Preamble

In acknowledgment of the self-ownership of every human being; of the equal and inalienable rights that flow therefrom; and of the truth that no person, nor any number of persons, may acquire a rightful authority to rule others without their individual, ongoing, and freely given consent,

We, asserting no dominion except over our own lives and property, declare the following Rights and the narrow Powers consistent with them.

These articles are not a grant of liberty from rulers to subjects, but a series of chains laid upon any institution calling itself a government. Whatever lies beyond these chains is a usurpation and is void.

Article I – Self-Ownership and the Fundamental Principle of Non-Aggression

1. Every person is the sole owner of his or her own body, mind, time, and peaceful labor. No institution, under any name, acquires a rightful property in any person.
2. The fundamental principle is this: “No person or group of persons has the right to initiate the use of force, fraud or coercion against another person or group of pesons.”
3. No law shall authorize or excuse such aggression: that is, the initiation of force, threat of force, or fraud against peaceful persons or their justly acquired property.
4. No person shall be compelled to labor, serve, or conform to any command of the state, except insofar as he or she has voluntarily, knowingly, and revocably consented to a specific obligation.

Article II – Freedom of Conscience, Speech, and Association

1. No law shall abridge the freedom of thought, conscience, religion, or irreligion. No person shall be compelled to profess, subsidize, or conform to any creed, ideology, or orthodoxy.
2. No law shall abridge the freedom of expression, in any medium now known or hereafter devised, including speech, press, art, academic inquiry, and digital communication.
3. The right of every person to peaceably assemble, to form voluntary associations, and to withdraw from them, shall not be infringed.
4. No licensing, registration, or “permission” scheme shall be imposed as a prior condition to speaking, publishing, teaching, associating, or peaceably protesting, save for the narrow purpose of coordinating physical safety in particular times and places, and never for suppressing content or viewpoint.

Article III – Arms, Self-Defense, and Community Defense

1. The right of every person to keep, bear, and carry arms suitable to the defense of self, home, and community shall not be infringed.
2. No law shall require prior permission, registration, or disclosure of arms owned or carried by peaceful persons.
3. No person shall be disarmed except as a specific remedy, after due process, upon clear and convincing proof that he or she has committed aggression and poses an ongoing, concrete threat.
4. Standing armies and militarized police forces shall be perpetually suspect in law. The burden shall rest upon the state to show that any organized use of force is strictly defensive, necessary, and consistent with the rights herein declared.

Article IV – Property, Contract, and Economic Liberty

1. Justly acquired property—whether in land, goods, money, reputation, or digital assets—shall be inviolate. No person shall be deprived of property except:
• (a) by his or her own voluntary act, or
• (b) after due process, as restitution for proven aggression.
2. No law shall abridge the freedom of contract between consenting adults, save only to void agreements procured by force or fraud, or those that themselves constitute aggression against third parties.
3. The liberty to choose one’s occupation, to start and maintain a business, to set prices, and to trade with any willing parties, foreign or domestic, shall not be infringed by licenses, quotas, tariffs, monopolies, price controls, or other restraints, except where strictly necessary to prevent concrete aggression or fraud.
4. No law shall confer upon any private person, corporation, union, or association a legal privilege or monopoly to exclude peaceful competitors.
5. The state shall have no power to create legal-tender monopolies or to forbid the use of alternative currencies, whether metallic, paper, or digital, freely chosen by consenting parties.

Article V – Due Process, Victim-Based Justice, and Criminal Law

1. No person shall be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law, including:
• prompt notice of specific charges,
• a presumption of innocence,
• a public and speedy hearing before an impartial tribunal,
• the right to confront witnesses,
• the right to present evidence and counsel of one’s choice,
• and the right of appeal.
2. No “crime” shall exist in law except where there is a discernible victim whose person or property has suffered aggression. Acts without victims—such as peaceful use of substances, consensual sexual conduct, peaceful speech, or voluntary exchanges—shall not be subject to criminal punishment.
3. Punishments shall be strictly proportioned to the harm done and ordered primarily toward restitution to victims rather than vengeance or state enrichment.
4. No person shall be held incommunicado, subjected to torture, cruel, degrading, or experimental treatment, nor detained indefinitely without formal charge and trial.
5. No person shall be subjected to retroactive criminal laws, nor to multiple prosecutions or punishments for the same act.

