The Law of the Earth
Title 1: Human Rights
All human rights are derived from one.
The Storybook of the Law
Contents of this chapter
Title 1: Human Rights
The Single Root
All human rights
are derived from one:
the right to Benign Sovereignty.
Since all rights derive from Benign Sovereignty,
all rights can be extrapolated from it,
and do not intrinsically require enumeration.
However, throughout history,
the right to Benign Sovereignty
has been violated in several specific ways.
For every way in which Benign Sovereignty
has faced widespread historical violation,
a corresponding Human Right is enumerated,
to prevent ambiguity
in the application of Law in that situation.
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Title 1: Human Rights
The Bill of Human Rights (1 to 7)
1. The Right to Benign Sovereignty
Everyone, without exception,
has the natural right, automatically and inalienably,
to be or do absolutely anything,
anywhere, at any time,
provided they do no harm to anyone else.
2. The Right to Physical Integrity
A. To be physically whole, and free from all forms of assault,
unless non-defensively assaulting another;
B. To be free from nonconsensual sexual contact;
C. To be free from nonconsensual anatomical alteration,
except in cases of diagnosed disease or medical emergency
in which consent cannot be discerned.
3. The Right to Freedom of Expression
To ask any question,
to report any observation,
to speak about any experience,
to peacefully express any idea or feeling,
and to criticize any person, opinion, or idea,
without reprisal, retribution, or punishment, nor fear of such.
4. The Right to Freedom of Movement
To be anywhere on Earth,
at any time, for any amount of time,
as long as one's conduct is peaceful.
5. The Right to Freedom of Relationship
To relate with any person
in any mutually consensual way,
in any place or setting, at any time,
with or without the approval of anyone else.
6. The Right to Freedom of Dress
To wear any type of clothing,
to cover any part of one's body,
and to bare any non-infected part of the body,
in any place, setting, or company, at any time.
7. The Right to Freedom of Faith
To practice any faith, religion, or tradition,
in any place, at any time, and in any company,
provided it does not violate the rights of another being,
nor reduce the integrity of the ecosystem.
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Commentary
THE BILL OF HUMAN RIGHTS (1 TO 7)
The first right restates the Core Axiom in the language of a right: the default answer to "may I?" is always yes, unless someone is harmed. Every right after it is a particular case of this one.
Physical Integrity comes second because the body is the first territory of sovereignty. Whoever does not own their own body owns nothing. The single exception, for diagnosed disease or emergency where consent cannot be discerned, covers the unconscious patient, not the unwilling one.
Expression protects the question as much as the statement. A civilization that punishes questions cannot correct its own mistakes, and a Law that rests on Rationality cannot survive where people are afraid to speak.
Movement, Relationship, and Dress each answer a familiar kind of tyranny: the border and the checkpoint; the forbidden friendship or marriage; the decree about what a body may show or must hide. In each case the Law asks only whether anyone is harmed. A shoulder harms no one. A border guard who turns back a peaceful traveler does.
Faith is free in the same way, and limited in the same way: no tradition, however ancient or sincere, grants the right to violate another being or to degrade the land.
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Title 1: Human Rights
The Bill of Human Rights (8 to 14)
8. The Right to Freedom of Mind
To cultivate or experiment with
any mental, emotional, or spiritual state,
through personal practice, ritual, or group ceremony,
or by personal ingestion of any mind-altering substance,
provided one performs no action that endangers the safety of others.
9. The Right to Freedom of Medicine
To practice, provide, administer, or instruct
any type of medicine or healing modality
to anyone consenting to receive it,
including the growing, storage,
and responsible distribution
of any species of plant or herb,
or its original, unadulterated extract.
10. The Right to Peace
To be free from:
continuous, abrasive, unnatural noise;
external disturbances to the circadian rhythm;
foul odors in unnatural concentrations;
harmful electromagnetic fields and radiation;
nonconsensual emotional manipulation;
and fear of illegitimate force or violence.
To enjoy continuous peace, in mind and senses,
without interruption, except amid genuine necessity.
11. The Right to Relax
To sit, rest, stretch, recline, lie down, nap, sleep,
meditate, and practice quiet movement meditation,
in any place, in any setting, at any time, in any company,
without harassment or needless interruption.
12. The Right to Take Shelter
To take shelter from the wind, rain, and cold:
A. To use existing shelters when in need;
B. To construct a shelter for oneself and family,
of minimal impact on the ecosystem around it,
adequate in size for the genuine necessities
of sleeping, cooking, bathing, relieving, and storing food.
