Category: Law, Constitution, and Jurisprudence

  • Why Are Contracts a Mess?

    Jan 5, 2020, 5:23 PM 0) Reality: all contracts are just form letters with names and dates in them. All that changes is the list of assets, and the rights and obligations of both parties – and mostly, it’s the obligations for both parties, ’cause rights only exist if the contract fails. The courts have spent decades since the rise of text databases in the 80’s making sure that there is settled law for almost everything you can bring before it – so much so that the only job left in court is who either (a) lied, or (b) failed due diligence (c ) sought an unearned premium at the other’s expense. 1) Surprisingly lawyers are taught contract law, not how to write contracts. And they will write for other lawyers most of the time, sometimes for in-house counsel, other times for skilled people, and otherwise for ordinary citizens. So absent this they learn to write contracts by the cut-and-paste method of contract development. So contracts accumulate ‘waste’ so to speak in most offices. They don’t accumulate solutions to problems. The courts (federal, state, local) do not put out standard contract formats that force what’s called “transactional” work into standard form. When in reality, the law does not grant much flexibility in these matters. Terms of art are largely bullshit claims. Judges are not stupid. Jurors are not stupid. The reality is that contracts are not complicated. My particular ‘thing’ is shareholder agreements. They don’t have to be complicated. They have to hit al the points in simple language. All contracts are like this, if (a) definitions are put on a separate page, (b) the before-and-after diagrams are displayed in visual form, ( c) a project-plan for signing the agreements in the appropriate sequence and the purpose of each one is stated in that plan (document), that states the title or interest change it enacts. (think of it as an accounting transaction with ledger entries). (d) each section includes a whereas “this is what we seek to accomplish” and therefore the terms of the contract in legal prose. (lawyers will resist this because it prevents people from pulling shit out of thin air, but that’s exactly why to do it. And this is the most simple – just capture the bullet list of concerns from everyone involved and make sure you’ve resolved them satisfactorily for all parties. And this is the most uncomfortable: Those engaging the contract do not inform the lawyers of the full suite of advantages that may arise from the deal, and the lawyers do not list all the reasons that they think the contract (arrangement) will fail. Truth: I generally have to tell lawyers to let me manage risk (that’s my job as a business person) and you create the level of contract suitable to my target risk. This is how you ‘Price’ a contract so to speak. By risk reward and resource expenditure your time. 2) Current legal training is antithetical to business, because it begins as teaching the adversarial method – it does not teach means of reaching compromise, settlement, or methods of cooperation that must adapt to changing circumstances. This leads people in defense to ‘double down’ on conflict rather than double down on compromise. This is not how business people resolve conflicts. So really there are two stages. the ones exterior to the contract, and the terms that will fight before the court if the contract fails. My understanding is that this is a problem of failing to require via positiva statements of intent for every via-negativa bit of blame. In other words contracts do not spend time on the via positiva means of settling error, failure of due diligence, change in circumstance. 3) The legal teams try to add unnecessary value to justify jobs (this is endemic). I see this all over the place. The problem is malincentives in legal fees: especially hourly. The problem is revenue constraints. In other words we have too many lawyers, working too hard, to drive up fees, and a court that doesn’t stop it, and a population that has no choice. 4) Courts work too often by win/lose instead of proportional settlements. This is partly by design to force settlement prior to court, and then turning the courtroom into a lottery of uncertainty, where the outcome is worse than settlement – it is not what the framers or common law judges in history intended. 5) Irreciprocal competency and scale of legal teams means they compete for providing opportunities for advantage rather than due diligence in preventing advantage. 6) systemic abandonment of moral norms has led to the need to articulate what was normative in law. 7) the law is lagging behind the rate of evolution of the complexity of contracts. 8) The law does not prevent entrapments as it used to, because it defers to the wisdom of business people (good) but not to baiting into hazard. 9) Law does not punish (as it used to) abuses of the court, the law, the contract so it is worthwhile for full time legal teams or lawyers to bill by the hour to use the economics to drive a settlement or court decision. That’s just the surface.

  • Why Are Contracts a Mess?

