I see.
We could at least state that the Assembly is led by a Chair, the rest could be up to the Assembly to decide how else the want to.
Out of curiosity, is there a particular reason why you want the Charter to codify the presiding officer, and for that officer to be called âChairâ?
No, not especially. I personally feel that the leader of the Assembly ought to be stated within the Charter. In order to make it clear that the Assembly does indeed have a Presiding Officer, and isnât leaderless, which looks to be the way things are shaping up to be within this proposed omnibus bill. Also, I donât personally have a preference of what name is in use for the officer responsible for the Assembly, I just thought âChairâ as its the name currently in use.
I understand the concern, but Iâm not sure thereâs much of a point in adding a provision that is functionally equivalent to âthe Assembly is presided by a presiding officerâ. I think a more adequate provision that we could add is something similar to what we do have for the High Court:
That clause about the High Court establishing further regulations with regards to conducting business, could potentially be applied with regards to the Assembly? Something along the lines of this:
I think that would be workable.
Can we also change each of those provisions to âmay establishâ
âEstablishesâ doesnât flow right in my head
Iâm still typing up my full thoughts (concision is not my strength, Iâm afraid), but I find it bizarre to think that the Great Council should repeal all our laws, adopt a barebones Charter, and call it a day.
For instance, the Assembly has established regulations to adequately conduct its business. If we donât like those regulations, we can create new ones; if we feel no regulations are necessary, we can repeal them. Why should the Assembly need the Great Council to repeal its laws for it? And why canât the Great Council establish the new regulations it wants to see?
Something like this?
This is reasonable. I will adopt these changes.
At the moment, I largely agree with this. Iâm willing to be persuaded otherwise, but Iâm yet to see a compelling reason to abandon the drafting weâve already done just forâŠitâs not 100% clear why?
1 Like
You are overthinking this. There isn't some grand argument that will suddenly make it all clear. We drafted this because we wanted to draft something simpler, because it was fun to draft a new charter, and because figured the region would benefit from a reset free of assumptions and self-imposed burdens. It really is as simple as that.
Itâs not fun for me to keep drafting those laws. Why would I continue?
It was already going to.
It still can. Kringle and I are just proposing this, in lieu of a full set of laws, for the reasons heâs posted above.
What else would you want the Great Council to do? The Convening Resolution states:
Assured that no constitution is perfect in perpetuity and that communities can greatly benefit from beginning anew without the weight of existing law, custom, and precedent limiting possibilities,
The reason we included a Voting Act was so that if nothing else, our new system of governance is still fundamentally functional in a long-term setting. The Assembly can still alter it later if it wants, thereâs just not a built-in time limit, so to speak.
@Pronoun To respond to your question on the forum, why not?
â ProfessorHenn, January 18, 2023
Sure, Iâll bite.
Why not overthink?
Iâll start with a warning: this post is going to run pretty long. 1,788 words long, to be precise. If you just want a summary, no hard feelings â Iâve provided one below. But if you have the time and interest to dive deeper, Iâd encourage you to do so, regardless of whether thatâs through my post or not. Personally, this proposal would introduce dramatic changes to our government, and I intend to give it the same depth of thought and consideration that I would give to any other proposal.
TL;DR:
- Thereâs a fundamental trade-off between simplicity and structure. A minimal government shouldnât cover our âneedsâ (whatever that means) but should cover our based âwantsâ (our interests).
- Simpler laws donât translate directly into simpler government. Often, the complexity is just shifted elsewhere.
- Professionalism is more cultural than it is legislative, and we canât bludgeon our way through our laws to fix it.
- If we (or some of us) are expecting to establish regulations down the road anyway, we should just adopt them now.
Why not simplify our government?
Simple legislation leads to simple government. That makes for less bureaucracy and more flexibility, productivity, and accessibility. Pretty straightforward, right?
Oh, if only it were that simple.
Simplicity isnât everything. If it was all we cared about, we could cut the Charter down to just a single, simple clause. Take a look:
Charter of the Coalition of the South Pacific
The Delegate of the South Pacific, as displayed in-game, wields ultimate authority over the region of the South Pacific.