13. The Right to Clean Water
To drink abundantly
from any body of water,
without fear of pollutants.
14. The Right to Draw Sustenance
A. To responsibly plant, harvest, and store
enough food to meet the nutritional needs
of oneself and one's family;
B. To responsibly forage from non-endangered plants.
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Commentary
THE BILL OF HUMAN RIGHTS (8 TO 14)
The mind is the most private territory of all. What a person chooses to explore inside their own consciousness, whether through prayer, meditation, ceremony, or a plant, harms no one by itself. The line falls where it always falls: at the moment one's actions endanger someone else.
Freedom of Medicine follows from the same principle. No one may stand between a consenting patient and the healer they have chosen, or between a person and the plants that grow from the earth. Note the limit, "original, unadulterated extract." The right covers what grows, not every synthetic compound.
The Right to Peace may be the most widely violated right in the modern world, and it is rarely even named. The constant roar of engines, light pollution that never lets the night fall, chemical air, and advertising engineered to manipulate emotion are each a small harm done to everyone at once. Because they are done to everyone, they go unnoticed. The Law notices.
The Right to Relax answers a quieter cruelty: laws against sitting, sleeping, or simply being still in a public place, written almost always against the poor.
Shelter, Water, and Sustenance are the material floor of a sovereign life. No person may be denied the means to keep warm, drink, and eat, so long as they take those means responsibly and with care for the land.
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Title 1: Human Rights
The Bill of Human Rights (15 to 21)
15. The Right to a Natural Habitat
To breathe air that is free from pollutants,
and which contains the same chemical ratio
as the atmosphere of the first humans;
and to walk upon a landscape
that is natural to the human species.
16. The Right to Privacy
A. To be secure in one's person and personal effects,
and free from unreasonable searches and seizures;
B. To be free from uninvited and needless intrusions
into one's dwelling.
17. The Right to Property
To own, keep, use, and guard
any artificial object
fashioned by one's own hands,
or acquired honestly and consensually
from the person who fashioned it,
and which does not subject others
to danger, scarcity, or rights-violations.
18. The Right to Equal Opportunity
To have the same access
to arable land and natural resources
as any other individual.
19. The Right to Transparency
To be fully informed and aware of the actions
of anyone whose actions are likely to affect one,
and to be informed of any events or circumstances
that threaten one's rights.
20. The Right to Defense
To use force to protect and defend the basic rights
of oneself, and of any who are unable to defend themselves,
in a situation of already-transpiring rights-violations.
21. The Right to Unconditional Peaceful Liberty
To perform any action one wishes,
whether enumerated in this list or not,
as long as it does not harm
other people, animals, land, water, or air.
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Commentary
THE BILL OF HUMAN RIGHTS (15 TO 21)
A natural habitat is a human right because the human body was shaped by one. We are creatures of a particular sky and a particular earth, and the slow replacement of both with exhaust and concrete harms every person who must live in it.
Privacy and Property protect the personal sphere. Notice the careful limit on Property: it covers artificial objects, things made by human hands. What no human being made cannot be owned. That principle is developed below, under Property, and again in Title 3: Ecology.
Equal Opportunity does not mean that everyone gets the same outcome. It means that no one is born locked out of the land. Every person arrives on Earth with the same claim to it as every other.
Transparency is the counterpart to Privacy. One's own life is private; one's actions that affect others are not. Whoever acts in a way that touches your rights owes you the knowledge of it.
The Right to Defense is set out fully on the Legitimate Force page, and the procedures for using it are in Title 4: Upholdment.
The final right closes the list by opening it. The Bill is not a boundary around liberty. It is a set of signposts within it. Anything not on the list is still lawful, so long as it is benign.
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Title 1: Human Rights
Who Human Rights Apply To
Human Rights apply to every person on the entire planet,
whatever their race, color, ethnicity,
sex, age, stature, appearance, ability,
developmental stage, dependency status,
nationality, caste, class, rank, social status,
identity, orientation, religion, creed,
personal preferences,
or any other factor.
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Commentary
WHO HUMAN RIGHTS APPLY TO
The length of this list is itself a history lesson. Every item on it is a line some society has drawn between people who counted and people who didn't.
The Law draws no such lines. Rights come from being a person, and nothing else. They are not earned, granted, or awarded, and so they cannot be revoked for any of these reasons. A right that depends on your caste or your passport is not a right. It is a privilege, and the Law of the Earth recognizes no privileges.
