ADDRESSING THE ENTITY

The term “entity” seems a bit impersonal. The term, as I am using it here, relates to the basic units making up a federated arrangement or what I like to call an association. As a reminder, federated arrangements are groupings of individuals, groups (arrangements or associations), states or provinces, or nations. The entities of these associations are brought together by an agreement in which the conditions and purposes of the arrangement are spelled out. The classic structure of such an agreement contains a preamble (statement of purposes), statement (bill) of rights which contains the basic values of the association in the form of permissible or required behaviors of the entities comprising the association, the structural makeup of the association in which the powers of the association are spelled out, any other provisions the association wants to delineate, a statement of commitment among the entities which might draw on God to witness the agreement (a covenant does; a compact does not), a listing of the entities or representatives of the entities making the agreement, and any amendments (changes to the agreement). If you want to see an example, look at the US Constitution. That example is a compact. In that example, the bill of rights is out of place. There are historical reasons for that anomaly which are beyond the purposes here, but I have addressed them in previous postings. Here, and in the postings to follow, I want to take a closer look at what an entity is.

Under federalist principles, an entity is seen as a free agent who/that independently enters into the confining provisions of the compacted agreement freely and voluntarily. The person or group enters because the person or group decides to enter. Its responsibilities are those that can be reasonably and rationally derived from the provisions of the covenant or compact. An entity can enter into more than one such agreement, but in order to be true to each, it should not enter into separate covenants or compacts – I will use the term compact from here on to indicate both forms of federated agreements – that have incompatible aims, goals, values, and/or expectations. If one is considering the agreement of citizenship under a federated national system, other federated agreements should legally fall under the provisions of the national union.

Can a citizen enter into a contractual relationship and still be true to a national federated agreement? Yes, of course, and normal federated unions have provisions that recognize these less binding instruments of collaboration. One rule of thumb that distinguishes a compact from a contract is that in a contract one party agrees to do something for another party in exchange for something else. If one party does not fulfill the provisions of a contract, then the other party does not have to do his, her, or their part of the transaction. In a compact, one is held responsible for his, her, or their obligation no matter what the other party/ies does/do.

The compact spells out what the time requirements are for an agreement and some compacts are made for life. Traditional marriage agreements were of this latter type. And as far as we are concerned today, so is our national compact – the US Constitution.

Part of the significance in considering an entity as a free and willing agent is that in a federated union, as in the US, a theoretical foundation by which to address a person's rights is provided. Our federated union, in the name of its people, has a bi-level sovereignty¹ over the land mass of the US. If you wish to live within the boundaries of that land mass then you are, in effect, agreeing to live by the legal provisions established by that union. Does the union have absolute power over your existence while you live here? No; the compact, by the provisions of its bill of rights, identifies the limits of that power and of your rights – the ones you do not relinquish by joining the union. If you don't agree with the provisions of the compact, you are free, as far as the union is concerned, to live elsewhere. Whether another sovereign entity allows you to live within its boundaries is not the business of this sovereignty.

In the next few postings, I am going to revisit the different federal attributes of an entity. I have reviewed them in the past, but actually each of the attributes deserves more attention than I have given to date. Again, it's hard to think of humans as entities. The problem is that the term has to refer to both individual persons and groups. I could use the term party, but under certain contexts you might wonder what the “party favors” are going to be – “entity” is a clearer term. Perhaps someone might suggest a better term. But the aim of these postings will be to better outline and explain what the attributes of an entity are, especially as entities function within a federated union.

1Bi-level refers to the sovereignty of the national and state governments.