exchange, unless the constitution (say League) encourages one, markets and trade will suffer in the struggle to find one.<<
21. “Harboring fugitives: Yes, though note that it only prohibits "inhibiting efforts", it does not create any active obligation.”
>>This does not seem to clarify the issue.<<
22. “League/City vs Federal/State: They are similar but they are not the same; IMO making the connection would create baggage I wish not to drag in.”
>>No argument with that.<<
23. “Delegation and forums: Citizen's may not wish to be super involved in every vote or decision, and the forum(s) would be a place for focused discussion that would be too unruly in an entirely open public forum. In other words it's a way to create a body of representatives without grouping people's votes arbitrarily.”
>>These forums fail to address the central problem of democracy: Voting. There is no “fair” voting scheme: Every one creates factions and all the ills of politics. (See William Poundstone’s book “Gaming the Vote.”) The only solution is to annihilate all voting schemes through a non-stratified system of sortition, which I describe in my constitution, and in my book “Field Guide to Texas Secession,” (https://www.amazon.com/dp/1947660853) on pages 113ff.<<
24. “Election of City representatives: Yes, and that is intentional. I actually originally wanted this to be appointed by the mayor or governor of the City (like an ambassador), but then didn't want to be too prescriptive about it.”
>>See difficulties mentioned in #23 above.<<
25. “Plurality votes: Clearly I need to fix the parentheses because they should be ~38%, ~62%, & ~76%. Using an irrational number (in this case the golden ratio) assures there can be no ties, and the golden ratio in particular has a natural balance. I'll call out the golden ration directly.”
>>”fix the parentheses” – yes, understood.<<
26. “Directives, ministries, & councils: What would you like spelled out? There is a section "Directives" which defines them, sections for each ministry which defines them, and sections for both councils which defines them in an article dedicated to them.”
>>My complaint is with the general open-endedness of the constitution.<<
27. “President: "Unarmed" means unarmed, they may be bureaucrats, medical staff, anything necessary for the execution of the specified responsibilities. I have clarified that this is subject to resources allocated by the councils.”
>>No argument with that.<<
28. “President term limits: This is definitely worth discussing further. Term limits have always seemed quite arbitrary, but they may be valuable still. I'll open an issue.”
>>No argument with that.<<
29. “Naturalization: We can't pretend we'll get rid of national borders. The Citizens of the League will need passports to travel abroad.”
>>See comment #4 above.<<
30. “Rent collected by the League: This is only a (fixed) portion of the amount collected by cities, and determined by the citizens themselves by supermajority. Within that amount, yes there are no limits to spending. I'd suppose that for the most part there would be little League-wide CD, since people would rather get it in their city CD, but there could be value in pooling the CD too. But basically this is pre-allocated for public purposes at the League level.”
>>See comment #19 above.<<
31. “MoA veto: See above. It has no special veto power, only the power to audit and make information public.”
1. “Enumerated or substantive rights: Can you clarify the distinction in your view? AFAIK American constitutional rights are substantive rights. But these ought to be substantive; do you have a suggestion to make this clearer?”
>>Yes, constitutional rights are substantive, but they are made precise as procedural rights. For example, some assert a substantive “right to privacy,” which is nowhere mentioned in the U.S. Constitution. In my view, that supposed substantive right is simply a corollary of the right to property, which has procedural protections in the 4th Amendment.<<
2. “Religious beliefs: The text provides that persons are to be treated with dignity and respect under the law regardless of religious beliefs. Actions on those beliefs are not protected, so killing on religious grounds is in no way acceptable. I see no reason why the law should not treat a person with contempt for short people with dignity or respect either. I'd be open to suggestions on how to make this passage clearer if they are not.”
>>No argument with that.<<
3. “Self-ownership vs incarceration: No it should not. This should be covered by the clause granting the right to seek damages, but perhaps an explicit clause should be added, "persons forfeit these rights when ..." or similar, thoughts?”
>>No argument with that.<<
4. “Jurisdictional borders: No, and I don't see how a right for persons to move precludes this, can you clarify?”
>>It is impossible to have “jurisdictional borders” while at the same time having an unrestricted “natural right to move about the earth.”<<
5. “Who enforces?: As a pluralist system, there is no prescribed answer. It is likely that Cities will have an enforcement arm, though this need not be unique. The only requirement is that the League and City governments respect and conform to this right.”