Article VI – Privacy, Surveillance, and Data

1. The persons, houses, effects, papers, devices, and communications of individuals shall be secure against unreasonable searches and seizures, whether physical or digital.
2. No warrant shall issue but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the person or things to be searched and seized. General warrants and bulk data collection are *per se* unreasonable and void.
3. The use of surveillance technologies, including mass interception of communications, facial recognition, tracking, and data aggregation, shall be presumed unlawful when directed at persons not individually suspected of aggression. The burden shall lie upon the state to demonstrate strict necessity and narrow tailoring.
4. Individuals retain the right to employ encryption and other privacy-preserving technologies. No person shall be compelled to surrender passwords, keys, or private cryptographic material, except upon particularized judicial order, with full due-process protections and only in relation to specific alleged aggression.

Article VII – Freedom of Movement, Migration, and Secession

1. Every person has the right to move, reside, and travel peaceably, within and across borders, so long as he or she does not trespass upon private property or commit aggression.
2. No law shall forbid peaceful persons from entering or leaving any territory, to trade, work, or dwell, subject only to private property owners’ choices and genuine health-related quarantines applied by due process to demonstrable threats.
3. Communities, associations, and individuals retain the right to reorganize their political ties, to form new jurisdictions, or to withdraw from existing ones, provided they respect the property and contractual rights of others. Attempts by the state to prevent peaceful secession are themselves aggression.

Article VIII – Bodily Autonomy and Medical Freedom

1. No person shall be compelled to undergo medical treatment, vaccination, reproductive intervention, or any other bodily intrusion without his or her informed and voluntary consent.
2. No law shall prohibit peaceful adults from obtaining, producing, or exchanging medicines, treatments, or procedures, provided that:
   • information is honestly disclosed and not fraudulent, and
   • the choices of others are not thereby coerced or violated.
3. Medical licensing, certification, and regulation shall never be used to establish monopoly or to shield institutions from liability for aggression or fraud.

Article IX – Taxation, Expropriation, and Public Finance

1. Because forced taking of property without consent is a species of theft, no tax shall be imposed except to the minimal extent strictly necessary to fund the few powers enumerated in this instrument, and only under procedures that allow individuals the fullest feasible means to withhold support from specific enterprises they deem unjust.
2. Confiscation of property without due process and just cause is prohibited under all names, including “civil forfeiture,” “eminent domain,” or “administrative penalties.” Where property is taken for a genuine, narrowly defined public use with the owner’s consent, full compensation at or above market value shall be a strict requirement.
3. The state shall keep transparent, accessible accounts of all receipts and expenditures. Secret budgets, off-ledger funds, and unaccountable agencies are forbidden.
4. No debt shall be contracted in the name of the people which binds future generations without their consent. Any public debt incurred beyond the powers enumerated herein is null and void, and no person may be compelled to labor or pay for it.

Article X – Digital, Intellectual, and Cultural Freedom

1. Code, algorithms, and software shall be recognized as forms of speech and expression. No law shall forbid the writing or sharing of code except where it is a direct instrument of aggression or fraud.
2. Intellectual creations may be protected by consensual contract, but the state shall not grant or enforce monopolies that forbid peaceful sharing of knowledge, ideas, or information beyond limited and narrowly defined terms consistent with the public’s right to learn, imitate, and build upon the works of others.
3. No person shall be compelled to adopt particular standards of language, culture, or expression by law. Cultural matters are subject to persuasion, not coercion.

Article XI – Residual Rights

1. The enumeration of certain rights in this Bill shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people, including any liberty that does not constitute aggression against others.
2. When a doubt arises whether a claimed liberty is reserved to individuals or a power is granted to the state, the doubt shall be resolved in favor of liberty and against power.

Article XII – Political Participation, Voting, and Popular Checks on Power

1. The right to participate in public affairs—through discussion, petition, voting, or abstention—is individual and voluntary. Compulsory voting or compulsory political participation in any form is prohibited.
2. No person shall be penalized, directly or indirectly, for choosing not to vote, not to join a party, or not to support any candidate or measure.
3. Elections shall be free, competitive, and frequent, with minimal barriers to candidacy or party formation, and with no public funding scheme that entrenches existing parties against new entrants.
4. At all levels of jurisdiction there shall exist binding mechanisms of popular control, including:
• (a) Citizen-initiated referenda to repeal statutes, regulations, taxes, or programs that exceed enumerated powers or violate rights declared herein.
• (b) Citizen-initiated referenda to reduce, cap, or abolish specific taxes, expenditures, debts, agencies, or offices.
• (c) Sunset clauses: all statutes imposing taxes, public debts, or regulatory burdens shall automatically expire after a limited term unless re-approved by both the relevant representative body and, upon petition, by popular vote.
5. Procedures for initiative, referendum, and recall shall be simple, accessible, and low-cost. The state shall not encumber these mechanisms by complex technicalities whose evident purpose is to thwart their use.

