Citizenship
- Some people are citizens; these are people who hold a citizenship license.
- A citizenship licence can be granted by the Citizenship Agency, a statutory corporation. A citizenship licence cannot be withdrawn once issued, unless it was found to be issued in error.
Crime
- The rights of entities are protected within the scope of this society. This scope is defined as covering any physical act which occurs within the borders of the nation, except where the act and its consequences are contained entirely within a Foreign Sovereign Zone; or any act perpetrated by an entity which is a citizen of this society.
- Foreign Sovereign Zones are defined in law. Their boundaries must be clearly defined as such for their legal protection to be valid.
- If an entity deliberately, or through negligence, impinges upon the rights of another entity, then a crime has been committed. However, in order to avoid disputes and to simplify matters, specific rights of entities are detailed in the constitution or law, and specific crimes of impingement upon those rights defined.
- A specific crime, where declared in the constitution or in law, has a definition of the impingement of rights that is the crime, and a definition of a sanction scheme for entities found to have committed the crime.
- It is the duty of all entities to attempt to discourage and prevent threats to the rights of entities. Failing in that duty is not a crime in itself, but if a crime arises, entities which can be shown to have failed to take reasonable efforts and precautions to prevent the crime may be considered partially responsible by the investigating court.
- Exercising a licenced right without holding the appropriate licence, or not within the restrictions of the licence, is a crime. That crime must be defined as part of the definition of the licence.
- If a specific crime has been committed, then the entities responsible for committing the crime must be held to account, as defined in the specific crime. When a crime is suspected, the entities suspecting it must (as part of their duty to protect the rights of entities) directly or indirectly inform the Court Agency (a statutory corporation) of it and request a court case.
- If an entity feels their rights have been impinged upon but not specific crime has been committed, then they may request that the Court Agency open a court case.
The Law
- In addition to this Constitution, a document known as the Law also defines the conduct of entities within this society.
- The law defines crimes, foreign entities, statutory corporations, foreign sovereign zones (foreign ships, embassies), means of temporary deprivation of rights for mentally ill people, and rights that require licences.
- In the event of contradiction between statements made in the Constitution or Law, the Constitution takes the greatest priority, followed by the Law. In the event of contradictions within only the Consitution or only within the Law, the statement that comes textually closest to the beginning of either document has the greatest priority.
- The difference between this Constitution and the Law is that the Law may be easily changed by Parliament, while the Constitution may only be changed through a much more involved process.
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Wed 6th Jan 2016 10:38 pm 
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By Faré, Fri 8th Jan 2016 @ 8:42 am
The big mistake many engineers make is to believe they as philosophers are somehow outside and above society and government is a magical tool that can mold society whichever way they want, for free.
The one thing libertarians understand is that, no, nobody is either outside or above society, that government is not the tool of philosophers above, and not the tool of people below, but is a natural phenomenon with laws of its own, derived from its principle of unaccountable violence; and before to dream of what it "could" or "should" do, realize that not only its action isn't free (as in, it has a dear price), its action isn't free either (as in, it's constrained in what it WILL do — if it doesn't propagate its own survival through domination, it doesn't survive and is replaced by a conqueror that will do what it takes).
See e.g. "The Calculus of Consent" by Buchanan & Tulloch on how democracy does work in practice (though with very favorable hypotheses), or "The Myth of the Rational Voter" by Caplan on how these favorable hypotheses do not even hold.
Once you understand what government is, a lot of things change as to how you approach social engineering (if at all).
By alaric, Fri 8th Jan 2016 @ 12:27 pm
I'm approaching the design of a government as a collective body to handle collective issues; I do agree that governments which become entities in their own right, whose interests may not align with the interests of the populace, then You Have A Problem.
I've yet to see a convincing blueprint for how humanity can manage collective issues (dealing with emergencies, managing shared resources, dealing with disputes about stuff, etc) without forming some kind of forum to discuss it and agreeing to go along with the outcome of those agreements even if you don't like them - and making those agreements useful even if some people refuse to go along with them. Perhaps I am being too broad in labeling that as a "government" of sorts, and damning the whole concept by association with stagnant Western democracies...
No, I'm not convinced my "second society" wouldn't also fall foul to the attractor of a power-hungry government propagating its own existence at all costs; I have merely tried to discourage it from going down paths I can think of that lead to that. It is my best stab at a model for a government in the traditional-nation-state sense; I would really like a few of those to be competing for citizens with each other, along with an ocean full of seasteads evolving their own forms of little micro-nation and competing with each other for citizens, and we get to see what wins out... As long as there's enough overall consensus that people should be very free to move to a different society, it should be hard for any despots to do a North Korea and lock their populace up without anybody noticing and doing something about it...
By Faré, Sat 9th Jan 2016 @ 6:16 am
But that's the thing: the notional "government" that you're talking about has nothing to do with the institution of territorial monopoly of violence usually known as "government". If you define it as whichever "kind of forum to discuss it and agreeing to go along with the outcome of those agreements even if you don't like them" — then the closest common notion is market, not government.
And yes, competition between "governing" entities via free association is the one and only force capable of preventing the otherwise non-competed entity from turning into tyranny.
In any case, a lot of criticism against libertarianism boils down to confusion between these opposite notions, whichever names you use to denote them (society, government, market, etc.)
By alaric, Mon 11th Jan 2016 @ 10:45 am
I do worry about how to stop "governing entities" from (a) absorbing each other, not necessarily through traditional military expansionism but maybe even just through all signing treaties with each other that make them interchangeable in the name of "standardising for the benefit of free trade", or through simple cultural hegemony; and (b) going North Korea and inhibiting flight of disaffected citizens!
By Faré, Tue 12th Jan 2016 @ 5:04 am
(a) Indeed the Habsburg gained power through alliances and weddings (and ended up highly inbred for it). As long as citizens and landowners have an "exit" option, it doesn't matter how much the entities merge. If they don't then it's indeed guaranteed eventual doom as empires merge together and/or collapse.
(b) All governments have already reserved the right to inhibit the flight of disaffected citizens: that's what border controls and passports are for. It's the other bad aspects of North Korea that they happily haven't copied (yet). "Citizen" control is precisely what government monopoly consists in.
The idea that "governing entities" should NOT have a monopoly on either territory or citizens is what libertarianism is about.
By alaric, Wed 11th Oct 2017 @ 7:43 am
Here's some more interesting insights into the problem of government: http://www.drmaciver.com/2017/10/the-politics-of-i-dont-know/