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Title 1: Human Rights
When Rights Conflict
When two or more people's rights
appear to conflict with one another,
the more fundamental takes precedence.
The Scale of Fundamentality
from most fundamental to least:
Biological –
oxygen, warmth, water, medicine, food, sleep
Energetic –
cleanliness, rest, tranquility, exercise
Social –
communication, companionship, transportation
Intellectual –
privacy, novelty, entertainment
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Commentary
WHEN RIGHTS CONFLICT
Rights rarely truly conflict. Most apparent conflicts dissolve on inspection, because one party turns out not to be benign. But when two benign people's needs genuinely collide, the Law does not leave the outcome to whoever is louder or stronger. It ranks needs by how close they lie to survival.
Your neighbor's music is entertainment; your sleep is biological. Sleep wins. Your desire for a private road is privacy; another person's need to reach water is biological. Water wins.
The scale is a guide for reasoning, not a machine that issues verdicts. Real cases are decided through Rationality, and the scale is one of the tools reasoning uses.
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Title 1: Human Rights
Property
Definition of Property
A non-sentient object
fashioned by human labor.
Ownership
Ownership originates from creatorship.
Whoever fashions a product is its owner,
until a valid transfer of ownership occurs.
If several people are involved in its production,
each has a share of ownership
equal to their share of the labor.
Ownership Is Relative
No person is an absolute creator of anything,
and with no absolute creatorship,
there is no absolute ownership.
The most that can be said
is that one person's claim to an object
outweighs another's,
under the given circumstances.
Unbroken Sequence of Legitimacy
A person can only give what they have.
One who does not own a thing
has no authority to grant ownership of it to another.
A theft, or any invalid transfer,
occurring anywhere in the sequence of ownership,
voids the legitimacy of all subsequent owners,
even if the later transfers were conducted honestly.
Absolute Non-Ownership
There are three things that no person
may ever, under any circumstance, claim to own:
other people, animals, and land.
No person created any of them,
and so no person was ever their original owner.
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Commentary
PROPERTY
Ownership begins with making. If you carve a bowl, the bowl is yours, because it would not exist without you.
But follow the bowl back. You didn't make the wood. The tree grew from a seed you didn't make, in soil you didn't make, watered by rain you didn't make, under a sun you didn't make. All of humanity working together could not create a single grain of the earth. So human ownership is real, but it is never absolute. It is a relative claim: in these circumstances, your claim to the bowl outweighs mine.
Now apply the same test to land, to animals, and to people. No human being made a mountain. No one made a deer. Not even a parent makes a child; a parent helps a child into the world, but did not design or build them. For these three things, human creatorship is not partial. It is zero. And where creatorship is zero, ownership is zero.
The chain-of-title rule follows: you can't sell what you don't own. Every deed to land on Earth traces back, eventually, to someone who simply took it, from its inhabitants or from the commons. A theft at the root voids every sale that follows, however honest each later buyer was. That is why, under the Law of the Earth, no one owns land. The land is held in stewardship, a subject developed in Title 3: Ecology.
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Title 1: Human Rights
Using Property
Rights of the Owner
The owner of an item of property has the right:
to relocate it, out of shouting distance
from where it was picked up, without anyone's permission;
to hide it, only amid reasonable expectation of theft;
to exclude it from the touch of others,
if, and only if, there is genuine risk of abuse or damage;
to destroy it, only if it is of no practical necessity;
and to transfer its ownership to another.
Shared Tool Usage
Any person who
is known to the owner of a tool,
is competent to use it,
and has shown no disposition to abuse it,
has the right to use it while its owner is not,
so long as they do not deprive the owner of its use,
nor relocate it without the owner's permission or knowledge.
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Commentary
USING PROPERTY
Because ownership is relative, it comes with limits. An owner's claim is strong where using an object is concerned, and weaker where the claim is merely about keeping others away from it.
You may lock your tools away if someone is likely to steal them. But a tool sitting idle in a shed while a capable neighbor needs it is a waste the Law does not protect. The shared-use rule restores what most villages in history practiced without writing down: the ladder, the saw, and the wheelbarrow go where they are needed, and come back.
Destroying a necessary object is limited for the same reason. A thing someone else could use to survive is not merely yours to break.
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Title 1: Human Rights
Contraband
Voidance of Property Rights
Ownership of any object is null, void, and forfeited
if that object's principal function, in theory or in practice,
is to violate the Law.
Automatic Disposal Right
Every person on Earth has the right
to dismantle, destroy, and dispose of
any non-volatile contraband.
