The Constitution of Freedom Haven (Draft Version 0.03 7/30/2018) PREAMBLE ---- We the individual People, in order to secure the right to defend ourselves, to limit the size and scope of government, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for Freedom Haven. We recognize: * Freedom is an essential ingredient for people to achieve their greatest potential. We hold to the philosophy of Liberty. * We also recognize that any government, or any system of force/compulsion, will naturally try to grow in size and scope over time, which thing we oppose. This Constitution is established for the purpose of preserving the highest degree of Freedom possible and is meant to be chains to limit government while preserving our right to self-defense. ARTICLE I: DEFINITIONS ---- * Force (or compulsion/coercion): is defined as threatening someone else's Life, Freedom, and/or Property. * Freedom (or Liberty): is defined as living life with the least amount of Force used against the people as possible. - Government cannot create Freedom – it can only preserve/protect it, restore it, or destroy it. - Freedom is a God-given right and exists in the absence of any government. - Freedom is the ability to use your Life and Property the way you want to, as long as it doesn't take away from someone else's freedom to do the same with their life and property. This is what you are naturally able to do in the absence on someone threatening to murder you, kidnap you, or steal and/or destroy your property. * Life: means sentient human life. This is any human (with human DNA) that has their own unique brain activity. - A human body that does not have any brain activity for a documented extended period of time (aka: “brain dead” or “vegetative state”) is the property of their legal guardians. * Property (or “Tangible Property”): Property is anything that you can touch which can be owned. - You cannot own another sentient human being, but you (and only you) own your own body while you are alive. - The only items government recognizes as property is tangible property. - Control over intangible items (which you cannot touch, such as information, perceived value, ideas, processes, etc) are not God-given rights. People may choose to keep their intangible items concealed from others or secure them within their rights of their own tangible property, but it is not a God-given right to control intangible items using force/compulsion on others, so you are not justified in using Force to control what happens with intangible items once it has left the control of your tangible property. - No person, or group of people, may own all of the property surrounding someone else’s property without allowing them (and their portable possessions) instant reasonable access to leave/enter their property at that person’s own will and timing. - People may voluntarily exchange property with each other but they bear the legal burden of showing proof that such a voluntary transfer took place. These contracts can be upheld using force if needed to ensure all property ends up with their respective owners, according to the contract. * Murder: is ending sentient human life without consent, unless it is needed for self-defense. * Kidnapping: is taking away freedom (without consent, unless it is needed for self-defense), which includes (but is not limited to): - restraining (which includes rape), - imprisoning, - blocking access to leave/enter property (that you have authority/permission to enter), - providing addictive recreational drugs or other addictive substances * Theft: is taking, destroying, or damaging property without consent (unless it is needed for self-defense). * Extradition: is capturing an individual and sending them to a foreign government to answer for crimes against that foreign government that are not crimes in this government. ARTICLE II: RIGHTS ---- There are no rights but those that exist for all people. No 3rd party can take away an individual’s rights. * Life, Freedom, and Property: All individual people have the right to maintain and control their own life, freedom, and property. * Defensive force: - Force is only sometimes justified to defend Life, Freedom, and/or Property. - Since governments naturally grow over time, this Constitution limits that growth so that the least amount of Force needed is used (to defend Life, Liberty, and/or Property) and the greatest amount of Freedom is preserved. - All people are permitted to arm themselves with whatever weapons they believe is needed to defend themselves and others, with the exception of nuclear and biological weapons. Private property owners are permitted to further restrict weapons within their boundaries for the safety of their property. - All property owners have a right to expel anyone on their property, or deny access to their property, for any reason they wish. The belief that the reason is a bad reason is not justification for violating someone’s property. * We the people are the government: - The Government of Freedom Haven, any organization, or any individual have no authority or rights except for those which also exist for all people. - The government, or any individual, may not use Force, except the minimum needed to stop murder, kidnapping, and/or theft (as defined here). Any individual has a right to defend life, freedom, and/or property (as defined above), but when such force is used, that individual (or group of individuals) is (in that moment) part of government and is subject to the limitations contained within this Constitution. * Establishment of states: Each property owner may have its own specific laws for implementing this Constitution within their property boundaries, with the following conditions: - All people should have reasonable access to the documented laws that exist within a property with reasonable advance warnings of law changes. - Everyone who enters their property should be notified which laws they will be required to uphold without that boundary. - Those property owners can also establish reasonable ways for people on that property to fully repay any damages to life, freedom, and/or property those people damaged/destroyed. - Government (or non government) mediation can be used to resolve issues between properties or unresolved within a property, but this needs to be done in an orderly publicly-understood and publicly-accessible process. * Consent: Consent must be recorded in a way that it can be proven to the world that consent was indeed given. If people are accused of using force, they shall be presumed innocent until proven guilty, but consent is assumed not to have been given until it can be proven that it was. Consent cannot be given to certain subject areas until after a certain age: - Life: You can give consent regarding your life at age 21 (agree to assisted suicide, etc). You can defend your life at any age. - Liberty: You can give consent to give your liberty (lose it) by using addictive substances, trading your own slavery in exchange for products/services (debt), etc at age 18, on condition that an end-date is specified in the contract (overcoming addictions acquired will be an individual responsibility). - Property: You can give consent regarding property (minus your own body) at age 8 (your legal guardian/parent can provide the consent until that age). You can provide consent to your body at age 18. Consent can be legally granted to another (like "power of attorney") if the person wishes. In all things, consent would need to be documented in any way that would hold up in court if needed. * No taxation. No rights to government services: - Taxation is theft and is forbidden – the Government may not steal to fund its efforts. - No government services are a right: if people don't want to pay for a service and no one volunteers to do it for free, then the service does not have to be offered. Individual people bear the ultimate responsibility to defend their own lives, freedom, and/or property. Individual properties may choose to pay for their own security out of the funds they obtain through voluntary trade. - A person's right to self-defense shall not be taken away from anyone except for someone who can be proven to be initiating force against others. - The people need to be vigilant to protect their freedoms and document all forms of tyranny so that force is not used beyond self-defense or more than was required for self-defense. - Only the property owner may impose fees for physical access to their property. No external government, group, or individual, may impose any such fees or tariffs. * Privacy: - Government shall not have any rights to privacy. Government must provide timely public visibility into all actions it performs. - Individuals may choose to implement privacy, but the not at the cost of someone’s rights to their life, freedom, and/or property. This is best achieved by having self-control over your own property. * Individual rights trump any vote of the majority: The vote of the majority shall never take away the rights of the individual, listed above. * No extradition: Using the definition listed before: There will be no extradition from Freedom Haven. - Nations who seek for people, currently in Freedom Haven who broke those nation’s laws, may choose to arrest them in their respective nations, but they should not come to Freedom Haven seeking to arrest those people in Freedom Haven, neither should they expect Freedom Haven to hand them over. - They are willing to visit Freedom Haven (and maybe even visit with the accused if they obtain the needed private property access permissions) as long as they abide by the laws of Freedom Haven. No person in Freedom Haven is given special rights (including representatives from other nations) that are not also available to all people – they will be required to abide by Freedom Haven’s laws just like everyone else.