Yes, this is a blatant strawman â nobodyâs actually advocating for this kind of government. But the reasons why merit consideration.
At even the most basic level of our government, we inevitably trade simplicity for structure. All across NationStates, players gravitate towards some degree of structure within their regional communities. Those communities vary widely â democratic, autocratic, meritocratic, military-focused, roleplay-focused, and more â but all of them trade simplicity for structure. What makes that complexity worthwhile?
I could wax poetic about the virtues of democracy, but I think the deeper and more broadly applicable reason is interest. Players gravitate towards structures that accomodate and support their interests. For example:
- If youâre interested in roleplay, you might want to introduce some structure in the form of rules or moderators for roleplaying.
- If youâre interested in military gameplay, you might want to introduce some structure in the form of a command and control hierarchy.
- If youâre interested in political gameplay, you might want to introduce some structure in the form of a legislature, executive, and judiciary.
Making a regional community more structured comes at the cost of greater complexity. It means that there are more rules, institutions, and roles to learn about because thatâs how you create the structure in the first place. Thatâs not a bad thing! Here in the South Pacific, we found it worthwhile to introduce a democratic structure. It comes at the cost of greater complexity, but itâs worth it because we are interested in democratic political gameplay. Building a regional structure oriented around our interests makes sense. Our community is healthier when our members feel they can pursue their interests within the South Pacific.
This proposal showcases some of those interests. For example, consider the Security Council. Why do we need it? Why canât security threats be monitored by any community member? Why canât the Assembly set the endorsement cap through legislation? Why canât the Prime Minister enforce it through their executive powers? The reason we have the Security Council is because it aligns with our interests; we are interested in protecting our community from hostile forces. We could simplify our laws by getting rid of the Security Council, but it wouldnât be worth it.
Iâm not trying to pick on the Security Council here â we can extend this line of reasoning to other aspects of our government as well. I mean, heck, what about the Assembly? Why do we need a law-making body? Why canât we just trust the Prime Minister to write our laws? If we didnât agree, couldnât we just vote them out or take them to court? The reason we have the Assembly is because it aligns with our interests; we are interested in a democratic structure that gives residents a chance to shape their regional legislation. We could simplify our laws by getting rid of the Assembly, but it wouldnât be worth it.
Itâs unfortunate, then, that other interests are just glossed over in this proposal. There are a wide range of interests in NationStates â my interests include things like regional legislation, military gameplay, and roleplay, but there are many more things to be interested in. We should not and can not cover every possible interest, but we also should not cut interests out of our laws just for the sake of simplicity.
Itâs unfortunate that the debate thus far has often brought up the necessity of legislation rather than the benefit of legislation. Some of our laws, I agree, create negative externalities that outweigh the benefits they provide. But others may not be ânecessaryâ (however you define that) but still benefit the region. Our laws should not be the bare minimum we need to hold our government together; they should encompass the legislation we want to shape our government and accommodate our interests. Some of those interests, clearly, have been preserved. Others, as far as I can tell, have simply been pushed off into the murky, undefined world of âflexibility.â
Why not make our government more flexible?
Where does complexity go when we cut it from our laws?
Spoiler alert: it doesnât just magically disappear. The ugly truth is that when we simplify our laws, there are only so many ways to handle the complexity we cut out.
We could, of course, just get rid of it for good. Our laws donât establish an official format for legal deadlines? Get rid of it. Our laws donât establish official regional holidays? Forget about them. Our laws donât establish a foreign ministry? Abolish it. Our laws donât establish rules of legislative procedure? Donât need them.
Clearly, there are some things we may want to keep around, in which case the complexity is simply passed to our government officials. If our laws donât establish any responsibility for integrating new players, but the Prime Minister wants to, thatâs their complexity to deal with. If our laws donât establish any procedures for court cases, but the High Court wants to, thatâs on their shoulders now.
