The Freeman State

The Freeman Constitution

(Version History)

 

Table of Contents

 

• Preamble

• Article 1 - General Provisions

• Article 2 - Rights of Sufferage and Citizenship

• Article 3 - Election Process

• Article 4 - Legislative Power

• Article 5 - Executive Power

• Article 6 - Judicial Power

• Article 7 - Treasury and Taxation

• Article 8 - Armed Forces

• Article 9 - Amendment Process

• Article 10 - Bill of Rights

• Signatories

 

Click on the above links to open in a new page. 

 

For frequently asked questions about the Freeman Constitution, please check this page.

 

 

Version History

 

Charting the evolution of the Freeman Constitution, listed in order of newest to oldest.  Included under each version heading is the date it was revised, a link to the text, and some general comments on the version.  If links don't work, try copying the text.  This is by no means finalized and, because people ultimately have to decide whether to be subject to such a law, it is still open to input and contribution.

 

Click the links below to jump to version:

 

• 3.3 (Current)

• 3.2

• 3.1

• 3.0

• 2.1

• 2.0

• 1.3 (Original)

 

 

Version 3.3

 

Revised by Marushia Dark, October 20, 2014 tendered for public critique, commentary, and consideration.

 

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Version 3.3.  After much consideration, the legislative power over IP has been revised. It will still recognize original claims, but will no longer grant monopoly rights.  For more info on the reasons behind this, refer to this page. 

 

Another major change is the establishment of a public trust fund to help insure victims of common law offenses.

 

 

Version 3.2

 

Revised by Marushia Dark, September 6, 2014 tendered for public critique, commentary, and consideration.

 

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Version 3.2. Some changes made after taking into consideration some ideas put forward by other libertarians:

 

• Making sure Senators can't exempt agents of the government from their laws just for being agents of the government (excepting what's already allowed or required under the Constitution).

• Making sure Senators have to read all bills before they can vote on them, under penalty of perjury.

• Allowing laws to be voided if it's later discovered that enough Senators didn't read them before voting.

• Exempting Free Citizens from all taxes except tolls and other "usage taxes" wherein vendors typically transfer tax liability to consumers anyway, or when acting in other capacities (such as corporate capacity).

• Removing the special tax exemption for veterans, since it's more easily covered under the Free Citizens provision.

• Exempting Free Citizens and Naturalized Citizens from property tax.

• Reimplementing income tax on anyone but Free Citizens, but keeping in the exemptions for wages, food, and other necessities.

• Adding what I consider to be a compromise regarding the abortion issue wherein the right to life is recognized at the point of sentience (according to how it's defined by science), but also guaranteeing that the State will endeavor to aid in deterring abortion and will consider just reasons in those cases that still arise.

 

That last one especially might be as controversial as the issue of slavery during the Continental Congress, so I welcome discussion on it. Perhaps that might be better left out, I don't know.

 

 

Version 3.1

 

Revised by Marushia Dark, September 3, 2014 tendered for public critique, commentary, and consideration.

 

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After rereading it a few times, letting it settle, and coming back to the document with fresh eyes, I have noted a few subtle changes that need to be made.  Among them are:
 

• Changing the punctuation and language of Bill of Rights, Security 6 to be less colorable.

• Changing "ownership" to "title" in Bill of Rights, Security 7.

• Stating that property taken under eminent domain ought to be returned to its owner before being auctioned.

• Clarifying the wording of the eminent domain provision.

• Removing the first instance of "slavery" from Bill of Rights, Liberty 1, as this seems redundant.

• Added rights to hunting and fishing, and the duty of the State to protect wildlife and prevent animal cruelty.

• Added protections against litigious "patent infringement claims" for artificial life forms (e.g. Monsanto).

• Allowed for certain restrictions to large-scale operations that significantly impact the environment.

• Extended the quartering provision to restrict militia quartering as well.

• Moved the "police monitoring" provision from the Bill of Rights to the Executive Powers section, leaving the "right to film" where it is.

• Provided for a special tribunal before a Grand Jury to judge cases of vigilante justice and other such forms of anarchic justice.

• Added more explicit provisions against things like bailouts and ponzi schemes such as Social Security.

• Further restricting the use of military force as a last resort in favor of other means, adopting the DIME(FIL) policy.

• Added explanatory clauses regarding the historical demise of Republics by welfare, warfare, and excessive regulation (such as what happened to Rome and America).

• Changed the first instance of "detain" with regards to the Border Zone to "stop," so as not to give the impression that jailing people is ok in that instance.

• Reduced the "veil of national security" time limit from seven years to two years.

• Added a caveat that the right to enter / leave the country relating to due process of law.

• Changed the word "held" to "compelled" in Bill of Rights, Judicial Procedure 3, lest someone thinks it only refers to jailing.

• Added a provision calling for the preference of restoration and rehabilitation over strict confinement in sentencing.

• Provisions protecting rights regarding growing plants, raising animals.

