Forum Post: A statement of Principles by SwiftJohn

I do not claim to speak for all others but this much I believe.

A statement of principles:

These truths are self-evident: all persons are created equal, they are endowed by their creator with inalienable rights of life, liberty, privacy, and the pursuit of happiness. Governments are formed by convention and contract, like the walls of a shared house, to safeguard these rights, to protect the health and well-being of all their citizens against ill-chance and malicious actions.

A government is fair if it safeguards these rights, ensuring equal access to public representation and the public sphere, safeguarding private space and personal property, and spreading the shared burden of maintaining the state to all members evenly according to their advantages. And deprives no citizen of life, liberty, privacy or their pursuits unfairly, unevenly or without a just due process.

A government is just if it enforces the terms of the social contract evenly punishing no class or group in excess of their damages and allowing no class an exemption from enforcement.

A government is open if it permits all members equal access to the mechanisms of the state allowing all proportional representation to their persons not privileges, denying none the right to speak and be heard, and giving no group undue advantage is directing the course of the state.

A government is appropriate if, like a bridge, it is no shorter nor longer than is necessary to achieve these ends.

From time to time, due to disuse, or unhappy drift, governments can fall out of justice or fairness, or become excessive undeserved or unfit for their needs. Such governments are in need of renewal, of a reassertion of the social contract. Such a time is now.