Every person competent in the relevant scientific field
has the right to dismantle and dispose of volatile contraband.
Non-Volatile Contraband
Hydraulic fracturing (fracking) equipment;
machines for mountaintop removal;
equipment for adding fluoride to drinking supplies;
shackles, torture devices, cages, barbed wire, prisons;
animal traps that involve cruelty;
automated slaughterhouse machinery;
electric or fuel-powered timber equipment;
lawnmowers (see Title 3: Ecology);
and facilities for manufacturing any contraband object.
Volatile Contraband
Nuclear weapons;
cluster munitions and land mines;
radioactive, chemical, and biological weapons;
facilities for producing bomb-grade plutonium;
laboratories that produce or research bioweapons.
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Commentary
CONTRABAND
An object whose purpose is to violate the Law cannot be lawful property, any more than a contract to commit murder can be a lawful contract. No one has a right to own a torture device, because no one has a right to torture.
Disposing of contraband is therefore not theft. Any person may dismantle a cage or a set of shackles. For volatile contraband, the right belongs to those with the knowledge to handle it safely, because dismantling a warhead badly would itself be a catastrophe.
Several items on the list may surprise a reader raised in the present system. Each one is explained in the Title it belongs to: cages in Title 2: Animal Rights, timber machinery and lawnmowers in Title 3: Ecology, and prisons in Title 4: Upholdment and Grace, which replace punishment with protective custody.
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Title 1: Human Rights
Intellectual Property
Prohibition on Patents
An invention truly beneficial to society
would be made from care for the community,
whether or not the inventor has a monetary incentive.
An invention made for money
was not made to serve society,
is as likely to degrade society as to help it,
and should not be deliberately incentivized.
Whereas patents infringe upon the rights
to Freedom of Expression and Freedom of Relationship,
and whereas patents serve no positive use,
the restriction of ideas as property is unlawful.
Prohibition on Copyright
Music made with love
touches the eternal soul,
and stays beautiful forever.
Music made for money
grabs attention briefly,
then turns to clutter.
Music made with love
emerges spontaneously,
needing no financial incentive.
There is no benefit to society
in offering monetary incentives
to stimulate the making of music,
and copyright infringes upon the basic rights.
Therefore copyright has no foundation in law.
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Commentary
INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY
An idea is not an object. When you teach me a song, you still have it. Nothing has been taken from you. To forbid me from singing it, you would have to restrict my expression and my freedom to share with whomever I choose, and the Law protects both.
The deeper argument is about motive. The great gifts of human culture, the first medicines, the first songs, the first tools, were never patented. They were shared, because sharing is what people who love their community do. A system built to reward invention for profit gets what it pays for: inventions designed to profit, whether or not they help.
This does not mean a creator deserves nothing. It means the Law cannot use force to fence off an idea. How a community chooses to honor and support its creators is a question for the Blueprint, not for the Law.
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Title 1: Human Rights
Dwelling
Definitions
A Personal Territory is a location
in which an individual may lawfully demand privacy.
A Habitation is the basic living facilities
adjoining one or more Personal Territories.
A Dwelling Right is the right to use a Habitation's facilities
continuously, without ongoing negotiation.
Origin of Dwelling Right
Dwelling Right originates from having already dwelt.
A person has the right to continue dwelling
in whatever Habitation they are currently dwelling in,
and the right to dwell
in whatever Habitation they have dwelt in the longest.
Choosing a Personal Territory
A person may choose their own Personal Territory,
provided that it:
1. is not already another person's Personal Territory;
2. is not a shared facility;
3. does not exceed the space needed
for a bed, toilet, shower, and wardrobe,
and room for stationary movement practice
(roughly three times the person's height on each side);
4. does not sit upon an ecologically sensitive patch of flora.
Use of Habitation
Habitation facilities are not Personal Territory,
and are open to all adjoining Personal Territories.
A person may use the facilities
of the Habitation nearest their Personal Territory.
Abandonment and Transfer
If a person is away from their Personal Territory
for longer than they have dwelt in it,
their Dwelling Right to it is forfeited.
A person may transfer their Dwelling Right
by a valid contract, upon which their own right ends.
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Commentary
DWELLING
If land cannot be owned, where does a person live? The answer is that the right to a home comes not from a deed but from dwelling itself. Where you live, you may keep living. Where you have lived longest, you may return.
