The Exception That Proves The Rule

One question that is often asked by those newly come to the Empire is how, in a society which claims to value the liberties of the individual – and, indeed, specifically one’s freedom to associate and disassociate as one pleases – the Empire justifies its strict immigration policy. Does this not, they ask, vitiate the freedom of association of the citizen-shareholder who is asked to turn over his choices in this matter to the quote-better judgment-unquote of the Imperial Guard of Borders and Volumes?

The answer is that there is a specific means to address this. The V-series visa, which bypasses normal inplacement procedures, is based on the ancient eldrae custom of vouchsafe. Both as custom and as a matter of law, the tradition of vouchsafe allows someone to vouch for the good conduct of another; the one who takes the oath takes complete responsibility, both personal and legal, for the actions of the other, and suffers the same consequences if that person acts improperly. The consequences range from public scorn, if the person vouched for behaves rudely, to even death, if that person commits a capital crime.

So one need not simply accept that one has signed over all one’s judgment concerning freedom of association to the Imperial Guard of Borders and Volumes when one becomes a citizen-shareholder; if one sincerely believes that their judgment is superior than that of civilization’s appointed guardians, they may pledge vouchsafe for the admittance of anyone not specifically banned from the Empire, and they will be granted admittance – but by doing so, they accept the responsibility to their fellow citizen-shareholders that would otherwise be vested in the Empire for any and all social, civil, and criminal liabilities imposed upon the citizen-shareholder body by he for whom they pledged vouchsafe, even to the extent of wagering their citizen-shareholdership (forfeited should the vouchsafee require deportation) and even, upon occasion, life itself upon their judgment of their vouchsafee’s capacity for good behavior.

In this way, the freedom of association is maintained, but the externalities of unwise association are properly vested upon he who chose poorly in imposing them upon his fellows.

(And, of course, this system provides valuable feedback to the IGBV. Should the number of V-series visas issued and completed successfully – with the vouchsafee departing with a clean record or being upgraded to standard inplacement – rise, this will be and has been taken as a sign that inplacement standards are too strict relative to societal standards, and they will correspondingly be eased, to the aid of future potential immigrants.)

– The Aeonic Book of Practical Imperialism: A Guide for the Recovering Outsider