It’s better this way. I will admit, I was slightly skeptical in the beginning, but now I see. I have, in fact, come around. I understand the concern about proscriptions but I always thought those were stupid. If someone wants to come to our region, let them, and if anyone cares enough we can charge them with treason to get them out.
My only concerns with this resolution are the question of the Chair of the Assembly and the lack of a criminal code. I know the point is to get rid of defining the Chair, but I would appreciate some kind of code specifying who will open votes or whatever. I’m sure we could just have the EC do this, but it would be nice to have a different person in charge of that.
Also, it seems there is no criminal code. This is probably an issue. We could just carry over the old once since we don’t really have anything to add. Not a big issue, just something I was thinking about.
Kris, I’m not sure why you feel I was attacking your personal motives, but I can assure you that was not my intention. It feels to me (do correct me if I’m wrong here) like some of my arguments in my previous post were interpreted as ad hominem attacks, and I do apologize for that. I do not feel that anybody here is participating in bad faith, and my arguments were not directed toward any particular participant(s) — my use of a second-person point of view at times was nothing more than a rhetorical choice.
I’m not suggesting that you are seeking to prevent anybody from participating in anything. I am suggesting that this proposal will have the effect of deterring participation in areas not referenced in legislation.
I have every right to debate and criticize the laws that I want according to my view of what is best for the region and what is most fun for myself.
I’m honestly not sure how I gave you this impression, but if it helps clarify: for as long as I disagree with a proposal and I find it fun to debate against it, I will. That does not mean you must be the “official drafter of this convention.” You do not have to respond to me. You do not have to compromise. You do not have to win my support.
I’m not supporting a bill I don’t personally agree with.
I don’t disagree with your diagnosis per se — I disagree with the treatment you’re proposing. I believe that we will not find it any easier to convince players to participate by just appealing to fewer interests.
I know! That’s what I’ve been doing in this topic, for instance…?
I don’t know if restriction is the right terminology here. My argument is more that, by codifying some avenues of participation that some of us are interested in, but not codifying other avenues of participation that others are interested in, we discourage participation in those areas.
Under this proposal, if I’m interested in becoming a judge, I’d know the process: I need to be appointed by the Prime Minister and appointed by the Assembly. Once on the Court, I’d be responsible for “the interpretation, reconciliation, and voiding of laws and regulations, and the conduction of criminal proceedings, from indictment to sentencing.”
Meanwhile, if I’m interested in military gameplay, I wouldn’t feel as encouraged to participate. Presumably, I’d first need to join the Assembly and then propose the creation of a regional military. And if the Assembly doesn’t want to process military enlistments, I’d then have to go sign up with whoever’s in charge of that.
Who are the “others” we’d like to see in our community? If we want to get more players interested in something, the way to do that isn’t by saying “our laws don’t mention that at all, so figure it out yourself.” Is that flexible? Sure. Is it simple? I’m not so sure. Is it appealing? I would say no. We can word it in a nicer way, but it doesn’t change our bottom line.
To that end, the Voting Act does provide for a security check process. I’m not in support of wildly accusing people of treason without merit.
The Assembly can provide for its own organization, via both the clause I’ve updated earlier and its inherent power to legislate. Plus, our existing system says that any legislator can open a vote if the Chair doesn’t.
In the absence of a solid replacement draft, I’m alright with that.
Then I’d ask you to propose your own draft or drafts of legislation.
These ideas are not legislation. That was my original intent with that statement, that one’s on me for not clarifying, but nonetheless.
Why would you need to legislate the existence of the military as your first step? I would imagine that the PM (who would be in charge of the military in this draft and in the first Charter the Great Council passed) elected immediately after the adoption of this omnibus would keep the SPSF as an institution, to their detriment at the voting booth otherwise.
This is our largest disagreement and where I doubt we’ll find common ground no matter how long we’re here. To me, there is something appealing about having that blank slate, and working to fill it out.
Frankly, all of this is moot. We do not have the capacity and community interest to maintain all these things and haven’t for well over a year.
And there wasn’t much interest to discuss any of what you’re saying over the past however-many months the Great Council has existed! I think this spurt of rhetoric would be great, if it was actually backed up with a vision and drive to turn it into something concrete. But I think the most likely outcome of not adopting this resolution is that nobody (including you! and me!) actually does anything else anyways.
I’m not advocating for maintaining all these things — I just don’t feel the subset included in this proposal is the most accurate picture of what the capacity and interest currently exists for.
You’re arguing with passion against, but don’t have an alternative or a plan to present one, just the argument that an alternative must exist.
On a side note, it’s weird and wrong to talk about things like roleplay when considering governance. Roleplay has nothing and should never have anything to do with our government, the Charter, laws, etc.
It won’t and that’s not the reason I’d vote for it. Would it be the catalyst for others to kick things into gear? Maybe, and in my opinion that’s enough reason to support it. I think the 10% of legislators who historically actually participate in the Assembly are probably using the fallback of our existing laws as a crutch.
TSP has always been most active legislatively when something actually needs to be done. So it makes sense to me that maybe the best way to promote future Assembly activity is to allow the Assembly to legislate when it’s needed. Wait for a situation to arise where we need a law, then we can write a law. If the GC isn’t leading to the kind of highly engaged convention I originally hoped for, then this is a good alternative as far as I’m concerned.
Okay, I feel like it merits clarifying my position/thoughts on this since I think the introduction of this Omnibus has been produced by some degree of interpersonal animosity and then has further amplified and exacerbated that same animosity. To me, it feels like the assumption of good faith engagement is gone, which is unfortunate, and I’m going to make an effort to return to it despite my own misgivings.