Since itâs come up in the discussion, Iâll use legislative procedure in the Assembly as an example. In our current system, our legislative procedures are codified into law. If anybody â including the Chair â wants to read through the procedures of our Assembly, they can do so in our law archive. If the Chair doesnât like those procedures, they, like any other legislator, can propose changes to the relevant laws.
By simplifying our laws, weâre just making Assembly procedures more complex. Now, the Assembly has to figure out the procedures they want to use from scratch. Do we want a presiding officer? Do we want multiple? Do we want to elect them? Do we want to choose them by lottery? What procedures should we follow? Should we require motions? Seconds? Thirds? Should we hold legislative sessions? Should we establish a quorum? Who sets these rules? How often are we going to change them? How many people should it take to change them?
Maybe when weâre done coming up with all these rules, weâll want to write them down. Perhaps we could call it legislation!
Maybe we donât want to bother with this headache again, so we decide to keep the rules the same as long as they work for us, and if anybody feels the rules arenât working well anymore, they can propose a change. We can call those changes amendments!
By the way, our government is flexible, because the laws that shape it can be amended, repealed, and replaced. But it doesnât help to just wave our hands broadly at our current laws, blame them for our current problems, and say we really only need the bare minimum. It doesnât actually fix our governance problems, and it doesnât fix our cultural problems either.
Why not discourage professionalism?
Professionalism can mean different things to different people, so to start out, letâs ask the New Oxford American Dictionary.
professionalism | prÉËfeSHÉnlËiz(É)m, prÉËfeSHnÉËliz(É)m |
(noun)
the competence or skill expected of a professional: the key to quality and efficiency is professionalism.
Fundamentally, we should expect a level of professionalism from our government officials â not to the level of a real-life professional, but certainly a reasonable degree of competence and skill at playing the game. Thatâs why we elect or appoint them!
Perhaps, this isnât the kind of professionalism we like to complain about; but for the most part, itâs the only kind of professionalism actually codified into law. Thereâs no law that says our government officials must format their forum posts nicely because someone else started doing it. Thereâs no law that says our ministers must have dozens of staffers because another ministry does. Thereâs no law that says you have to write hundreds of words in response to me just because I had too much free time for my own good this week!
Dramatically simplifying our laws doesnât address this culture. There are problematic laws on this front, but itâs not all of them. And instead of lowering those barriers to entry, this proposal just piles more on the plates of our government officials.
Why not leave it for the future?
Forgive me for simplifying, but it feels like the response to many concerns raised so far has just been that we can figure out the details later as needed. If weâre already discussing that now, it sounds like some of us are interested in writing those laws â so why not write them now?
I donât believe that this proposal is really the bare minimum we need, but even if so, that doesnât make it the bare minimum we want. If there are things we want our government to do â if there are things we want to do as part of our government â then we ought to put that into legislation. Thatâs what legislation is for!
Anything that is not mentioned in this post, I consider to be satisfactory (to me). If it is mentioned in this post, it does not mean I disagree with it but want to either see a word choice change or would like further debate/explanation on it.
The Charter:
First off is a simple word choice change: âThe Assembly passes amendmentsâ becomes âThe Assembly may pass amendmentsâ.
I would also be open to seeing âa minimum of three daysâ included in the debate/vote length rather than a set three days. Or, we could take the length requirements out and place them in a separate law.
I also am intrigued by potentially seeing a provision about âquorumsâ in the sense that an Assembly vote automatically fails if a majority of legislators fail to cast their votes. The failed vote would still count towards the number of total votes for the month for legislator status.
I donât particularly like seeing RO spots listed in several spots within the charter. I would much rather see it mentioned once in the Delegate article along the lines of:
âA law to regulate the delegates granting, modification, and removal of regional officer powers will be established by lawâ
This section could be included in the Executive article to bring it in line with the Assembly, Court, Security Council, and Administration grants of authority to self-regulate.
While it is implied, it could be argued that an absence of a provision like the one above could mean that the Executive doesnât have the power to self-regulate.
Did we mean to have the Delegate appoint the Court? Is this a joint appointment (like how the CRS is now)? Is there any justification for such a change?
