Legislation re Factions

[Tanoujin Milestone]

Dear fellow Citizens, turns out I am conservative when it comes to changes to the constitution. I would be grateful if you would take the time to explain to me what you want to change re Constitution Art. IV and give your reasons for that changes. I strongly recommend to avoid trashing the whole thing out of diffuse gut feelings and enter a time consuming episode of reinventing the wheel! Instead it would make most sense to analyze the possible weaknesses of the current constitutional regulations and make specific, limited changes to improve realism and feasability. Thank you!

Article IV – Factions

Section 1 – Requirements

Citizens, including RA members and candidates, may choose to organize and identify themselves with a specific CDS political faction. All factions must provide platforms which state their general philosophy and list of goals for the current and next term. Factions exist to promote the discussion of issues. Faction platforms cannot violate or seek to violate the Constitution. Constitutional amendments may be advocated.

Section 2 – The Faction Body

All faction members must be citizens of CDS, and their membership in the faction must be evidenced by joining a special Second Life group created for that purpose . No citizen is required to be part of a faction. No citizen can be a member of more than one faction at the same time. A faction who meets these requirements and notifies the Dean of the SC will be granted its own designated Forum, or similar official discussion area for posting comments, in the CDS official website for community and government communications.

Section 3 – The Faction Leader

Factions are lead by the faction leader (SL group officer) who vouches for all members in public proceedings and is responsible for their proper ethical conduct. Faction leaders are selected by the members of a faction and notified to the Dean of the SC.

Section 4 – Campaigning

Campaigning for election in CDS can be done in-world only by means of unscripted items or simple notecard givers that are placed in traditional, predetermined central CDS locations, or by discourse between two avatars directly. No spamming of any kind is allowed, including the dropping of items on avatars without permission, sending messages by Second Life group IM (other than one’s own faction group), or by shouting messages to large groups. Only two emails are allowed in a given election by any faction or representative of a faction.

[Lilith Ivory]

Hi Tan

Looks like I am as conservative (or in my case call it sentimental) as in the beginning of the constitution revision I was fighting to keep Article IV - Factions in place.

You can find the whole discussion about proposed revised constitution here:
https://forums.slcds.info/viewtopic.php?t=9954

And I would also suggest to follow the link at the bottom of this thread as it is pretty interesting to read
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1lQ2 ... rXVLE/edit

In the meantime I got convinced that Article IV does not really belong in the constitution any longer since faction membership is not obligatory anymore when running for an office and factions have lost their importance for our community.

Here is the official suggestion from the SC regarding factions to the RA:

To: Almut Brunswick, LRA
cc: Jerry McNally, RA Archivist

The Citizens Social Democratic Faction (CDSF) is reactivating and again posting to the Forum. While Factions are no longer part of the CDS Government, they are still in the Constitution, Article IV. If they are to be nongovernmental groups they probably do not need such defined requirements in the Constitution. It is the suggestion of the SC that the RA review Article IV and those current requirements. We know that there is a google doc about the Constitution open for review right now. We also expect that most CDS citizens will not open that doc. Since Factions can be an important part of civil life, we would like to see the RA discuss this in one of their open meetings.

While it is entirely up to the RA what to propose, we are sending you some ideas to consideration.

"Citizens are free to form factions to discuss and support specific political viewpoints and activity, however all candidates run for office as individuals. No citizen, and no candidate, is required to belong to a faction. All candidates should declare their membership in a faction, for transparency, and so that citizens can research their stance on issues. To assist in this, the Forums will open a discussion section for any faction of three or more citizens"

Delia Lake, Dean of the SC

Also there are voices to turn Article IV into a law instead of leaving it in the constitution.

All that works fine with me
… and in the worst case I will carve Article IV into a stone and hang it somewhere as a historic monument so the roots of CDS don’t get forgotten

Cheers
Lilith

[Tanoujin Milestone]

Thank you, Lilith! I think the alternative draft of Art. IV regulating NGOs is a good proposal. Factions can be subbed under NGOs.
I did some RL research. Swizerland regulates political parties as associations and nothing else. That minimalistic approach seems acceptable imho.

[Tor Karlsvalt]

This topic always mystifies me. In a small group like CDS, i can’t see the need for political facthions.

In my view factions only further divide us. Where support or opposition for a measure would normally grow based on merits, with factions people would first look to their faction for guidance and policy approval. Side arguments would first occur in the faction to decide on support. A needless complication and one that sidelines nonmembers out of the discussion while we wait for the faction to decide on its position.

On the other hand, factions become a bit of a joke when the few active members issue grand platforms that the rank and file members don’t read or don’t support. This commonly happens in the US. The true believers insert stuff in platforms that candidates run from or face defeat. The GOP 2016 platform on not providing weapons to Ukraine comes to mind. But abortion rights has been in this category for years.

In my view, govenment has no business regulating a faction. Government has a role in ensuring that elections are run fairly. For us, that is the role of the unelected and politically isolated SC.

For small entities, factions aren’t even progressive. Good goverment activists in the US often see parisan politcs as hurtfull. Local elections in some cities and villages have nonpartisan elections for the town council and other positions. Madison, WI is an example. For sure, even in Chicago, school council elections are non partisan.