I’m OK to include a “barebones” version of the Charter with some additional content. I don’t see an inherent value of pushing all further debate/discussion on other bills to the post-Great Council Assembly when we have drafts and debate ongoing. We’ve had over 120 posts back and forth about the Defense Act, almost 80 about Regional Security, and almost 40 about voter registration/citizenship procedure. While things aren’t moving fast, I think it’s a misconception that we have no debate or engagement, or that we won’t get something out of these discussions.
We can use the drafts in this Omnibus as the start for that. I’ll offer more specific feedback on those drafts later in this post. What I want to make clear from the start, however, is that I’m strongly opposed to this Omnibus becoming the be-all-end-all of our laws coming out of the Great Council. That would leave us without a military, a procedure for determining our WA vote, options for dealing with infiltration or subversion, an outline of relevant criminal acts or court procedure, and more. I do think that would be a mistake that leaves us scrambling later to create infrastructure that we’re perfectly capable of creating now. Yes, those threads have stagnated for a few weeks and I take responsibility for allowing bills I think are important to stagnate. That isn’t a reason for the Great Council as a collective to abandon the project of drafting individual bills, even if a specific Great Council member is tired of engaging with those conversations. If the purpose of this Omnibus was to light a fire under people’s butts to push those bills forward and finish debating them, then it likely will work.
Now my thoughts on specific provisions of this Omnibus.
I know this was discussed with Griffindor above, but
I think this is a security issue. By mechanics, the legitimately elected Delegate is also the greatest threat to regional security at any given moment. If you give them structuring appointment power over the body tasked with countering a coup, you give them a chance to appoint lackies or appoint no-one at all, allowing SC membership to stagnate. Sure, Assembly approval is a check, but the Delegate can set the narrative or avoid appointment altogether using this power. I think the current system of apply-and-SC-appoint works fine.
I think it is important to outline that something necessary for regional security is that trusted members of the region are identified and hold high endorsements and influence. I’m open to the Security Council either doing this themselves or identifying a future Coral Guard-like entity to do this, but imo it has to be defined as a responsibility otherwise we risk it not actually happening (or not being able to say that it needs to happen).
I’m concerned about giving this authority to the Security Council without also doing something about the activity issues of the Security Council. From my perception, Kris, Glen, and sometimes Jay are the only active members of the Council, and really only Kris is active on the level of being able to process daily legislator applications and Glen and Jay are the ones “tuned in” to potential security issues. I don’t necessarily hate the system which puts all the security related powers in one set of hands, for simplicity sake, but I am concerned about the system which puts all security-related powers in the hands of a body that, when criticized in the past, is honest about its persistent activity issues and the fact it isn’t generally following interregional politics, and thus potential infiltration threats.
I think this needs to be a little more fleshed out. How long is the second round of Delegate voting?
I just wanted to highlight that I like the 3 month terms.
I am concerned this proposal gives the Delegate too much power by giving them appointment over the head of government. In my mind, the role should be as apolitical as possible. I think a better solution would be to that if a PM needs to be elected with less than half the term remaining, the PM election that results supplants the next scheduled PM election, and the elected PM serves a longer term.
This is changed from “the SC will appoint its own members, subject to approval”, but I will adjust it. Stay tuned for possible wording shifts as necessary.
One could probably successfully argue the point that “oversight of regional security” includes creating a body of trusted high endorsement nations, but I do see the point in specifically defining it.
Our reasoning for this was that this body is LegComm’s successor, and moving its authority over to the Security Council (as well as defining it in the event that we don’t have enough ‘LegComm’ members to handle, the SC can just step in and handle some of that workload too. I don’t have an answer with regards to the activity issues of the Security Council. The few ideas I have are likely not particularly great ideas, but I hope we could have a broader discussion about this outside of this specific charter, as well, since one intent is to avoid having to make Charter amendments where feasible in the future.
I will edit it to read “first round of three days . . . second round of three days”. I agree it is a little unclear, at the moment, but by default the voting period in elections is three days, as defined in the act.
I agree with this, and will adjust accordingly.
I am not opposed to it either, and indeed that was part of my motivation in trying to write a barebones charter, so that additional acts (whether adopted in the Great Council or later by the Assembly) have a greater degree of freedom with which to address issues. To that end. . .
Based on the votes about a PM-led and General Corps-led SPSF, this might not be a winning ticket item, but I firmly believe the military has no part in working independent of the executive, in that the PM should be able to define the structure of the military, much as they can define the structures of the other ministries as they feel. This draft was written in such a way that the PM had total control over the military, much like other aspects of the executive, unless the Assembly wanted to define it more in a subsequent law. I’m not opposed to adopting such an act, but I cannot supporting detaching it nearly entirely from executive control.
I will add your recommendation, although I will admit that determining the WA vote was not a big priority, and something I figured the Delegate would defer to the PM for anyways on.
This would be left up to the Security Council to handle, as these issues are under the purview of regional security, but, we can include a small act concerning proscriptions.
Court procedure would fall under the Court’s ability to provide its own regulations, unless the Assembly legislates otherwise, but criminal acts is a valid criticism.
Wrapping up, I am curious what your thoughts are concerning the KWB omnibus.
Have asked the CRS → SC if they want the additional undertaking of day-to-day tasks. I would wager that the majority do not enjoy the idea of doing the added job.
To be fair, that’s why there is a provision where they can nominate people to assist in those functions. The point of having the Security Council be ultimately responsible is not to give them the day-to-day duties, but to:
Ensure that they can step in in case someone who could endanger the region is trying to join and is somehow at risk of being admitted.
Ensure that there is a temporary fallback in case this LegComm successor is unexpectedly busy and applications are piling up.