    Jan 5, 2020, 5:23 PM 0) Reality: all contracts are just form letters with names and dates in them. All that changes is the list of assets, and the rights and obligations of both parties – and mostly, it’s the obligations for both parties, ’cause rights only exist if the contract fails. The courts have spent decades since the rise of text databases in the 80’s making sure that there is settled law for almost everything you can bring before it – so much so that the only job left in court is who either (a) lied, or (b) failed due diligence (c ) sought an unearned premium at the other’s expense. 1) Surprisingly lawyers are taught contract law, not how to write contracts. And they will write for other lawyers most of the time, sometimes for in-house counsel, other times for skilled people, and otherwise for ordinary citizens. So absent this they learn to write contracts by the cut-and-paste method of contract development. So contracts accumulate ‘waste’ so to speak in most offices. They don’t accumulate solutions to problems. The courts (federal, state, local) do not put out standard contract formats that force what’s called “transactional” work into standard form. When in reality, the law does not grant much flexibility in these matters. Terms of art are largely bullshit claims. Judges are not stupid. Jurors are not stupid. The reality is that contracts are not complicated. My particular ‘thing’ is shareholder agreements. They don’t have to be complicated. They have to hit al the points in simple language. All contracts are like this, if (a) definitions are put on a separate page, (b) the before-and-after diagrams are displayed in visual form, ( c) a project-plan for signing the agreements in the appropriate sequence and the purpose of each one is stated in that plan (document), that states the title or interest change it enacts. (think of it as an accounting transaction with ledger entries). (d) each section includes a whereas “this is what we seek to accomplish” and therefore the terms of the contract in legal prose. (lawyers will resist this because it prevents people from pulling shit out of thin air, but that’s exactly why to do it. And this is the most simple – just capture the bullet list of concerns from everyone involved and make sure you’ve resolved them satisfactorily for all parties. And this is the most uncomfortable: Those engaging the contract do not inform the lawyers of the full suite of advantages that may arise from the deal, and the lawyers do not list all the reasons that they think the contract (arrangement) will fail. Truth: I generally have to tell lawyers to let me manage risk (that’s my job as a business person) and you create the level of contract suitable to my target risk. This is how you ‘Price’ a contract so to speak. By risk reward and resource expenditure your time. 2) Current legal training is antithetical to business, because it begins as teaching the adversarial method – it does not teach means of reaching compromise, settlement, or methods of cooperation that must adapt to changing circumstances. This leads people in defense to ‘double down’ on conflict rather than double down on compromise. This is not how business people resolve conflicts. So really there are two stages. the ones exterior to the contract, and the terms that will fight before the court if the contract fails. My understanding is that this is a problem of failing to require via positiva statements of intent for every via-negativa bit of blame. In other words contracts do not spend time on the via positiva means of settling error, failure of due diligence, change in circumstance. 3) The legal teams try to add unnecessary value to justify jobs (this is endemic). I see this all over the place. The problem is malincentives in legal fees: especially hourly. The problem is revenue constraints. In other words we have too many lawyers, working too hard, to drive up fees, and a court that doesn’t stop it, and a population that has no choice. 4) Courts work too often by win/lose instead of proportional settlements. This is partly by design to force settlement prior to court, and then turning the courtroom into a lottery of uncertainty, where the outcome is worse than settlement – it is not what the framers or common law judges in history intended. 5) Irreciprocal competency and scale of legal teams means they compete for providing opportunities for advantage rather than due diligence in preventing advantage. 6) systemic abandonment of moral norms has led to the need to articulate what was normative in law. 7) the law is lagging behind the rate of evolution of the complexity of contracts. 8) The law does not prevent entrapments as it used to, because it defers to the wisdom of business people (good) but not to baiting into hazard. 9) Law does not punish (as it used to) abuses of the court, the law, the contract so it is worthwhile for full time legal teams or lawyers to bill by the hour to use the economics to drive a settlement or court decision. That’s just the surface.

  • Declaring War

    Jan 5, 2020, 6:26 PM The United States Congress has not formally declared war since World War II. There have only been 11 instances of declaring war, almost all of which are during WW2. The President can MAKE war but cannot DECLARE war. “The president has the power to initiate hostilities without consulting Congress.” There are limits to these conflicts. Presidents can and have engaged in plenty of conflicts. They don’t include the civil war, korea, vietnam, grenada, panama, the balkans, the gulf, … any. Engaging in conflict is different from war, because war powers convey DOMESTIC powers to the president.

  • Declaring War

    Jan 5, 2020, 6:26 PM The United States Congress has not formally declared war since World War II. There have only been 11 instances of declaring war, almost all of which are during WW2. The President can MAKE war but cannot DECLARE war. “The president has the power to initiate hostilities without consulting Congress.” There are limits to these conflicts. Presidents can and have engaged in plenty of conflicts. They don’t include the civil war, korea, vietnam, grenada, panama, the balkans, the gulf, … any. Engaging in conflict is different from war, because war powers convey DOMESTIC powers to the president.

