The Storybook of the Law
The Law of the Earth
CORE AXIOM 1
Benign Sovereignty
Everyone is entitled to sovereignty,
so long as they are benign.
A sovereign being may make any choice,
perform any action, or refrain from any action,
as long as they do not actively commit real, material, and unjustifiable harm.
Real and material harm is that which:
- 1. Kills, maims, or inflicts pain on a living being;
- 2. Degrades the ecosystems that sustain Life;
- 3. Prevents someone from exercising their sovereignty, when they are doing neither of the above.
Unjustifiable harm is that which is:
- 1. Not logically necessary for the attainment of the stated goal; and/or
- 2. Rests upon the premise that the doer is fundamentally more important than, or endowed with special innate entitlements or privileges over, other people.
The determination between necessary and unnecessary,
as well as the satisfaction of all other conditions for the application of Law,
require strict adherence to Rationality.
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Core Axiom 1
Commentary
CORE AXIOM 1 · BENIGN SOVEREIGNTY
The innermost root from which every principle of the Law of the Earth emanates is Benign Sovereignty.
It is self-evident that everyone is equal before the law; that no person owns any other person; that no person innately holds the authority to define morality for another, nor to impose their personal will upon another by force, nor to use any non-consensual force upon anyone, except in defense of themselves or others from harm.
Since no one owns anyone else, everyone is unowned, that is, sovereign. And since everyone is sovereign, every personal choice and action is lawful, so long as it does not infringe upon another’s sovereignty, nor cause unnecessary pain, suffering, or death to a living being, nor degrade the ecosystems that sustain life. In a word: so long as it is benign.
The difference between necessary and unnecessary rests on a host of situation-dependent factors, and therefore must be worked out on a case-by-case basis. But the saving grace, the thing that makes this a solid and dependable system of law, is that this determination must be made rationally. Rationality is the safeguard.
Sovereignty, then, is not a grant handed down by any authority. No ruler, scripture, or government confers it. It is the plain condition of being unowned. What can be taken away by force was never truly a right to begin with; what belongs to a person by the mere fact of their existence cannot be legislated out of being, only violated.
This is why Benign Sovereignty is named a Core Axiom, and not a Title. A Title carries the weight of enumeration: lists, applications, the Law made specific for particular cases. A Core Axiom carries none of that weight, because it needs none. It is the root, self-evident and irreducible, from which every Title that follows (every right, every prohibition, every protection) is only ever a further unfolding of this one fact: that no one owns anyone, and harm alone marks the boundary of the lawful.
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