>>The question of “who enforces” is much the same as “who is the final arbiter of disputes.” This is the heart of the matter, and the central weakness of this constitution: It makes a Lockean assumption of a citizenry composed of sporting English gentlemen who will sort things out rationally over 4pm tea and crumpets. The whole work of a constitution is how to keep the violently irrational on a leash.<<
6. “Torts: Yes I think so. I'm open to hearing an argument why this should not be the case.”
>>Applying the “beyond a reasonable doubt” standard to torts will mean that many torts now prosecuted will now fail to be so.<<
7. “Sanctions: The statement is "excessively surpass". I am open to better ways to word this, I believe it is obvious the rationale why some clause to this end is warranted.”
>>Sanctions against crime must SIGNIFICANTLY surpass the loss to the victim, otherwise crime becomes a break-even activity: The criminal suffers no more than what was taken by his crime. Effectively this is a very winning activity for the criminal.<<
8. “Exit tax: This only protects existing ("outstanding") obligations, which would be contracted willfully prior to secession; it does not create an obligation. Let me know if you think this could be clearer.”
>>Your purely contractual society must logically signify contracts between individuals, since each is free to dissociate from any group, including government. Individuals may be pursued at law to fulfill their contracts, but since larger entities can’t, no assessment can possibly exist should they secede.<<
9. “Popular sovereignty: Hmm, you may have a point. My intent was to say that each person individually consents but this is admittedly unclear. I will try to reword.”
>>No argument with that.<<
10. “Penalize non-voting: I'm not sure I agree, how would equal opportunity support the idea of penalizing someone who chooses not to make use of that opportunity?”
>>No argument with that.<<
11. “MoA veto: Auditing is not the same thing as overruling. A case must still be tried for wrongdoing.”
>>Again, who enforces? Who is the final arbiter? See #5 above.
12. “Compulsory jury duty: "Compulsory" for citizens, which is a choice. You can think of it as citizenship being "dividend+vote in exchange for jury duty". Maybe it makes sense to limit the wording such that it's "may withhold ... for citizens opting out of jury duty" or something like that. Also it could be made clear that the terms for jury service must be established when accepting citizens.”
>>No argument with that.<<
13. “"Material" defense: What does the distinction mean to you? TBH I'm not sure why I chose the word material, but to me it means "substantive".”
>>No argument with that.<<
14. “Legislative standards: If cities do not conform, they would not be allowed in the League.”
>>Since your constitution allows myriad edits to the framework constitution, I don’t see how a uniform set of laws for the one League could be enforced.<<
15. “Disturbing the peace: "Disturbance of the peace" is a broad term, I'm not sure how you mean it; the objective is to allow cities to fill in the gaps with things that create real damages to its citizens like noise complaints but for which trying a case with a jury would be excessive. I certainly don't want it to become an abused clause and am open to suggestions to limit its scope further.”
Nice. Looks like everyone did beautiful work. There were more entrants than I expected and that is phenomenal. I am happy with the outcome, as this was an amazing experience for Gav and myself. I'll be sharing these results with the Logos team; I also publish ours via my Substack and other spaces for folks to review. Keep up the good work as per usual, Max. Props to you and the judges who put so much time and energy into this exercise. A worthwhile endeavor if I have seen one. Cheers.
Really well done, guys!
Oh, and another thing. I could not imagine running this contest through ChatGPT and hoping no one would notice. That is intellectual dishonesty at its worst in my opinion. Do not get me wrong, ChatGPT is nice for a lot of things, but not for an activity that takes more human rigor and creativity. Shame. Shame.
I am not sure which is more troubling—the intellectual dishonesty or the thought of actually one day being governed by a constitution written by AI. Yikes!
Lol true! Scary. Oh yeah, I followed your stuff Christopher. Looking forward to checking out your work! :)
And I yours. In fact, I am reading "The Longevity Code" now!
<3 thanks man. Looking over your content as well.
I mix the formal with the informal on my Stack. I try to cultivate a family-style atmosphere in my comment threads.
Hi Max.
Thank you for making this competition. I was one of the submitters in the contest (as named Som Mathur) and I really appreciate you setting this to help me hone in on some ideas for a new constitution that I've been sitting on for a long time. While I wasn't one of the winners, I see many great ideas coming out of the well-deserved wins you described in this article, and I would like to further help develop the new constitution you envision, perhaps as a legal innovator you mentioned here:
"We are currently in talks with donors to take the Constitution of Consent to the next level: to assemble a working group of legal innovators. These professionals will take the best of the contest ideas to ensure our open-source Constitution of Consent 1.0 has the best chance of seeing future implementation. "
If there's any opportunity available to help with this, please feel free to let me know the best way to reach you.