CDS doesn’t have the class, economic or social issues that might give rise to factions. Let’s face it, we are all pretty much of the same ilk in SL. RL viewponts might differ, but in SL we are pretty much educated middle class. Even our RL politcs seems to fairly close on most things. RL income may varry, but CDS rightfully levels us. So what will factions accomplish? Help the homeless? Ha! CDS demands one not be homeless! Free choice? Well you go buy a baby on the MP!

I remember expansion was an issue factions focused upon. Complicated laws were put on books and some persons were misty eyed over master plans of a CDS with 50 sims. The 2009 plan seems so naive in retrosoect. SL was already in decline.

Without factions we have made great strides. We rebuillt and updated most of NFS, CN, AM, MON, and LA. Except for the general topography, everything you see in CDS is achieved without factions. Indeed, we achieved the addition of a new region. How would factions have improved upon our achiements?

Finnally, factions seem to be a bit too much RP. Perhaps an attraction for some, but also something dreaded by many.

So I hold if people want a faction, then they can form one. However, the SL experience seems to make them unnecessary. And indeed factions seem to need access to our instiutions in order to run, as in access to the CDS funded forum. I ask you all, why should all CDS citizens allow groups access to their tier funded forum? Perhaps access for groups they do not support. Perhaps there should be a fee structure for factions.

[Lilith Ivory]

Dear Mr Chancellor

Of course it is your right not to like factions and not wanting to join one.

As I said before I believe that an active faction can help to bring the political culture of CDS, and our community in general, back to live. After all we are not a home owner association but a democracy.

I honestly don’t understand why it is ok to be part of a women only knitting circle or a book club while factions are seen by some as a bugbear. No one wants to make them obligatory again.

Is it really this difficult to let a group of politically interested citizens have some fun meetings?

Oh and by the way: It might have slipped your attention that the CDS forum is NOT funded by the CDS citizens or the government but hosted for free by one of our citizens on her private server space.

[Tor Karlsvalt]

Hi Lilith,

Thanks for the correction on the funding of server. That is good news. I didn't realize that after all these years I needed a faction to feel alive and involved in CDS politics. But perhaps I am corrected there too. The dozen odd folks that stand for election for RA, Chancellor, or sever on the LUC or SC must be the walking dead.

Tor

[Sylvia Tamalyn]

It is a curious thing to me to see people who have no interest in being in a faction argue so hard against them being an option for those who do want one. I have no interest in book clubs, but I am not going to say there shouldn't be any of those.

If we wanted to secretly overthrow the government or whatever is being implied, we'd hardly be yapping about it openly on the forums as we have been doing! I am seriously bemused by the objections.

[Tor Karlsvalt]

Did I say factions shouldn't be allowed? I didn't. They have always been allowed. I just don't think they offer CDS very much as outlined in my post below. If a few citizens, who have been absent from politics these past several years, feel a faction is the vehicle they need to ride back into politics, I think that is great.

It is going to be fun to watch them slate candidates for RA and Chancellor. Presumably, prospective candidates seeking the party endorsement will need to win the party nomination. And presumably faction leaders will recruit candidates. As in the past, some faction leaders will need to seek members from new residents. Running a viable political party is a lot of work. And even more meetings. I suppose these will have to be mostly on the weekend in the middle of the day. I'll be out riding my bicycle.

[Tanoujin Milestone]

Hey Tor, I have watched the US becoming divided over that two party system there - I attended an online course about democracy some months ago and learned the Reps and Dems work as umbrella organizations. That helped me to understand what is going on a bit. I will spare you my personal analysis of the Reps loosing their minds and going centrifugal, knowing you are in the middle of that „fun“ you did not ask for. I just want to remind you that the encounter in a parliamentary multi-party system is technically very different. Though in both systems the potential of protest went to the far right wing, leaving us liberal-lefties in a desparate situation.
Be assured, I do not want these escalations we experience in RL in our little artsy-fartsy land holding co-operative existing by the mercy of the Lindens… looking at RL like the rabbit at the serpent makes us all forget that constructive exchange between people with slightly different positions on the ground of a shared consent can enrich our lifes, no matter whether first, second or third. tc

[Jerry McNally]

Would just like to say that I'm in favour of book clubs as well as bike riding, though this one in SL is a real pain in the arse to steer.

[Kyoko]

As long as factions are discussion groups and NGOs I’m cool. In that role generating legislative submissions could be very interesting and useful.

The web hosting fees showed on this budget need parsing. Obviously they cover cdsdemocracy.org, For the forums what do they cover. We are using Gwyn’s server. But Who pays for software and updates and the actual internet connection cost?

[Sudane Erato]

The web hosting fees showed on this budget need parsing.

The CDS treasury pays for the actual web hosting fees for the CDS website... not the forums... and the domain registration fee for our name, cdsdemocracy.org. That's ALL that we pay for. Any other costs that may exist are donated by citizens.

Sudane.................

[Kyoko]

Thanks for the clarification

[Tor Karlsvalt]

Tan, I agree. In our society, more akin to a condo association than an RL county, the type of partisanship we see in RL has no place in SL.