Brevity Is Not Always Best: The Case for Liberland’s Other Constitution

General
1

Full disclosure: No AI here—this is my writing! A video boasted that Liberland’s Constitution is the world’s shortest. I cringed, reminded of the U.S. Constitution, once called the same. Revered globally, the U.S. document is now a shell of its former glory, its branches exploiting vague clauses like interstate commerce, necessary and proper, and general welfare to amass power beyond the Founders’ intent. If they wanted limited government, they chose their words poorly.

Liberland recently had a longer constitutional draft I admired. It closed loopholes that plague the U.S. Constitution, but now we have a shorter, vaguer version. My question: How does this constrain the government? Referenda, the Senate, or courts are touted as checks, but history shows governments manipulate even tightly worded constitutions. Why would Liberland’s vague document fare better?

The current draft lacks clarity. It defines only the president’s term, leaving the prime minister, Congress, and courts without term limits—potentially allowing indefinite rule. I’d accept guardrails (e.g., terms between a minimum and maximum), but these are absent. Relying on laws for this is risky; laws can change covertly, hidden in the blockchain, and citizens may not notice until it’s too late. The Senate can even nullify referenda results (Article IV, Sec. 1, Clause 2), undermining voter power.

There’s no Bill of Rights. The Minister of Justice claims rights derive from “general principles,” a pure libertarian approach. But courts often twist principles to favor government, using vague interpretations like “penumbras.” Without a clear Bill of Rights, I can’t trust judges to protect freedoms that don’t impede others.

The Senate, dubbed a House of Lords, is a hereditary body of the top 100 merit-holders, passing power to their heirs. How is this libertarian? It’s elitist, not freedom-driven.

The merits system raises unanswered questions:

  1. What’s the merit benchmark, and is it fixed or variable?

  2. How are merits inherited?

  3. What happens when the merit cap is reached?

  4. Can Senators serve in the cabinet, Congress, or judiciary simultaneously?

The longer constitutional draft addressed term limits, checks, and rights more clearly, avoiding the current draft’s ambiguities. It didn’t answer merit questions, but it provided a stronger framework to constrain government power. Before voting on any constitution, Liberland must clarify these issues through open discussion. A short document may sound elegant, but it risks unchecked power. The longer draft, with its detailed safeguards, is the libertarian path to ensure government serves citizens, not itself.

2 Likes
2

Very well put, Martin. The “open discussion” you mention is completely lacking. I think many people are afraid to put their opinions and perspectives out there for general public view. This is like a muscle that must be exercised by people.

I cut my teeth on public forum discourse in nutrition forums where everyone’s ideas are very different from each other and everyone believes they are absolutely correct, kind of like politics. I had to learn to put my ideas out there knowing others would severely disagree, but I couldn’t be triggered into defensiveness or lashing out. The LL govt guys seem like they’ve not spent much time in these situations.

Anyways, well written and detailed analysis!

1 Like
3

Thanks again Murf! This is something I don’t understand here in the US Libertarians are always bouncing ideas off each other while it can be combative in certain topics like abortion most of the time we will at least acknowledge your differences and have a good conversation at a minimum. I am not sure about the rest of world’s libertarians though…

1 Like
4

I feel like a lot of people like to say they are libertarian, but when they describe their beliefs it sounds more like anarchy. I’ve been to a few 3rd world crapholes with the military that felt a lot like true anarchy, and I learned without a doubt, I don’t want anarchy at all. A lot of the crypto guys sound like they are more on the anarchy belief side, but I bet they grew up in quite safe suburbs. People really have to up close and personal with violence to realize they are willing to trade a lot for safety.

1 Like
5

The good ole Anarchiastan argument there are so many different flavors from socialist-lite to full anarchists, miniarchists, constitutionalists, etc so many different ones as one podcaster says it is the only where he has seen a priest and pornographer sit down together and discuss politics.

1 Like
6

Haha I did not know it was one of those topics that gets repeated forever.

I just feel strongly a society needs heroes. I’ve worked with many first responders that desired to be heroes and so they performed heroic acts to be their own ideal. Community part-time cops responding on an uber-police app aren’t going to put themselves in great danger to protect others just for some tiny paycheck. And if you don’t provide a safe environment, a lot of sub-groups won’t come be part of your society. Namely women. And a society without women, to me, is quite un-appealing.

1 Like
7

It’s interesting that you bring up the people wont respond argument. In fact just a few days ago I was doing research on ”private security” companies you know the blackwaters of the world and what I found disturbing but already knew is the lack care so to speak of what they are supposed to be “protecting.” I already knew this stuff but my concern is this, people with lots of money come into a certain place hire goons to protect their interests at the expense of others in what is supposed to be something akin to a community effort.

I have shown this project to a few people and the women not to be sexist see this ripe for a soviet/chinese dictatorship but with no central person to point a finger at just the senate in general and also a ponzi scheme because of the crypto. Their words not mine.