Thank you for entering and for your interest. I will try to be in touch soon. If you are a free subscriber, you should be able to reply to the newsletter, which goes to my email. I am hoping to be able to enter a next phase soon! Otherwise, if you have problems, you can find me on X via @socialevol
Thanks a lot for the shout-out, Max! It was a very creative and stimulating competition. I felt a certain absurdity in even making the attempt. I would never have done it without the pretext of the competition. But I learned a lot, and it made an impression. Ever since, it's echoed in my mind and my imagination. I keep refining it. For example, it ought to be one of the duties of the Judges' Guild to submit for reauthorization by the Assembly laws that have lapsed, IF the laws have proved enforceable and consistent with other laws, with such revisions as are necessary to enhance administrative efficiency and fairness and the coherence of the legal code as a whole. Also, when local governments are organized, they should be required to compensate residents who choose to leave because they didn't consent to the organization of that local government, and one of the duties of the Assembly can be to determine whether the compensation is fair. And... Etc.
I've also started to imagine futuristic historical scenarios where the constitution might actually be implemented. Suppose a religious commune, wanting to escape corrupt mainstream society in the West, secures sovereign title to uninhabited island somewhere, where they plan to grow food and to telework by satellite internet. Others join them, fishermen and refugees and relatives, until there's a substantial body of residents, in need of some way of governing themselves. And so they could run a constitution competition of this kind for proposals on how to do that, and if I adapted this, submitted it, and won, then... Etc.
Readers of this threat might be interested in the political philosophy I wrote 12 years ago, entitled Principles of a Free Society. https://a.co/d/bgHRdMD
It starts from natural rights and freedom of conscience, then leads into the social contract, after which it deals with property rights, then scathingly critiques the concept of "sovereignty." It covers free trade and foreign intervention, but the most striking is your position it takes is for open borders. Government is legitimate up to a point, but immigration restrictions are not. There is fulsome praise for civil disobedience, as the great force for liberty, without which we would forever deteriorate on the dilemmas of the "who guards the guards?" problem. The chapter on Christianity and freedom is also key: I think the historic group of human freedom is inseparable from the continual influence of Christianity raising the moral level of mankind.
This is beautiful and exactly what I hoped to catalyze. While I don't agree with you on many of the subtler points, for example, I am happy to acknowledge the rootedness of the West in Christianity, Judaism, and even Zoroastrianism. For me, there is an emerging liberal trunk and limbs of pluralism. I am also turning away from Open Borders as a principle towards a more pragmatic view, which we might call Porous Borders. On this more later. Still, you created something beautiful, interesting, and potentially useful. If I were you, I'd start trying to form a small fraternal society with your constitution at its center. Find your community. Let it build out. And of course, Go with God.
Thank you for creating this contest. In my research, I came across constituteproject.org which catalogs all the constitutions in the world. Definitely eye opening. I also realized that there needs to be a testing lab for these ideas. Struggling with the second and third order effects of even one simple line in a constitution stymied my ability to complete a submission in time. Personally, I concluded that there cannot be a one size fits all for a constitution. At the core of a constitution, I believe, is an idea worth fighting for and risking your life for. The world is full of people and ideologies that are willing to do just that. A constitution written by you or me that, at its core, is based on self interest will probably not stand up to the afore mentioned evolutionary forces. Please, someone, change my mind!
This is exactly why this project is for a proto-constitution that will lead to a 1.0 for a wider open source effort. There is no perfect constitution, so forking should be viewed as a feature and not a bug. It’s a discovery process. Perfection is not an option, but experimentation could and should be. Thank you so much for you interest and for putting thought into it. That was more the goal for this than the results.
Max Borders has done an important thing, basically saying, 'Put up or shut up. Let's see a working, nuts-an-bolts constitution derived from your political theorizing.'
However, the snippets above from those who were recognized do not say much about their entries. Yes human rights good, yes individualism good, yes small government good, but I don't see any institutionalized mechanism that would guarantee those things.
Max, since you own all the entries, you should post them all, so that each of us can judge whether they indeed 'put up' a working system.
Thank you, Dear T.L.