Article XIII – The Enumerated Powers of the State

Any institution purporting to exercise “governmental” authority shall possess no powers except the following, and these only under the strict limitations here stated:

1. Protection against aggression. To define, through public and general rules, acts that constitute aggression; and to respond to such acts by:
• investigation,
• impartial adjudication, and
• enforcement of judgments aimed primarily at restitution to victims.
2. Voluntary dispute resolution. To provide courts and arbitration forums to which individuals and associations may voluntarily submit their disputes. Private courts and arbitration services shall be equally lawful, and no monopoly of adjudication shall be granted.
3. Common defense against actual attack. To coordinate voluntary efforts in defense against concrete and imminent aggression from outside, provided that:
• no conscription or involuntary servitude is imposed,
• no aggressive or preemptive war is waged,
• and all measures are strictly confined to the defense of persons and property.
4. Minimal public administration. To maintain those few administrative acts strictly necessary to carry out the foregoing powers—such as keeping public registries of titles, judgments, and laws—without thereby interfering in peaceful private ordering.
5. No implied powers. No “inherent,” “emergency,” “necessary and proper,” or similar language shall be interpreted to enlarge these powers beyond what is plainly and narrowly described above. Any power not plainly listed here is denied.

Article XIV – Prohibited Powers and Acts

To forestall the perennial ambitions of rulers, the following powers are expressly and forever prohibited:

1. The power to censor, license, or otherwise control peaceful expression.
2. The power to forbid peaceful trade, migration, or association, except where the specific act constitutes aggression.
3. The power to monopolize money, banking, or credit, or to debase currency through inflationary issues and legal-tender decrees.
4. The power to create privileged classes, castes, or corporations, or to exempt any person or office from the ordinary operation of the laws against aggression and fraud.
5. The power to impose conscription or any form of involuntary civil or military service.
6. The power to engage in aggressive or preemptive war, covert or overt, including regime change, collective punishment, or embargoes that target peaceful persons.
7. The power to maintain secret laws, secret courts, or secret evidence.
8. The power to claim that “state necessity,” “public interest,” or “emergency” justifies any act that would otherwise be aggression if done by a private person.

Article XV – Interpretation and Burden of Proof

1. Presumption of liberty. In every case, the law shall presume that individuals are free to act as they will, unless the state proves that a specific act constitutes aggression as defined by clear and general rules.
2. Strict construction of power. All grants of power to the state shall be construed narrowly. Ambiguities shall be resolved against the state and in favor of the individual.
3. Burden on the state. In any contest between a person and the state, the burden of proof lies wholly on the state to show that:
• its claimed power is expressly enumerated herein, and
• its proposed act is strictly necessary and least restrictive of liberty.
4. Void acts. Any statute, decree, order, or action that exceeds the powers herein granted, or that violates the rights herein declared, is void from the beginning and imposes no obligation upon any person to obey, support, or respect it.

Article XVI – Accountability, Impeachment, and Removal from Office

1. All officials, employees, contractors, and agents of the state are personally responsible for their acts. “Following orders,” “acting under color of law,” or “good faith” shall not excuse aggression, fraud, or corruption.
2. 2. Any officeholder may be impeached, recalled, or removed for:
• (a) corruption, including bribery, embezzlement, or sale of favors;
• (b) knowing violation of the rights declared herein;
• (c) deliberate acts beyond the powers enumerated in this instrument;
• (d) persistent, demonstrable deceit or concealment of material facts in the exercise of office.
3. Impeachment or recall proceedings may be initiated:
• (a) by a supermajority of the relevant representative body; or
• (b) by a citizen petition meeting modest, clearly defined thresholds, followed by public hearing and vote.
4. All proceedings for impeachment, recall, or removal shall be public, adversarial, and prompt. No secret tribunals, anonymous accusers, or closed evidence shall be allowed.
5. No official shall enjoy absolute or qualified immunity from civil or criminal liability for acts that would constitute aggression or fraud if done by a private person. Doctrines purporting to create such immunity are repugnant to this Bill and void.
6. Where state actors reap private gain from public office by coercive or fraudulent means, the law shall require full restitution to the victims and, where appropriate, exemplary damages drawn from the personal assets of the wrongdoers.

Article XVII – Right of Resistance and Renewal

1. Because no parchment barrier can forever restrain ambition, the people retain the natural right to refuse obedience to, to withdraw support from, and to resist any institution that persistently violates the rights declared herein.
2. Individuals and communities may, by peaceful withdrawal of consent and cooperation, or by defensive resistance to aggression, re-establish institutions more faithful to these principles.
3. The ultimate constitution is not this document, but the natural law of justice written in the nature of persons as self-owners. This Bill is only its witness and instrument; when it ceases to serve that end, it stands in need of amendment—or retirement.