  • The Main Propertarian Innovations and Clarifications that Complete Western Law a

    The Main Propertarian Innovations and Clarifications that Complete Western Law and Aristotelian Epistemology. https://propertarianism.com/2020/05/26/the-main-propertarian-innovations-and-clarifications-that-complete-western-law-and-aristotelian-epistemology/


    Source date (UTC): 2020-05-26 20:58:23 UTC

    Original post: https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1265386825776054272

  • “My Current Copy/paste of What Is P Is”

    Jan 6, 2020, 8:29 PM THE MAIN PROPERTARIAN INNOVATIONS AND CLARIFICATIONS THAT COMPLETE WESTERN LAW AND ARISTOTELIAN EPISTEMOLOGY. by Alain Dwight My current copy/paste of what is P is pretty much a break down at the narrative level: Here’s what I think the main Propertarian innovations/clarifications are that complete western (common/tort) law and Aristotelian epistemology. 1 – Testimonilaism: The tests you can use to attempt to falsify a claim and truth as real rather an ideal, meaning truth is an adjective meaning “claim I can warranty has survived all means of falsification known to man” Link: https://propertarianinstitute.com/2018/01/14/what-does-truth-mean-and-what-is-its-adjective-form/ 2 – Law as descriptive (framed as the science of co-operation and agency): retaliation and high trust can be deterministically predicted based on measuring reciprocity and impositions against property-en-toto. Errosion of trust erodes social norms and this cascades down to the rest of commons required to accumulate agency and retain sovereignty. Natural law says “if you do this your group will fail.” Common/tort law is men saying “we’re not going to let you do this because we refuse to be a failed group.” 3 – Property-en-toto: all investments acquired without violating reciprocity that a person is willing and able to defend (whereas certain forms of damage against normative and informational commons were exploitable loopholes in tort law – hence we see hte industrialization of professional deception) 4 – Reciprocity as deterministic: reciprocity will be exchanged by co-operation when interactions are “productive, fully informed, warrantied, voluntarily exchanged, and free of imposition upon others by externality.” Otherwise reciprocity will be exchanged by means of conflict.

  • “My Current Copy/paste of What Is P Is”

    Jan 6, 2020, 8:29 PM THE MAIN PROPERTARIAN INNOVATIONS AND CLARIFICATIONS THAT COMPLETE WESTERN LAW AND ARISTOTELIAN EPISTEMOLOGY. by Alain Dwight My current copy/paste of what is P is pretty much a break down at the narrative level: Here’s what I think the main Propertarian innovations/clarifications are that complete western (common/tort) law and Aristotelian epistemology. 1 – Testimonilaism: The tests you can use to attempt to falsify a claim and truth as real rather an ideal, meaning truth is an adjective meaning “claim I can warranty has survived all means of falsification known to man” Link: https://propertarianinstitute.com/2018/01/14/what-does-truth-mean-and-what-is-its-adjective-form/ 2 – Law as descriptive (framed as the science of co-operation and agency): retaliation and high trust can be deterministically predicted based on measuring reciprocity and impositions against property-en-toto. Errosion of trust erodes social norms and this cascades down to the rest of commons required to accumulate agency and retain sovereignty. Natural law says “if you do this your group will fail.” Common/tort law is men saying “we’re not going to let you do this because we refuse to be a failed group.” 3 – Property-en-toto: all investments acquired without violating reciprocity that a person is willing and able to defend (whereas certain forms of damage against normative and informational commons were exploitable loopholes in tort law – hence we see hte industrialization of professional deception) 4 – Reciprocity as deterministic: reciprocity will be exchanged by co-operation when interactions are “productive, fully informed, warrantied, voluntarily exchanged, and free of imposition upon others by externality.” Otherwise reciprocity will be exchanged by means of conflict.

  • Questions on The Propertarian-Constitution

    Questions on The Propertarian-Constitution https://propertarianism.com/2020/05/25/questions-on-the-propertarian-constitution/


    Source date (UTC): 2020-05-25 23:07:01 UTC

    Original post: https://twitter.com/i/web/status/1265056809179439104

  • Questions on The Propertarian-Constitution

    Jan 13, 2020, 3:54 PM

    —“I wasn’t sure where to ask these questions. If it’s easier to just give me a link to read answers, then please do.  1) Who does get to vote? 2) Do we retain a representative republic? If not, what replaces it?”— A Friend