First, I chose my snippets in haste after burning the midnight oil as the judges deliberated for the last 3-4 days. They probably don't reflect the entire document. Still, you put your finger on the nature of some of the background debates. Some judges wanted to see MORE about how to operationalize governance in detail, while others felt too much operational detail would restrict the emergence of creative solutions grounded in principle. These competing theories are ongoing. Go too far, and we're being overly rationalist and mechanistic, not far enough, and we're being idealistic and potentially toothless. In any case, the good part of this is that we can use the best of the best to create a more perfect Open Source constitution. That is the goal, anyway.
Now, I appreciate the suggestion to publish all the entries, but I'm not sure that would yield much besides a lot of additional work for me (I've already spent months doing unpaid work on this contest), and I don't relish the idea of submitters with sour grapes comparing all the entries obsessively, sending me angry emails about why the judges suck and made the wrong decision. I'm ready to move forward, first with rest, then the next phase. If I thought there was a way easily to create a legible version of 42 entries totaling an average of about 4500 words a piece (plus formatting), I still don't see how that gets published here besides a very big, clunky attachment. At that point, I'd have to pray that there would be more interest in the discovery process than criticism of the judges’ choices–which, again, does very little for the project moving forward.
Before I hit post, I saw that you also asked about blind judging:
“Note on Blind Judging. We placed all entries into a separate document for judging, so no single judge knew who submitted what. Even I, who ran the Survey Monkey, was tempted to look but did not yield to temptation.” So, today was the first day I got to put names with entries."
"Some judges wanted to see MORE about how to operationalize governance in detail, while others felt too much operational detail would restrict the emergence of creative solutions grounded in principle."
I am glad to know that both approaches were appreciated and that this was the subject of robust debate. It’s a tough call—there is value in both.
I had that same debate internally, but I ultimately chose the latter approach. I wanted the statement of principles to be comprehensive and ironclad—creating a foundation upon which many different rights-respecting polities could be built (and protected). At the end of the day, I believe that some sort of anarcho-phylarchy is the most likely (and most desirable) scenario that would arise in a condition of voluntary order and the absence (or diminished dominance) of involuntary governance. I wanted to create a sort of meta-constitution to nurture such a scenario.
That approach has its pros and cons, but it is the direction my passion and convictions took me.
I am sure the constitutions that took the other approach (an intense focus on operational detail) were mind-blowingly cool. I know you judges had a really hard job, but it also had to be an amazing experience—to have these debates and consider these important ideas. You have blazed a trail to the future!
I'm extremely grateful to be included amongst the winners. Thanks for all of your hard work putting together and judging this contest.
I have also published the entirety of my entry via a GitHub repository here: https://github.com/luisrayas3/golden-liberty
In addition to the full text, I have a "commentary" document, which motivates things in a more casual way, without being part of the "binding" text: https://github.com/luisrayas3/golden-liberty/blob/master/COMMENTARY.md
I welcome ideas and suggestions in the form of "Issues".
Chris, thanks for the discussion. I give my final remarks here, referencing this thread and the thread at Chris Cook's https://christophercook.substack.com/p/human-constitution/comments#comment-44393389
"Marriage [...]."
>>Marriage is a special contract to bring a conceived child to adulthood. It is misleading to apply it to other kinds of contract.
"I still think there is a fundamental disconnect. I am not trying to create a single society. I am trying to create a framework [...]. You see what I mean?"
>>I do see. The disconnect must remain.
"[P]eople are CHOOSING the set of rules by which they abide".
>>A rule whimsically observed or ignored is no longer a rule.
Great replies! I respond here in one place, referencing Chris Cook's https://christophercook.substack.com/p/human-constitution/comments#comment-44393389
1. On these things we fully agree:
a) “Lionizing consent [...] does not solve all problems, but it helps.”
b) “I do not think large territories are workable, moral, or a particularly good idea.”
c) “Freedom of association means [total] freedom of association.”
d) “Yes [I want total private property ownership.]”
2. I’m familiar with Mises.org, Hoppe, Rothbard references to insurance/protective societies. The libertarian weakness is to typically start with a conjectural bare stage, when the real work is in providing transitional institutions to the desideratum.
3. “I am not quite getting your objection [to marriage as anything but a commitment to raise any conceived children].”
>>My point is to insist on the clear definition of “marriage,” apart from ordinary interpersonal contracts. I think the popular muddying of its meaning to apply to both really seeks to steal the sanctity of the term. It has greater sanctity entirely apart from any supernatural claims, since conceiving a child casts a ripple across all eternity.
4. “[Unoccupied territory exists in] Seasteading and the colonization of space, mostly.”
>>Werner K. Stiefel: Operation Atlantis in the Caribbean, failed in 1972.
