FORCES Italiana - The Constitution of FORCES International

FORCES International is an organisation in support of human rights and - in particular, but not limited to – in defence of those who expect from life the freedom to smoke, eat, drink and, in general, to enjoy personal lifestyle choices without restrictions and state interference.

FORCES is an acronym of Fight Ordinances and Restrictions to Control and Eliminate Smoking. That name reflects the organisation’s original intent when it was founded in 1995 in San Francisco, USA. When it became clear that smoking repression, and the use of junk science to justify it, was going well beyond the petty prohibition to smoke in public, and implied instead a fundamental subversion of professional ethics and social values on an unprecedented scale, the scope of FORCES greatly expanded, and so did its size, through many chapters and affiliates in the United States and around the world.

The message of FORCES is based on the values of liberty for every individual in his personal choices. In this, FORCES is aligned with those who fight the antismoking cartel, which is basically false and oppressive. However, FORCES goes well beyond this, as it intends to expose the paucity and the illogic of a way of thinking and of conducting medicine, politics and scientific research that is simply unethical, and that wastes great human and public resources and energy in non-essential and irrelevant endeavours.

In this perspective, then, smoking prohibition and the campaigns for behaviour modification are a front to hide the self-righteousness of those who feel entitled to impose advice on health, choice, behaviour and social values. Furthermore, “health” campaigns disguise the prevarication of those who want to impose their ways with laws and taxes, programming the lives of individuals without sufficient knowledge of the values that many people hold dear, and of those liberties and pleasures which are as essential to the political and psychological well-being of people in a free society as health is to the well-being of the body.

Therefore, in order to generally counter these unacceptable tendencies and social-political trends and

· To improve the structure and the efficiency of the movement against state control and state-determined lifestyle;

· To advance the fight against the use of unethical science and misrepresentation of scientific evidence by public health and private institutions;

· To educate people about the real meaning and limitations of scientific evidence, and its appropriate use in public policy;

· To protect and ensure a future of public honesty and personal liberty for this and future generations, we proclaim this

ARTICLE 1 - FORCES is based on the fundamental principle that people have a right to individual self-determination, and that the opportunity for individual self-determination is essential to human dignity. We believe that individual liberty of action, thought and behaviour is the paramount shared value of civil society, and that other values, when in conflict with such individual liberties, must normally submit to them. All individuals have the right to exercise sole dominion over their own lives, and have the right to live in whatever manner they choose, so long as they do not forcibly interfere with the equal right of others to live in whatever manner they choose.

ARTICLE 2 - The function of the state is to manage justice and order with an essential number of laws. It is not the function of the state to establish, influence, enforce, mandate or forbid trends, culture, opinions, values and the lifestyle and habits of the citizens – nor to regulate them in any way, except, and limited to, when indisputable evidence exists that those trends, opinions and values may expose other citizens to risk without their consent.

ARTICLE 3 –As a sequitur of Article 2, we deny that the state has the right to dispose of the lives of individuals and of the fruits of their labour, and to impose or forbid behaviours other than aggressions against another person or his property.

ARTICLE 4 – As the state is not an individual, the state has no rights whatsoever. The state has only duties and responsibilities, and it is always the servant of the citizen, whereas the citizen is never the servant of the state. In this constitution, “state” refers to any government, in whole or in part, whether local, national, or trans-national.

5.1 - The right to peaceful existence. Accordingly, we actively support the prohibition of the initiation of propaganda by the state or the initiation of physical force by anyone against others. However, the use of physical force is legitimate when in defence of rights, freedom and property.

5.2 - The right to liberty of speech and action. Accordingly, we actively support unabridged freedom of speech and press, and oppose censorship and information “piloting” in any form.

5.3 - The right of advertisement, free expression and promotion. We actively support the freedom to advertise, free expression and the promotion of industries, individuals, groups of individuals or ideas whether or not they are considered “incorrect”, “unhealthy”, or even “dangerous” by the state or even by the majority or people, as these are a rights, thus not subject to democratic rules.