    To answer those questions clearly I have to make a couple of statements in advance – otherwise it’s too likely you’ll spin on assumptions no matter what I say. 1) The reason we have so much conflict in government is that the left was successful in reframing (as they always do) rule OF law that limited the government to a narrow range of permissible actions, as rule BY law, where whatever the government can agree to by majority is permissible. As such the citizenry (YOU) are always asking the wrong questions and proposing the wrong solutions. Instead, if we restore rule OF law, and we produce a sufficiently scientific and logical body of law, then it doesn’t matter what government you put in place – they can only do what they do truthfully and reciprocally. And if you restore our rights to sue anyone for anything as long as loser pays – then we have recreated markets for goods and services (economy), markets for commons (government) and markets for punishment of irreciprocity in economy or commons (court). So the propertarian constitution focuses (“via-negativa”, meaning ‘by the negative”) on prohibiting falsehood and irreciprocity, rather than producing presumed ‘goods’. 2) The propertarian constitution is structured as amendments to the Constitution of the United States (“CSA”), in order to preserve it as a “going concern”, so all debts and agreements private and public remain. This is to prevent world chaos and uncertainty. 3) Our goal is to provide the ability of people with different cognitive biases and preferences to pursue their group’s interests and strategy but to prevent them from imposing upon others strategies. This is because as we have become wealthier we are not – as predicted – seeking the same things, but in fact, seeking very opposite things, and under the presumption that peace is only possible if all people have the right to self determination – at least by moving to bet near and with those who share it – as was the western tradition. 4) Structurally it restores the original intent, which was a united states of Europe. In other words, to create a set of european states under a British system of common laws. In other words, just as the church had functioned as a weak federal government in Europe, they sought to create a secular weak federal government in America, with each State, as was common in the pre-unification german princedoms, the holy roman empire (most of Germanic Europe from 800ad to 1800’s), and all of european history, a set of states. However, they needed a federal government to unite enough people and resources to prevent european re-conquest of the american continent. And in the end the problem they had, that we do not have today, was the ability to print money as debt to themselves rather than use hard money. That may be confusing but it means that they needed a common defense when it was an era of hard (real) money, and there was no other way of paying for it. We don’t have that problem any longer. On the other hand, there is no reason for our federal government to do anything OTHER than fund a military that prevents creating of political competition on the continent. This limitation of the federal government’s AND the state’s powers is restored in our Propertarian Constitution. 5) We restore this original intent of separate (‘several’) states, by (a) forcibly converting blue (immigrant) cities to city states, thereby depriving them of political influence over territorial states. This give Meritocratic masculine eugenic red, and equalitarian feminine dysgenic blue states the opportunity to produce commons according to their preferences. (b) preserving the supreme court, the military, and the Treasury, but devolving necessary services to the states, and shutting down unnecessary services – most of them. (c) Eliminating the house, and converting the senate to the sitting governors, and (d) severely limiting the powers of those governors, such that they can only conduct trades between the states. They cannot modify the constitution. There is no need to. If some group violates it, the court can make a finding that suppresses that violation. This is a purely via-negativa (via the negative) federal government. All positive government must be produced individually by the states. 6) As such, regarding —“Who does get to vote?”— (a) there is no federal power, so there is no federal voting. (b) who votes and how they vote is up to the individual states. And we provide counsel as to the choices of decision making – voting being one of the choices. (b) all state constitutions must be approved by the supreme court – they must be truthful, reciprocal, and “calculable” – which I won’t explain here. (c) States do not have debts to the treasury All debts are allocated pro rata to the citizens of those states by the treasury. One can go bankrupt on any debt EXCEPT debts to the treasury. This makes it very difficult for ‘leftists’ to escape responsibility for their actions. 7) As such, regarding —“2) Do we retain a representative republic? If not, what replaces it?”— We retain a representative senate consisting of the governors of the states but majoritarianism has no power. It is a purely economic government. In other words, governance (the production of commons) is completely separate from rule (the courts). As for the individual states, they can construct whatever order they wish within the terms set in the constitution, most of which I assume will retain some semblance of the democratic model. The states do not have control over citizenship. Those criteria are set out in the constitution – and if voting is to exist – it must be limited to citizens. And the standard is quite high. 8)The primary defense is not the government. It is the law and the market for suppression of falsehood and irreciprocity via the courts. The ‘wild west’ of saying whatever nonsense you want to citizens in order to get elected is over. The ‘wild west’ of the academy teaching pseudoscience is over. That’s the difference. Government is never the answer. The only answer is the law. The common law of sovereignty and reciprocity and testimony.