Michael Oliver: Republic of Minerva in the South Pacific, failed in 1972.
Michael Oliver: Minerva on the island of Abaco in the Bahamas, failed in 1973.
Michael Oliver: Minerva on the island of Vanuatu in the South Pacific, failed in 1980.
As for the colonization of space, I leave that to Robert Zubrin and the sci-fi crowd.
5. “We claim these principles to be universal and true, but we're not going to force you to live any particular way.”
“[Supernatural authority] is as bad as Locke's appeals to ‘right reason’.”
>>This is my point. Not only are the various ‘polities’ free to live as they please, but so is EVERY MEMBER of each polity. Since you deny any authority, supernatural or reasoned, each one is “bound” solely by consent, which is no bind at all, since it can be changed on a whim, without consequences.
6. “I chose to write a constitution that is entirely consent-based.”
>>And since members of this society can cancel or amend its terms at any time, they are bound by nothing. I see no difference between it and The Land of Cockaigne, or Rabelais’ Abbaye of Thélème, where the only rule is ‘Fais ce que tu voudras.’
I have 'put up' my entire constitution contest entry here: http://terryhulsey.com/TLH.pdf
I reserve only CC BY ND rights (the minimum).
The comprehensive elucidation of its ideas is in _The Constitution of Non-State Government: Field Guide to Texas Secession_, here:
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1947660853
Please put your thoughts on its Amazon comments page. The "Look Inside" feature is quite long, but if it really gives you a heartburn to buy the book, I'll send it to you free, provided 1) That you observe CC BY ND, 2) that you give an Amazon comment and 3) that you pass it along to another, under these same three conditions.
I'd love to read the complete systems of the other 41 entries.
Thanks.
You can access mine here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ZIzUJnkF93Nsxo4q5Qlrgh3VDpxaoz0d/view?usp=sharing
Vibhu Vikramaditya, know that my comments regarding your constitution, however blunt, are meant as collegial and friendly.
1, Section 2.
"Magistrates [are...] bound to act with utmost transparency, responsibility"
>>Comment>> Without an architecture of enforcement, this would remain only a wish.
1, Section 3.
"Rewards or recognitions [are] not bestowed based on birthright or any form of predetermined status."
>>Comment>> Does this permit confiscatory death taxes? You will say no, but in every codified constitution, jurists of the state will force a pry bar into any tiny crack to expand state power.
1, Section 5.
"this Republic affirms the legitimacy of polycentric legal orders."
>>Comment>> 1) You accept Sharia Law, then? 2) What's mechanism to bring unwilling accused parties into some adjudication?
1, Section 6.
"the individual's inviolable right to privacy and anonymity."
>>Comment>> If your residence is public, not private, knowledge, does doxxing then cease to be a crime?
1, Section 7.
"[All legitimate money creators must] contribute to the general welfare of society"
>>Comment>> In every codified constitution, jurists of the state will force a pry bar into any tiny crack to expand state power. They will drive a truck through this one.
1, Section 8 and Section 9.
>>Comment>> Ditto previous for entire section.
1, Section 10.
"[A one-time entry fee] is the sole mandatory contribution expected from the members" yet "additional fees may be instituted".
>>Comment>> Despite the polite wording, the qualifier really means "mandatory taxes will be extracted."
2, Sections 1 & 2.
"Democratic Leadership Councils"
>>Comment>> I'm sure you mean to champion the associationism of Althusius, as I do, but the details are the Bolshevik "all power to the Soviets."
And are the associations formed by popular elections? Any purely electoral scheme means politics, in the worst sense.
2, Section 3.
"the Republic operates not as an authoritarian force but as a collaborative facilitator".
>>Comment>> This is a desire to magically square the circle.
3, Section 1.
"The General League"
>>Comment>> How its representatives function is unclear, as is their nomination from the equally unclear associations.
3, Section 2.
Nomination of Supreme Court judges to 2-year terms is "'rooted'[?] in the assemblies of associations."
>>Comment>> This is vague to me, and the brief term reduces their independence.
3, Section 3.
"the Republic entrusts executive responsibilities to temporary bodies formed by the General League."
>>Comment>> This is altogether vague to me, and is subject to a variety of interpretations.
Consent and Continuity, Section 2: Periodic Reaffirmation of Consent
"Should any association choose to withdraw its consent, a clearly defined, constitutionally enshrined process ensures this transition is conducted peacefully".
>>Comment>> Good idea, but you are obliged to detail some process that does not enshrine continual social upheaval.