I am not necessarily opposed to this change, but I just want to find out the rationale for it.
Do these sections provide the Court the ability to create its own version of the Judicial Act and/or Criminal Code, or will another section need to be included to grant the Assembly task of developing the aforementioned laws?
Similar to the Delegate appointing members of the Court, is there a reason why we allow the Security Council to appoint its own members under this proposal? Perhaps the Delegate should have the power to appoint members of the Security Council since they are tasked with âupholding regional security,â which would logically include some measure of control over the Security Council.
See my comment above regarding RO spots as it relates to the delegate article.
Very supportive of this provision. However, perhaps we could include a provision saying that the Assembly has a sort of Amnesty power granted to it? After all, a coup 10 years ago was in a much different environment and NS world than a coup from only a year ago. Allowing the Assembly to extend a second chance to those who they think are worthy might be worthwhile. Any thoughts?
This one is minor, only word choice. I think removing âmustâ would be beneficial since the section means the same thing when the word is removed anyway.
See my comment above regarding RO spots as it relates to the delegate article.
I somewhat agree with your decision to leave the SPSF out of the Charter, but I think it would be beneficial to at least include our militaryâs name, defender stance, who the commander-in-chief is, the general corps, or, at the very least, âthe Assembly may establish a general law for all military mattersâ
I will eventually get around to giving comments on the proposed Voter Act and Transition Resolution, but I am tired of staring at the text on my screen for now 
Thank you. I really appreciate the effort and willingness to work on specifics, and I see many good ideas here.
I wouldnât be opposed to leaving voting and debate times out of the Charter, though I do think that, either way, voting shouldnât take more than 3 days. People already vote mostly in the first 2 days, with very few others voting in the third day, so there really isnât much of an upside to having longer voting times.
That is an interesting idea. I donât know if it belongs in the Charter, but I think itâs something worth exploring in general.
Perhaps âThe Delegate appoints regional officers and assigns them authorities as provided by law, but at least three regional officers must be members of the Security Council assigned border control authority.â?
I think this is reasonable.
I think this might be a leftover from a joke draft I wrote where there was no Prime Minister. I think that amending this to say that the Prime Minister nominates judges would be reasonable.
I think we should distinguish between laws passed by the Assembly regulations issued by an institution to facilitate the its functioning. Clearly the High Court cannot and should not be able to determine which crimes exist and how they are defined, since that is a critical task that is best left to the Assembly, but it certainly should be able to pass rules similar to the ones we already have (see the Standards for Case Management) that clarify how it conducts its business.
The Assembly is already described in the Charter as the âsupreme legislative authorityâ of the region and given the power to âpass lawsâ, so I donât see a need for the Assembly to be given a list of things on which it can legislate. I think we can safely assume that, while obviously there are exceptions (and that is why we have a Court), the Assembly has a general power to legislate on all things.
Iâm hesitant to have provisions that allow an individual to be appointed without the support of the Security Council, given the need for collegiality, but we could have that discussion.
I donât think that would be positive. You will notice that this provision doesnât ban someone from registering as a voter or becoming a legislator, it bans people from being elected or appointed to higher office. I think it makes sense to keep from high office any individual to tried to coup the region.
I donât think that belongs in the Charter. The Assembly can establish a military via law pursuant to its powers as the supreme legislative authority of the region.
We actually applied the same need for activity in voting for elections and legislating in the Assembly, that is, you need to vote in every vote (sans LOA). See the Voting Act, Article 2, Section 5.
A fair point, and Iâll adjust it to follow suit. I wrote the RO slots clauses at the very end, before posting, so I was more concerned about matching up institutions in the Charter.
In light of the added clause for Assembly self-regulation, I have no problems with one for the Executive, but Article 2, Section 5 does state outright that the PM wields executive power, which I interpret as the implicit ability to self-regulate. Again, no problems about including another clause for it.
You could have a discussion about the Delegate appointing a Justice, since both roles are predominantly non-political, but Iâll change it to the PM. Either options works for me.