  • Questions on The Propertarian-Constitution

    Jan 13, 2020, 3:54 PM

    —“I wasn’t sure where to ask these questions. If it’s easier to just give me a link to read answers, then please do.  1) Who does get to vote? 2) Do we retain a representative republic? If not, what replaces it?”— A Friend

    To answer those questions clearly I have to make a couple of statements in advance – otherwise it’s too likely you’ll spin on assumptions no matter what I say. 1) The reason we have so much conflict in government is that the left was successful in reframing (as they always do) rule OF law that limited the government to a narrow range of permissible actions, as rule BY law, where whatever the government can agree to by majority is permissible. As such the citizenry (YOU) are always asking the wrong questions and proposing the wrong solutions. Instead, if we restore rule OF law, and we produce a sufficiently scientific and logical body of law, then it doesn’t matter what government you put in place – they can only do what they do truthfully and reciprocally. And if you restore our rights to sue anyone for anything as long as loser pays – then we have recreated markets for goods and services (economy), markets for commons (government) and markets for punishment of irreciprocity in economy or commons (court). So the propertarian constitution focuses (“via-negativa”, meaning ‘by the negative”) on prohibiting falsehood and irreciprocity, rather than producing presumed ‘goods’. 2) The propertarian constitution is structured as amendments to the Constitution of the United States (“CSA”), in order to preserve it as a “going concern”, so all debts and agreements private and public remain. This is to prevent world chaos and uncertainty. 3) Our goal is to provide the ability of people with different cognitive biases and preferences to pursue their group’s interests and strategy but to prevent them from imposing upon others strategies. This is because as we have become wealthier we are not – as predicted – seeking the same things, but in fact, seeking very opposite things, and under the presumption that peace is only possible if all people have the right to self determination – at least by moving to bet near and with those who share it – as was the western tradition. 4) Structurally it restores the original intent, which was a united states of Europe. In other words, to create a set of european states under a British system of common laws. In other words, just as the church had functioned as a weak federal government in Europe, they sought to create a secular weak federal government in America, with each State, as was common in the pre-unification german princedoms, the holy roman empire (most of Germanic Europe from 800ad to 1800’s), and all of european history, a set of states. However, they needed a federal government to unite enough people and resources to prevent european re-conquest of the american continent. And in the end the problem they had, that we do not have today, was the ability to print money as debt to themselves rather than use hard money. That may be confusing but it means that they needed a common defense when it was an era of hard (real) money, and there was no other way of paying for it. We don’t have that problem any longer. On the other hand, there is no reason for our federal government to do anything OTHER than fund a military that prevents creating of political competition on the continent. This limitation of the federal government’s AND the state’s powers is restored in our Propertarian Constitution. 5) We restore this original intent of separate (‘several’) states, by (a) forcibly converting blue (immigrant) cities to city states, thereby depriving them of political influence over territorial states. This give Meritocratic masculine eugenic red, and equalitarian feminine dysgenic blue states the opportunity to produce commons according to their preferences. (b) preserving the supreme court, the military, and the Treasury, but devolving necessary services to the states, and shutting down unnecessary services – most of them. (c) Eliminating the house, and converting the senate to the sitting governors, and (d) severely limiting the powers of those governors, such that they can only conduct trades between the states. They cannot modify the constitution. There is no need to. If some group violates it, the court can make a finding that suppresses that violation. This is a purely via-negativa (via the negative) federal government. All positive government must be produced individually by the states. 6) As such, regarding —“Who does get to vote?”— (a) there is no federal power, so there is no federal voting. (b) who votes and how they vote is up to the individual states. And we provide counsel as to the choices of decision making – voting being one of the choices. (b) all state constitutions must be approved by the supreme court – they must be truthful, reciprocal, and “calculable” – which I won’t explain here. (c) States do not have debts to the treasury All debts are allocated pro rata to the citizens of those states by the treasury. One can go bankrupt on any debt EXCEPT debts to the treasury. This makes it very difficult for ‘leftists’ to escape responsibility for their actions. 7) As such, regarding —“2) Do we retain a representative republic? If not, what replaces it?”— We retain a representative senate consisting of the governors of the states but majoritarianism has no power. It is a purely economic government. In other words, governance (the production of commons) is completely separate from rule (the courts). As for the individual states, they can construct whatever order they wish within the terms set in the constitution, most of which I assume will retain some semblance of the democratic model. The states do not have control over citizenship. Those criteria are set out in the constitution – and if voting is to exist – it must be limited to citizens. And the standard is quite high. 8)The primary defense is not the government. It is the law and the market for suppression of falsehood and irreciprocity via the courts. The ‘wild west’ of saying whatever nonsense you want to citizens in order to get elected is over. The ‘wild west’ of the academy teaching pseudoscience is over. That’s the difference. Government is never the answer. The only answer is the law. The common law of sovereignty and reciprocity and testimony.