MY OPINION: The constitution lacks the indispensable self-enforcement architecture. It is more optative than operational.
I am sincerely grateful for your comments, The dept and exploration of your thought on my work are quite insightful and would require me write perhaps another 10000 words . My attempt in this work has been to lay out a common structure based on shared common understanding of the principles needed for a free society and an attempt only a graph of dots for the institutions that would be necessary to attempt it. Thanks a lot once again
Reading through now…
Of course I love the inclusion of allodial title. You've read mine, so you know I think that is a must!
Interposition is cool too. Nullification is good.
Naturally, I like the fact that secession is included :-)
I am a bit nervous about the ability of the larger body (the county) to take unilateral action against the rules and officials of the subordinate bodies. However, I did just wake up and maybe I am not seeing this clearly. I will read on…
Bond = interesting
Full reserve banking = good. As to the Consilium requiring it everywhere, I suppose that makes sense within the system you are envisioning.
Sortition intrigues me in general. I would love to see it tried on a large scale (other than the jury system we have now).
Forbidding redistribution and establishing mechanisms for private charity = good (obviously). A bunch of years ago, I conceived of a system kind of similar to your bonum sociale.
I like giving citizens the ability to nullify by line item.
Landesgemeinde is also intriguing. I met a Swiss person at FreedomFest who was very proud of it as a system.
Question—maybe I just missed it, but how are all these bodies getting their funding?
"It shall offer to any invading aggressor no target force whose defeat or surrender might signify the defeat or surrender of the Federation as a whole." The first time I heard this concept was reading Harry Browne's "How I Found Freedom…" I really like it.
However, compulsory militia service raises serious moral questions.
The right to switch to an HOA is an interesting inclusion.
I admire the care you have taken with establishing caveats within statements of rights.
Okay, all done!
I have reached philosophical conclusions (obviously similar to conclusions reached by others) that compel me to full anarchism. Ultimately, that requires a condition in which full blown market-anarchism and anarcho-phylarchic manifestations are free to form and operate. I wrote my constitution with that in mind.
Thus, at the end of the day, I want to go further than your constitution would take us. Nonetheless, I like it! I would certainly rather live under something like it than what we have now.
Thank you for the care you put into this. Most human beings just accept whatever meal they are fed. A much smaller percent of humans have the courage to create new recipes. Kudos!
(I think my choice of a food metaphor there may be evidence that it is time for breakfast.)
Thanks a lot to the judges and everyone for reading and appreciating my work. It was an honor for me to participate in this contest
Thank you so much to everyone involved in this amazing and vital project. Thank you for your hard work and all the sacrifices you made to see it through.
I believe that history will look back on this as a seminal event—the first page of a new chapter in the course of human affairs.
Nice job. I liked the excerpts you chose from Voss’s entry.
Although I’m sure it was a lot of work, it sounds like you and the judges did a very thorough and fair evaluation. In any event, I think it was a very interesting and worthwhile experiment.
Also, just curious: Was this a "blind" judging, or did the judges see the authors' names?
Chris, thanks for your comments from yesterday at https://underthrow.substack.com/p/the-big-day/comment/46100110. I've enjoyed our exchange, and I've learned from it. A few replies:
YOU: "nervous about [the county taking] unilateral action against the rules and officials of the subordinate bodies."
>>As described in the full treatise (https://www.amazon.com/dp/1947660853), current mega-cities constitute Bantustans within the Counties. For the County to be the locus of government, these Bantustans must be subordinate to it.
YOU: "Sortition intrigues me in general."
>>Note that sortition as currently employed is a mask for legitimizing state power because of its use of demographics. I resolve the error of demographics, and also sortition's main problem of how to constitute the initial random pool.
YOU: "compulsory militia service raises serious moral questions."
>>Militia service is not compulsory. However, voluntary withholding of service results in the loss of County citizenship (which citizenship is a prerequisite for holding allodial title within the County, as well as a prerequisite for receipt of any part of its bonum sociale).
[CONTINUED FROM PREVIOUS COMMENT.]
16. “Natural authority: I'll remove "shall", as this is just an acknowledgment of natural authority”
>>No argument with that.<<
17. “Ground rent: Yes, ground rent is to be collected without compensation and it is the sole source of revenue for cities. It is to be distributed to citizens less the amount allocated for the commons and public services. This I believe this to be quite clear from the 3 sections on rent, spending, and citizen's dividend. Let me know if you find something unclear about this.”