Accordingly, we actively oppose all attempts by government or third parties to regulate or forbid advertisement and promotion of legal products and legal behaviours considered “unhealthy” or “dangerous” or “immoral” by the state.

5.4 - The right to property. We actively support the prohibition of robbery, trespass, fraud, and misrepresentation, and accordingly, we actively oppose all government and third party interference with private property, such as confiscation, nationalization, and eminent domain.

5.5 – The right to choose, and to act consequently. Accordingly, we actively support the principle that no one is to be discriminated against, segregated, punished, or directly or indirectly taxed by the government for what he chooses to believe or not believe, and thus for the way of life which is consequential to those convictions, so long as that way of life does not bring clear and present harm to others. From this article 5.5 stems article:

5.6 - The right to lifestyle. Accordingly, we actively support the right of the consenting adult to whatever lifestyle or habits he or she chooses, including smoking, drinking, dietary or sexual habits, or the use of drugs. We assert the individual’s ownership of his body, and the right that follows from this to manage and control his own physical life and health.

5.7 - The right to parenthood. We actively support the right of parents to be parents, imparting their values, experience and perspectives on the world to their children. Accordingly, we oppose government or third party interference in schools or elsewhere to indoctrinate youth with lifestyles, behaviours and/or other state values which may be in conflict with values held by the families or churches to which those youth may belong. Furthermore, we actively oppose any governmental attempt to influence the choices of the youth either openly or disguised as “public health education” or through other means of propaganda, as such instruction is solely the right, function, and duty of the parents or those performing parental functions. The primary function of schools is to be academic, not political. The protection of children from harm under criminal and civil law, a legitimate function of government, is abused when government extends its powers past the bounds of its proper function. ^[1]

5.8 - The ownership of physical life. Accordingly, we actively oppose all attempts by government and other parties to mandate, forbid, regulate the managing of one’s own physical life. This applies regardless of the soundness of any moral principle and/or scientific reality.

Since governments must not violate the above rights, we actively oppose interference by government in the areas of voluntary and contractual relations among individuals. People should not be forced to sacrifice their lives, property and lifestyle for the benefit of others. They should be left free, without government interference, to deal with one another as free traders; to establish and select their lifestyles as they see fit; to raise and educate their children as they see fit; to attempt to prolong or terminate their life as they see fit; and to produce, promote and consume intellectual and physical products as they see fit. The resulting socio-economic system is the only one compatible with the protection of individual rights, human growth and natural social coherence, stability and diversity: the free market of economy, values, lifestyles and ideas.

ARTICLE 6 – As governments cannot interfere with the social, economic, and value systems of the citizens, public policies must also be kept to the essential, and never be based on indemonstrable “facts” or group opinions, even when those groups claim to act in the public interest. Specifically, in the areas of public health, environment and safety, public policy cannot be based on arguable science which is not conducted according to the stringent rules of the Scientific Method. Any warning, campaign, obligation or prohibition based on group opinion or indemonstrable science is to be disregarded and responded to with civil disobedience, as it is construed as a clear violation of the individual rights above, and as an attempt to impose the behaviour of the few on the many or vice versa."

ARTICLE 7 – Finally, tax monies and government power cannot be used to protect people from themselves, as is the case when target groups are taxed to finance propaganda against themselves and their own choices, values and lifestyles, which is contrary not only to personal liberty but also to moral law. Taxation of products purchased by citizens must not be selectively used to “pilot” the lifestyle choices of individuals, as is done, for example, with cigarettes.

Furthermore, we support that no taxation levied on a group of citizens be used by the state or by another group of citizens against the taxed group – specifically to persuade, dissuade, control, or otherwise condition any belief or lack of belief, or to curb the way of life that is consequential to the convictions held by the targeted group.

ARTICLE 8 – Based on all of the above, we specifically reject the Precautionary Principle as an immoral and unlawful abuse of state power, as it justifies prohibition, regulation, taxation and propaganda on the basis of suspicion and opinion rather than science and justice, and furthermore it reverses the burden of proof on the accused. ^[2]

[1] The forced drugging of schoolchildren is a notorious example of this in recent years

[2] See Statements, (3, XII)