A Personal Territory is the private core of a home: the space for sleeping, washing, dressing, and quiet practice. That much, every person may claim, and no one may intrude upon it. The limit on its size is a limit of fairness. One person's private space can't swallow land that others need in order to live.
Everything beyond that core, the kitchen, the hearth, the garden, is Habitation, and it is shared by everyone whose Personal Territory adjoins it. That is how most human beings lived for most of history, and how many still do.
The abandonment rule keeps homes from becoming hoards. A house left empty for longer than its owner ever lived in it has stopped being a dwelling. It has become a claim, and claims on the earth are exactly what the Law does not recognize.
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Title 1: Human Rights
Contracts
Definition
A contract is a pair of simultaneous promises,
the binding force of each
conditional upon the fulfillment of the other.
Requirements for All Contracts
1. Conscious: each party is legally sane, lucid, and sober,
having abstained from inebriating substances
for at least twenty-four hours.
2. Informed: each party has all relevant information
known to every other party,
and no pertinent information has been willfully withheld.
3. Voluntary: the contract is not made under any form of duress;
no party threatens or intimidates another,
nor employs anyone to do so,
and no party holds existing power to coerce the other.
4. Appropriately Applied: the contract applies only to those
who are willing parties to it.
A contract is made with someone, not on someone.
5. Lawful: the contract claims no authority
for any activity that is unlawful.
Property Contracts
A contract to transfer ownership of lawful property
may be made verbally or in writing.
Right-Waiver Contracts
A contract to limit or waive the rights of one or more parties
must also be:
written on physical paper, presenting all terms
without arcane or misleading language;
signed and dated by every party it affects;
and limited in time, after which it expires.
Limitations
No contract may waive anyone else's rights,
nor animal rights,
nor the responsibility to respect the Earth.
Contracts regarding alterations to the land are not binding,
for the land is party to no contract.
Nullification
If it is discovered that any required condition
was not fulfilled, the contract is null and void.
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Commentary
CONTRACTS
A contract is the most honorable thing two sovereign people can make: a promise exchanged for a promise, freely, with open eyes. Every requirement here exists to guarantee that it is genuinely free.
Conscious and informed rule out the agreement signed while drunk, and the fine print hiding what the other party knew all along. Voluntary rules out the contract signed with a gun in the room, and also the subtler gun: the landlord, employer, or creditor who already holds power to ruin you if you refuse.
The fourth requirement is the one modern states break most often. A "social contract" that no one signed, which binds people who were never asked and children not yet born, is not a contract. A contract is made with someone, never on someone.
Waiving one's own rights is allowed, because a sovereign person may choose to limit themselves. But because the stakes are high, the Law requires paper, plain language, signatures, and an end date. A promise to give up your rights forever is not a contract. It is a sale of yourself, and no person can be sold.
Finally, no contract can bind a third party who never signed it, and that includes the Earth. Two people may agree to cut down a forest, but the forest was never asked.
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Title 1: Human Rights
Sexual Consent
Sexual consent is presumed absent unless given.
Once given, it is presumed present unless revoked.
Consent may be revoked at any moment.
The Scale of Contact
1. Entering physical proximity (arm's reach) electively;
2. Conversing electively;
3. Light touch;
4. Fluid contact, including kissing;
5. Intimate touch, for non-medical purposes;
6. Coitus.
When Consent Is Required
Between people who do not know each other's names,
consent to levels 1 and 2 is presumed unless revoked,
and is required for level 3 and beyond.
Between people who know each other's names,
consent to levels 1 through 3 is presumed unless revoked,
and is required for level 4 and beyond.
Between people who have already shared a level with each other,
consent to that level is presumed unless revoked.
How Consent Is Given
Consent is given verbally, by a request or a "yes"
from the one receiving the advance;
or implicitly, by testing the next level
while maintaining eye contact,
from the level immediately preceding it,
the receiver not protesting.
Consent Impossibilities
A prepubescent person cannot consent
to any sexual contact from a postpubescent person.
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Commentary
SEXUAL CONSENT
Consent has degrees, and the Law treats it that way. Standing near someone at a gathering is not the same as touching them. Touching a friend's arm is not the same as kissing them. Each step closer requires its own permission, and permission for one step is not permission for the next.
The scale makes the expectation clear for everyone. A stranger may approach you and speak with you. A stranger may not touch you without your consent. Someone you know may greet you with a hand on the shoulder. But a kiss requires consent, whoever is offering it.