>>As mentioned, “ground rent” lets loose an avalanche of other issues, starting with how current landowners are to be compensated, if at all.<<
18. “"Does “willing to pay its rent” allow rent charges as high as the “exclusive” users care to charge?" I don't understand this question, ground rent is ground rent. True, the matter of assessing ground rent is not trivial, but it is well-defined. Meaning there are different valid methods for charging it, but there is a conceptual ideal, which the methods may be judged against.”
>>You admit then, that deciding who is to enjoy “exclusive” use is not straightforward.<<
19. “CD vs public spending: Correct, as written it is up to the Citizen's how much to spend of public services. I have gone back and forth on this a lot in my own mind. On the one hand, I would like the dividend to be maximal in a sense. On the other, I would like to leave it open for experimentation. I believe that a CD incentivizes people to vote against public spending which isn't truly vital and pays for itself in ground rent increases; but it is unclear if that would be a sufficient check on special interest spending and other undesirable public expenses. This is an issue that I believe deserves much more attention, I will open a separate issue to discuss.”
>>It seems that without some constitutional check, the powerful dispensers of the dividend could say, “Our wise administration of 100% of the dividend constitutes your benefit.”<<
20. “Establishment of money: Correct; the problem with central bank fiat is (a) how newly created money is distributed (implicit special interest spending), and (b) legal tender laws. Both are addressed here. I see no reason why Cities may not experiment with any form of currency which needs to compete with all other private currencies.”
>>While citizens may rightly use any mutually agreed medium of exchange, unless the constitution (say League) encourages one, markets and trade will suffer in the struggle to find one.<<
21. “Harboring fugitives: Yes, though note that it only prohibits "inhibiting efforts", it does not create any active obligation.”
>>This does not seem to clarify the issue.<<
22. “League/City vs Federal/State: They are similar but they are not the same; IMO making the connection would create baggage I wish not to drag in.”
>>No argument with that.<<
23. “Delegation and forums: Citizen's may not wish to be super involved in every vote or decision, and the forum(s) would be a place for focused discussion that would be too unruly in an entirely open public forum. In other words it's a way to create a body of representatives without grouping people's votes arbitrarily.”
>>These forums fail to address the central problem of democracy: Voting. There is no “fair” voting scheme: Every one creates factions and all the ills of politics. (See William Poundstone’s book “Gaming the Vote.”) The only solution is to annihilate all voting schemes through a non-stratified system of sortition, which I describe in my constitution, and in my book “Field Guide to Texas Secession,” (https://www.amazon.com/dp/1947660853) on pages 113ff.<<
24. “Election of City representatives: Yes, and that is intentional. I actually originally wanted this to be appointed by the mayor or governor of the City (like an ambassador), but then didn't want to be too prescriptive about it.”
>>See difficulties mentioned in #23 above.<<
25. “Plurality votes: Clearly I need to fix the parentheses because they should be ~38%, ~62%, & ~76%. Using an irrational number (in this case the golden ratio) assures there can be no ties, and the golden ratio in particular has a natural balance. I'll call out the golden ration directly.”
>>”fix the parentheses” – yes, understood.<<
26. “Directives, ministries, & councils: What would you like spelled out? There is a section "Directives" which defines them, sections for each ministry which defines them, and sections for both councils which defines them in an article dedicated to them.”
>>My complaint is with the general open-endedness of the constitution.<<
27. “President: "Unarmed" means unarmed, they may be bureaucrats, medical staff, anything necessary for the execution of the specified responsibilities. I have clarified that this is subject to resources allocated by the councils.”
>>No argument with that.<<
28. “President term limits: This is definitely worth discussing further. Term limits have always seemed quite arbitrary, but they may be valuable still. I'll open an issue.”
>>No argument with that.<<
29. “Naturalization: We can't pretend we'll get rid of national borders. The Citizens of the League will need passports to travel abroad.”
>>See comment #4 above.<<
30. “Rent collected by the League: This is only a (fixed) portion of the amount collected by cities, and determined by the citizens themselves by supermajority. Within that amount, yes there are no limits to spending. I'd suppose that for the most part there would be little League-wide CD, since people would rather get it in their city CD, but there could be value in pooling the CD too. But basically this is pre-allocated for public purposes at the League level.”
>>See comment #19 above.<<
31. “MoA veto: See above. It has no special veto power, only the power to audit and make information public.”