1 Like
8

A lot of the guys I worked with in the military went on to work for overseas contractors like Blackwater and Triple Canopy. There was 2 draws, obviously the money, but one thing less understood was that these guys were seeking a workspace without all the rules and without the intense pressure to “do the right thing” that the military had. It didn’t surprise me that these private companies had a way higher rate of war crimes accusations than the normal military.

The last five years has been a masters class in how propaganda and brainwashing work. A lot of people have come to the conclusion that society would work better without any propaganda/brainwashing. But they fail to realize that it is early childhood brainwashing that creates young people that want to be heroes and serve their community.

Without this brainwashing influence telling them to sacrifice for the greater good of their society, we are left with everyone just pursuing their own individualistic thing. This seems to be somewhat where we are now.

I noticed a drastic change in the police after 2020. The average cop no longer felt 100% supported by the people. In one way this was good because some of them were drunk off of power. But it makes me wonder how they are filling their depts job slots. Who wants to be a cop in an era where they aren’t very supported?

And yes I agree with your comment about hired goons. In LL what is to stop a wealthy person from hiring their own police force and that force turning into a goon squad. Are a bunch of part-time Uber cops going to stand against an organized well paid goon squad made up of war-hardened special op guys?

1 Like
9

All valid concerns what I don’t understand and maybe it is my lack f military experience is this. The military brainwashes its soldiers into submission or at least try to into doing their bidding but my observation though is that in some groups at least they are only there to get a foothold into the private contractor sphere and then eventually move on over to them.

While what you said makes sense about the community brainwashing about the greater good or the lack of it now I have this opinion on it. Why would I or someone want to “serve the greater good” when those in power will use me as a tool for their own purposes only. I am looking right at the Epstein files as example number 1 now while others such as the George Floyd 2020 protests serve to show at least to me we are currently experiencing cultural clashing which will only get worse if the root causes aren’t resolved and here in the United States that is not allowed to happen because they need the conflict machine running at full speed to keep a concerted effort away from actually fixing the issue which is a society torn apart by multiculturalism that has not been allowed to assimilate and the welfare state that is tearing families apart.

1 Like
10

In regards to the US military, I joined after the 9/11 “attacks”, and I can only speak as far as the infantry/spec ops communities, but I would say 100% of us joined for patriotic reasons as a primary reason, and then there were secondary reasons like we want to be viewed as heroes, etc. No one joined so that they could eventually become part of a private contractor company, but then we didn’t have any knowledge of that back then, perhaps it is different now. I did meet guys with other jobs in the military (mechanic/welder/etc) and it did seem like patriotism/heroism took 2nd place to primary motives like free money for college, all their family served so they were expected to serve also, or a way out of a bad situation (drugs/bad home life).

“Why would I or someone want to “serve the greater good” when those in power will use me as a tool for their own purposes only.”
In answer to this question, I would say that to be dedicated to the collective, is the best way to have a collective that is dedicated to you. If you are open to protecting those weaker than you, then in a time when you are weak, others will step in to protect you. I believe this makes better logical sense than the “selfish-only” alternative, and I believe it is the conclusion most of humanity will come to once the masses can get to conclusions via logic/intuition and not fear. Once life becomes more introspective, we will analyze death more and perhaps change our collective conclusions there. For most of the trigger-pullers I served with their inner motto sublimely became “everyone dies eventually, it seems like a better death to die as a hero protecting my bros and country, than to die in a less meaningful way.”

Now the second part of this is that, yes people at the top have been corrupt. We have to conduct major surgery on our govt to remove the cancerous growths that have used the lives of the patriotic as their stepping stones and to engineer a future form of govt where these mafia scumbags can’t get into power positions. Personally, I do believe this is happening as we speak, though I’m sure the results will be filled with many imperfections.

1 Like
11

Yes I must be a little younger than you because I was in grade school during 9/11 but yes I remember the blind loyalty and patriotism fever pitch from that time the propaganda worked so well that the US didn’t need to do a draft. A very different backdrop from the Vietnam Era my father was drafted into. My own grandfather was invited into West Point but rejected it in 1937, I think he knew what was about to go down he was stationed at Pearl Harbor then of all places.

To your next point about inner reflection is I think the key to everything in the future for humanity. You know how well psyops worked in the past but it is becoming more difficult to conduct in certain ways because the logic to accept certain dolled out “facts” is requiring one to be at a lower basis point for intelligence to accept. Not to mention the advances in technology making everything questioned as to whether something is true or not coupled with the Mandela effect whether or not you accept something everything is questioned now in some varying degree.

On this part I think we will be experiencing changes in our govt it is to the extent of how much will be changed but I think a political earthquake will happen once Medicare and social security essentially go bankrupt and the old folks start bitching about the cuts to their benefits.