Iâm interested by this idea, particularly the idea of some measure of control over the Security Council. Once upon a moon ago, the Vice Delegate was the legal head of the CSS, and they were an elected official. Maybe we can introduce something similar.
As much as I like the idea, the Assembly did grant amnesty to the coupers in 2016 and thatâs not something I want to see happen again. If we had a system where all parts of our government are in unanimous agreement on granting amnesty to someone, and thatâs a big if, I could see myself supporting that idea. Maybe others have different thoughts, though.
Kringle hit it on the head. As far as Iâm concerned, the Court or the PM can establish the regulations necessary for their duties, unless the Assembly wishes to legislate a specific course of action, certain parts such as a criminal code notwithstanding.
Iâm sure itâs easier to debate specifics than it is to debate broader viewpoints, but I do think that it is important we do not neglect the bigger picture.
The Assembly is the supreme legislative authority of the region, and it can always establish anything it wants later. But where do we draw the line? There is nothing in this proposal, aside from the Assembly itself, that could not be established later through the legislative process. Why not leave it to the Assembly to establish the court? The security council? The executive?
I donât want to get into petty arguments about whose job is more necessary or important because that misses the point. Weâre not South Pacificans out of necessity; weâre here because we want to be. There are ways we want to play the game and things we want to do in our government. After all, whatâs the point of establishing a regional government anyway if we donât want to get involved in what it does?
Consider for a moment what our government currently does, what it would do under this proposal, and what you personally want to do.
| Government Entity | Current Laws | Proposed Omnibus |
|---|---|---|
| Assembly | ||
| High Court | ||
| Security Council | ||
| Elections + Election Commissioner | ||
| Prime Minister | ||
| LegComm | ||
| Military | ||
| Integration | ||
| Culture | ||
| Foreign Affairs | ||
| Chair of the Assembly | ||
| Local Council | ||
| Coral Guard | ||
| OWL | ||
| Proscriptions |
You might not be interested in all of these aspects of our current government, and thatâs okay! If there are areas that few people want, and especially if others feel that those areas create negative externalities, then we can and should abolish them. But there is no good reason to just focus on a specific subset of what we want. Weâre in a constitutional convention, and the whole point of a constitutional convention is to think about the government we want.
There is an important distinction between not personally wanting to participate in a particular area of government, and not wanting others to participate in that area of government either. As we consider our own interests, itâs also important to consider the interests of others in our community. I do not believe there are that many areas of our government that are harming our community by being codified into law, and I do not believe that appealing to some interests but not others out of ânecessityâ is conducive to the health and activity of our community.
I am not going to stand here and let you paint the image that I am somehow seeking the prevent others from participating in the areas of their interest.
You are correct that this is a constitutional convention, and as such I have every right to draft and propose the laws that I want according to my view of what is best for the region and what is most fun for myself. There are nearly two dozen other participants, yourself included, who can also draft their own laws according to what they think is best for the region.
I respect that not everyone has the time or the inclination to draft laws, but that does not mean that my own drafts must be adjusted to fit othersâ needs to the point that they lose their essence. There is compromise, and then there is being treated as if I was the official drafter of this convention. I am not.
If you think there are laws missing in this proposed omnibus, then propose them. If there is grounds for collaboration then I am most happy to collaborate, but I will not have my motives questioned, nor this work treated as if I owed the Great Council a product that all find agreeable, when I owe them nothing beyond my own good faith participation, which I have given in droves.
Iâm not introducing a bill I donât personally agree with.
After a single candidate for Prime Minister, a single candidate for Minister of Culture, three candidates for Minister of Foreign Affairs, and two candidates for Minister of Engagement, with no candidates for Minister of Defense, as well as two OWL Directors that have both resigned, I believe itâs safe to say that thereâs a very small number of people that want to get involved in our government weâve established.
I agree. Kringle and I did. This is our idea. If you have different ideas, nobody is stopping you from bringing them up.
Where are we restricting the ability of others to participate?
Who are you considering âothersâ? Great Council participants who havenât posted in this thread? Legislators that arenât Great Council participants (but can still post in this subforum)?