Implicit consent is the way most human courtship actually happens, and the Law recognizes it, within strict bounds. It is only possible one step at a time, never skipping levels, and only with eye contact, so that the other person's face can answer. Silence with averted eyes is not consent. Any sign of protest ends it.
And consent can always be withdrawn. Having said yes before obliges no one to say yes again.
Children are sovereign beings, and sovereignty includes the protection of those who cannot yet protect themselves. A child cannot consent to sexual contact from an adolescent or an adult, ever, under any circumstance. Any such contact is a violation of Physical Integrity, and anyone who sees it has the right and the duty to stop it.
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Title 1: Human Rights
Marriage
Definition of Marriage
A sentimental condition,
with no legal or economic ramifications,
wherein a person considers themself married
to another person who shares this consideration.
No one needs anyone's permission to marry,
except the person they are marrying.
Marital status shall not be grounds
for receiving extra economic benefit at the expense of society.
Non-Forcible Opinions
No person is required to recognize any marriage
their conscience does not consider valid,
and no person may force or coerce anyone
into recognizing a marriage.
Ceremonies and Divorce
A valid wedding fulfills the requirements for all contracts.
Any further agreements the couple wishes to carry into marriage
must meet the requirements of a Right-Waiver Contract.
A married person may divorce their partner
with or without anyone else's permission,
upon fulfilling the requirements for all contracts,
unless further conditions were stipulated at the wedding.
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Commentary
MARRIAGE
Marriage, in the Law of the Earth, belongs entirely to the people in it. No state licenses it, no church is required to bless it, and no tax code rewards or punishes it.
This cuts in every direction at once. Anyone may marry anyone who agrees. And no one may be forced to approve of a marriage that their conscience rejects. The Law protects the freedom to marry and the freedom to disagree, and it uses force for neither, because neither one harms anyone.
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Title 1: Human Rights
Raising Children
No person owns any other person.
Parents do not own their children.
Children are individual, sovereign beings.
It is unfair to place any individual
entirely at the mercy of any other individual.
Caretakers
Children have the right
to be raised by anyone they choose
who agrees to raise them.
Economic Responsibility
The economic responsibility for raising a child
belongs to the entire Village.
Responsible Reproduction
Every person is entitled to bear or sire
enough children to keep the population steady.
Every person is also responsible
for keeping their offspring within the limits
of what Nature can sustainably provide.
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Commentary
RAISING CHILDREN
The idea that a parent owns a child has caused more quiet suffering than almost any other in human history. A child placed entirely at the mercy of one or two adults, with nowhere to go, is in danger if those adults are cruel. And the child has no way out.
The Law of the Earth gives children a way out. A child may be raised by anyone who loves them and agrees to do it: parents, grandparents, an aunt, a neighbor, a family of the child's own choosing. For most children, the answer will be their parents, as it has always been. But the choice is the child's, because the child is a person.
Because the child belongs to no one, the cost of raising them belongs to everyone. A Village that shares the work of raising its children never forces a parent to choose between feeding a child and staying away from someone who harms them.
Reproduction is a right, and like every right, it has a boundary drawn by harm. A population that outgrows its land harms every being that lives on it, including its own future children.
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Title 1: Human Rights
Personhood
Personhood is attained when
a living organism of the human species
develops a nervous system
advanced enough to experience
thought and emotion.
At whatever stage of development
the nervous system attains this,
there is now a new person.
Every person is entitled to all Human Rights.
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Commentary
PERSONHOOD
The Law does not define a person by a date on a calendar, a legal document, or a vote. It defines a person by the same thing that grounds all rights: the capacity to experience. Where there is a being that can think and feel, there is someone to whom harm can be done, and so there is a bearer of rights.
When exactly that capacity arrives is a question of fact, to be answered by evidence and honest Rationality, not by politics. Whatever the answer, the principle is fixed: from that moment, every right in this Title belongs to the new person, in full.
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Commentary
THE SINGLE ROOT
The Core Axiom has already said everything. A sovereign being may do anything at all, so long as it is benign. In principle, nothing more needs to be written.
In practice, human beings have found endlessly creative ways to violate one another. Some violations have been so common, and so normalized, that whole civilizations stopped noticing them: the slave market, the debtor's prison, the dress code enforced with a whip. A list of rights is a set of markers placed at exactly those spots, so that no one can claim, when the moment comes, that the principle was unclear.
This is the meaning of a Mantle. Nothing in the Bill below is new law. Every line is the Core Axiom, applied to a particular way it has historically been broken. If a right is missing from the list, it is not missing from the Law. The final right on the list says so explicitly.
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