Michel writes
[quote:2orgdsnc]The notion that a community should be self-governed in accordance with democratic principles is at the very root of the CDS experiment in SecondLife. From this starting point, the "founding avies" of our community made a number of assumptions, derived from their RL experience:
1. we are creating a "territorially defined, sovereign nation-state";
2. "popular sovereignty" must be vested in "all citizens";
3. since "all citizens" cannot all "govern", we require a "system of representative democracy";
4. "strong political parties" are the optimum way to implement and conduct a "system of representative democracy".
5. "charismatic leadership" is inherently undesirable - therefore individual personalities should, to the extent possible, be excluded from the political process. This implies a weak executive and a focus on political parties rather than individual legislators -both during elections and during the sessions of the RA.
6. each branch of government must be "restrained" by others in its exercise of power- in effect, a real and effective system of checks and balances must -and does- exist between various branches of government;
7. The "system of representative democracy" thus devised must be easily scaleable: in other words, it should be equally applicable, with minor variations, to a community of 40 just as well as to a community of 4000 and -why not? - one of 400,000 citizens.
The fundamental difference between CARE and all other parties is that the latter believe all the assumptions above are either true, or desirable, or inevitable, or already implemented in practice in CDS. CARE disagrees with all these assumptions either in a) the fact that they are true, desirable, or inevitable; or b) that they actually exist in the current practice of politics in our community.
[/quote:2orgdsnc]
I think this fairly characterizes the debate. It also highlights what is wrong and dangerous about CARE and CARE's agenda.
1. CARE opposes the idea that the CDS is a "territorially defined, sovereign nation-state". I am not sure what part of this is opposed. If it is the territorial definition of our state -- then what purpose does CARE see in our continuing to own and locate our actions on specific sims? If CARE opposes our sovereignty, I have to ask, "what?" If we don't guard our sovereignty, we lose our ability to protect our rights. To whom would we surrender and subordinate ourselves? This challenge to our sovereignty is exactly the kind of thinking that I, in another post, branded as "treasonous," and I intend to propose legislation spelling this out.
2. CARE opposes the notion that "'popular sovereignty' must be vested in 'all citizens'". Again, what? This implies that the ultimate sovereignty of our project does not rest equally with all individuals. That commits CARE either to an elitist project (sovereignty for some, but not for all) or to a total (but equal) surrender of all sovereignty. (Treason again.)
3. CARE opposes the notion that "since 'all citizens' cannot all 'govern', we require a 'system of representative democracy'." I think that the arguments in favor of representative democracy are not limited to the observation that direct democracy of all citizens is not practical. In fact, not all citizens want to govern -- even if all citizens could. However, what is critical is that all citizens have ultimate decisionmaking power in the government -- which is guaranteed by regular popular election of government officials. However, given CARE's expressed opposition to the notion of CDS sovereignty in itself and in its citizens -- I can only interpret CARE's objection to representative democracy to be an objection to democracy. The logic of CARE's position is not valid otherwise.
4. CARE opposes the notion that "'strong political parties' are the optimum way to implement and conduct a 'system of representative democracy'." Again, the theory is not quite so simple. First, if the choice is between strong political parties and political strongmen -- then I think the parties other than CARE do agree that democracy is more workable and safer when parties are strong and politicians are relatively weak and secondary. That is, democracy works best when there is no rising demagogue trying to create a personality cult. Further, given the reality of our current situation -- SL and the CDS cannot be the focus of any of our lives (we need to eat iRL) -- we have to recognize that individuals come and go. It is ideas that endure -- and they best endure when there is some medium that supports them. CDS factions are such a medium.
5. CARE denies that "'charismatic leadership' is inherently undesirable - therefore individual personalities should, to the extent possible, be excluded from the political process. This implies a weak executive and a focus on political parties rather than individual legislators -both during elections and during the sessions of the RA." Again, CARE wants us to have a politics of strongmen (or a strongman), not a politics of ideas represented and continued through the medium of political associations of likeminded individuals (parties). There is little surprise in finding that the parties other than CARE disagree with this position -- and find it more autocratic than democratic. It is.
6. CARE objects to balance of power, opposing the idea that "each branch of government must be 'restrained' by others in its exercise of power- in effect, a real and effective system of checks and balances must -and does- exist between various branches of government." This is not surprising, given the autocratic commitment of CARE. Of course CARE does not want to see the power of offices restrained. CARE wants the power of offices held by CARE members (or, more accurately, by Michel Manen) to be unrestrained -- and to restrain all offices (including NGO offices) held by people or parties opposed to CARE and Michel Manen.
7. CARE opposes the idea that "The 'system of representative democracy' thus devised must be easily scaleable: in other words, it should be equally applicable, with minor variations, to a community of 40 just as well as to a community of 4000 and -why not? - one of 400,000 citizens." This might be a practical objection -- a belief that the system is not scalable. If so, why not? I see good reason to believe that representative democracy is scalable; that direct democracy is not scalable; and that autocracy is scalable only at great loss to the individual and individual rights.
Again -- I expect that most CARE members do not share Michel's position on these issues (or, at least, would not share those ideas if they thought them through). However, I note that Michel continues to speak for CARE -- that he does so on the CARE site and not on these forums makes not a bit of difference.
Beathan
Let's keep things simple enough to be fair, substantive enough to be effective, and insightful enough to be good.
I'm all for us thinking about these things but I don't anticipate I'll have much time to in the next six months!