Consider this version 3.1, since most of the changes are not that major, I don't think.  At least not compared to previous updates.

Version 3.0
 

Revised by Marushia Dark, August 15, 2014 tendered for public critique, commentary, and consideration.

 

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Finally finished Version 3 of the proposed Freeman Constitution. What initially started out as small spelling corrections and formatting changes (such as reordering provisions to read more logically) soon became much more involved. Adding new provisions to all sections based on recent things that have come to my attention!

 

Some of the more major changes include:

 

• Expanding the preamble to better explain the purpose and need for such a government (for now).

• Reorganizing powers and provisions within certain articles into more logical groups, such as putting all legislative "establishment" powers next to one another, and reordering "judicial process" rights.

• Establishing a (very narrowly defined) Border Zone.

• Expanding on the duties and limitations of the Border Guard.

• Reworking and expanding the duties of the Treasurer.

• Limiting the power to declare Martial Law, including allowing for punishment of abusing said power.

• Restricting the application of courts not of common law.

• Clarifying the rights of migration and of legal counsel.

• Guaranteeing the right to use alternative currencies, including crypto-currencies (think Bitcoin).

• Giving the people more power to hold their representatives accountable, such as a means of direct impeachment and restricting their pay.

• Clarifying that gender pronouns are merely a convention.

• Adding protections against police brutality.

• Changing the "post office" powers to reflect more their actual legal function as public notices.

• Some changes to the wording of provisions regarding religion and habeus corpus.

• Expounding on the matters of family life and marriage.

• Expanding parental rights while restricting "parens patria."

• Adding provisions that could be seen as a reflection of concerns over the recent Ebola epidemic and mass "invasion" to the south.

• Rewording the provisions regarding allodial title and eminent domain.

• Emphasizing the fundamental importance of contracts as an extension of natural law.

• Clarifying the types of citizenship.

• Guaranteeing "hardship assistance" to military veterans.

• Simplifying the wording of the taxing powers.

• Simplifying the language of the Judicial Review.

• Clarifying the structure of the Supreme Court and who will write their opinions.

• Establishing (and severely limiting) administrative tribunals and courts martial.

• Providing for the fact that certain office requirements will be impractical in the early years of the country (like the requirement of citizenship, depending on where this country is set up).

• Clarifying the way the voting system works in certain areas, and adding the multi-vote to Senators as well.

 

As I said, there are changes made in all articles, enough that you may wanna give this whole thing a reread to see what's changed. I feel like this is a much better version than the previous ones I've come up with, but some people may disagree. One thing that I think MAYBE could be abused are the Martial Law and Border Zone provisions; but hopefully these are written in such a way, and balanced with enough other provisions, that that won't happen. We'll see what you all think.

 

 

Version 2.1

 

Revised by Marushia Dark, July 14, 2014 tendered for public critique, commentary, and consideration.

 

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After doing some research into historical amendments proposed, I've decided to add provisions relating to the Titles of Nobility clause, the initiation of military force, and also made a few modifications to the judicial procedure (such as right to private resolution, and prohibiting the selling of justice). All things that seemed rather important and that I feel ought to be included.

 

 

Version 2.0

 

Revised by Marushia Dark, July 13, 2014 tendered for public critique, commentary, and consideration.

 

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Version 2.0 of my new proposed Constitution. Feel free to use the forum to discuss various points. Please try to keep one thread per topic. I would rather people break it here in testing than to find out later it's hot holes in it.

 

 

Version 1.3

 

Written by Marushia Dark, July 4, 2014 tendered for public critique, commentary, and consideration.

 

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So, I've been working on this for some time now.  This is at least the third version of this I've done.  It's not finished yet, but it's good enough to be test-driven at least.  I wasn't expecting to post this today of all days, but I consider it as fate that it so happened to work out that way.  I know I'm far from the only one who's done something like this and I'm sure I won't be the last, but I feel it's good to get it out there and get people thinking and talking at least.  Tag at will, post comments, questions, concerns, recommendations for things you might change, pointing out things I might have missed, point out grammatical and narrative errors, etc.  Go nuts.  Try and tear it to shreds.  Just keep it civil.

 

I'll point out at the start that my intent behind this was to establish a Constitution for a hypothetical independent State.  The idea being that, like our Founding Fathers before us, if we can't fix the problems in our current system, then we pack up and leave and build a new one from scratch.  There is no actual existent territory for it, so just suspend your disbelief and pretend that some billionaire philanthropists have donated a large swathe for the purpose of declaring independence.  I've taken a lot of elements I considered to be working properly from the American Constitution and the UDHR and added my own provisions based on some of the problems I see have resulted from pitfalls and misunderstandings of our own Constitution.  I'm not ashamed to say it's rather a libertarian's wet dream.  :D

 

Consider this my gift to humanity.  If ever this gets implemented someday, I hope it's more ironclad than the one we have now.  Happy Independence Day!