>>See comment #5 above.<<
Below are my final comments on Luis Rayas' constitution, identical to new issue entered at his https://github.com/luisrayas3/golden-liberty
1. “Enumerated or substantive rights: Can you clarify the distinction in your view? AFAIK American constitutional rights are substantive rights. But these ought to be substantive; do you have a suggestion to make this clearer?”
>>Yes, constitutional rights are substantive, but they are made precise as procedural rights. For example, some assert a substantive “right to privacy,” which is nowhere mentioned in the U.S. Constitution. In my view, that supposed substantive right is simply a corollary of the right to property, which has procedural protections in the 4th Amendment.<<
2. “Religious beliefs: The text provides that persons are to be treated with dignity and respect under the law regardless of religious beliefs. Actions on those beliefs are not protected, so killing on religious grounds is in no way acceptable. I see no reason why the law should not treat a person with contempt for short people with dignity or respect either. I'd be open to suggestions on how to make this passage clearer if they are not.”
>>No argument with that.<<
3. “Self-ownership vs incarceration: No it should not. This should be covered by the clause granting the right to seek damages, but perhaps an explicit clause should be added, "persons forfeit these rights when ..." or similar, thoughts?”
>>No argument with that.<<
4. “Jurisdictional borders: No, and I don't see how a right for persons to move precludes this, can you clarify?”
>>It is impossible to have “jurisdictional borders” while at the same time having an unrestricted “natural right to move about the earth.”<<
5. “Who enforces?: As a pluralist system, there is no prescribed answer. It is likely that Cities will have an enforcement arm, though this need not be unique. The only requirement is that the League and City governments respect and conform to this right.”
>>The question of “who enforces” is much the same as “who is the final arbiter of disputes.” This is the heart of the matter, and the central weakness of this constitution: It makes a Lockean assumption of a citizenry composed of sporting English gentlemen who will sort things out rationally over 4pm tea and crumpets. The whole work of a constitution is how to keep the violently irrational on a leash.<<
6. “Torts: Yes I think so. I'm open to hearing an argument why this should not be the case.”
>>Applying the “beyond a reasonable doubt” standard to torts will mean that many torts now prosecuted will now fail to be so.<<
7. “Sanctions: The statement is "excessively surpass". I am open to better ways to word this, I believe it is obvious the rationale why some clause to this end is warranted.”
>>Sanctions against crime must SIGNIFICANTLY surpass the loss to the victim, otherwise crime becomes a break-even activity: The criminal suffers no more than what was taken by his crime. Effectively this is a very winning activity for the criminal.<<
8. “Exit tax: This only protects existing ("outstanding") obligations, which would be contracted willfully prior to secession; it does not create an obligation. Let me know if you think this could be clearer.”
>>Your purely contractual society must logically signify contracts between individuals, since each is free to dissociate from any group, including government. Individuals may be pursued at law to fulfill their contracts, but since larger entities can’t, no assessment can possibly exist should they secede.<<
9. “Popular sovereignty: Hmm, you may have a point. My intent was to say that each person individually consents but this is admittedly unclear. I will try to reword.”
>>No argument with that.<<
10. “Penalize non-voting: I'm not sure I agree, how would equal opportunity support the idea of penalizing someone who chooses not to make use of that opportunity?”
>>No argument with that.<<
11. “MoA veto: Auditing is not the same thing as overruling. A case must still be tried for wrongdoing.”
>>Again, who enforces? Who is the final arbiter? See #5 above.
12. “Compulsory jury duty: "Compulsory" for citizens, which is a choice. You can think of it as citizenship being "dividend+vote in exchange for jury duty". Maybe it makes sense to limit the wording such that it's "may withhold ... for citizens opting out of jury duty" or something like that. Also it could be made clear that the terms for jury service must be established when accepting citizens.”
>>No argument with that.<<
13. “"Material" defense: What does the distinction mean to you? TBH I'm not sure why I chose the word material, but to me it means "substantive".”
>>No argument with that.<<
14. “Legislative standards: If cities do not conform, they would not be allowed in the League.”
>>Since your constitution allows myriad edits to the framework constitution, I don’t see how a uniform set of laws for the one League could be enforced.<<
15. “Disturbing the peace: "Disturbance of the peace" is a broad term, I'm not sure how you mean it; the objective is to allow cities to fill in the gaps with things that create real damages to its citizens like noise complaints but for which trying a case with a jury would be excessive. I certainly don't want it to become an abused clause and am open to suggestions to limit its scope further.”
>>No argument with that.<<
[CONTINUES IN NEXT COMMENT.]