Retreat to privacy cancelled
Two weeks ago I was looking forward to a placid term that I decided to spend building useless polyhedrons stuffed with absurd scripts for amusement only, interrupted by some volunteering for our execs here and there.
Unanimously deterred from self-government?
Now I find myself at the threshold of the Representative Assembly for the first time, to be charged with legislation by acclamation instead of popular vote along with Ranma Tardis, Moonrise Azalee and Shep Titian, which means we will be able to cast a 2/3 majority vote right away when the 18th term starts. A 5th member might be brought on by means of by-elections. It could be worse, nevertheless it is unsatisfactory in several aspects. Participation is down, the election, our most important source of governmental legitimation, will be canceled for lack of eligibility. Chancellor election: the same situation. What is going wrong? What has to be changed to make you run for office next time? Moonrise Azalee has already delivered some useful answers: the work at the Assembly tends to be overly time consuming and exhausting. There is a handle to control that to a certain degree: the rules of procedure. I want to work on it with my fellow reps to get us on our feet and walking and change the job back to something less deterring.
Natural born political animal
Along with the Constitution and the Code of Law I am reading a book of political science atm: On Souvereignty of the People, Elements of a Theory of Democracy by Ingeborg Maus, Suhrkamp 2011. I will try to derive some guidance from it during the term. I am having half a mind to summarize, translate and discuss it in public. This is not one of the famous founding documents I would like to finally see a complete link collection of. It is something new and I put some hope into the concept. Is it really new, or is it another view at the very same star Ulrika targeted when she set sail?
I need your input to represent you!
I want to represent a certain sector of the citizenry. This is the duty which essentially defines the job at the legislative body of our government. If I do not get to be chosen from competing positions by popular vote: sad, but I can't help it. Nevertheless I will scetch the outlines of my position and invite you to introduce your interests into legislative proposals suitable to find a majority at the Assembly - preferably in open public chat. My worst political mistake ever: to agree to nonpublic faction meetings of the CSDF to preclude interference. Since my faction is inactive I am going to practice that style of conversation ad hoc. I am not aiming at clientelism, but issues of public interest. I will be available inworld almost every sunday at noon SLT, starting on 12-11-04. Meet me at my home in Colonia Nova.
Additionally I will support a less formal style of RA session procedures and a higher meeting frequency as suggested by Shep Titian not least to lower the threshold for ordinary citizens to attend and have their say.
Less top-down, more bottom-up: tolerance, trust, empowerment, traffic
I am very tolerant towards minority lifestyles, being a proud sissy myself, but of course I want my limits respected like everyone else. It is just, if we rule the sims to death, calling a paintball gun a weapon instead of a toy, we strangle all traffic and bottom-top activity on our territory because the people happily teleport away after a solemn political discussion to have their fun somewhere else. I know some forum wizards do not give a damn and I respect that, but I want to have fun at home in my homeland wearing my true ID! I want the people drag their friends in and feel free to play their harmless temporary games. Temperance is always a question of context, be it the Catholic Early Mass or Christopher Street Day Procession. Nothing would promote the CDS better but a climate of liberalism and trust that encourages the citzens to run their own events. Such needs certain permissions. Buttons to our trustworthy and able people! I want to work on a law requesting executive regulations that clearly define criteria of granting and revoking access to advanced functions of our environment and will explore the possibilities to implement a list of tangible citizen rights - but this is not my first priority.
Let's get real!
I see the executive working hard to populate, administer and develop our territories. This work has to be recognized, reviewed, discussed and finally approved in a constructive climate. From my personal experience I know that the executives need democratic legitimation and clear rulesets as a framework for their daily decisions and effective work. The Chancellor rules by regulation. Those regulations must be in compliance with our laws. But the laws must be in compliance with reality to make a real impact! The reality is: we access an artificial audiovisual environment which provides a collaborative 3d modeling and programming software combined with a social network service to share, design and rule our collectively owned server space as a membership based society. This is the reality the executive has to deal with and the perspective from which I evaluate its actions.
Monitoring the Exec
Therefore I will try to keep track of the executive actions and listen to those who do the donkey work to find out what can be done to help solve their practical problems to the best of our community.
Furthermore I would like to foster volunteer executive work to spread the burden as well as the know how.
Although I am all for separation of powers I request we do not prevent citizens already in office at other governmental branches to volunteer for executive tasks as long as their decisions are approved by the chancellor *before* the fact. The chancellor is the one who has to answer for all executive actions, a volunteer himself who deserves our support.
Locus Amoenus Redesign
There is a test situation coming up for this point of view if the citizenry decides to ask for redesign of Locus Amoenus next term. The RA will need to find a modus to deal with the Artisans Guild in this case. What about authorizing the Chancellor to engage the AG for the design work? I am looking forward to this discussion, and I am standing for changing the theme of LA to mediterranean.
Adding a new check to governmental actions?
On the other hand I see all the power of estate management concentrated at the executive branch. This needs to be balanced to prevent despotism. The Assembly can set a frame for exec regulations by passing laws which should ideally adress a potentially unlimited number of cases within its scope. But if the RA feels the executive has overstepped its delegated power in a single case and refuses to review that single decision it makes no sense to toughen the law to enforce its intented effect, because there is no retrograde legislation. To remove the chancellor from office will most likely be overdone and to use this last resort option as a threat is everything else but clever.
Therefore I welcome a piece of legislation which is part of the SC reform project stuck in the pipeline at the moment: to set up the SC as a court of appeals for citizens versus government, be it executive decisions or ignorance by the Representative Assembly.
Let me be clear about that: the arguments of Aliasi Stonebender along with a superficial knowledge of CDS history have finally convinced me to leave the resolution of private conflicts between citizens to them and offer no service as long as the government is no party to that conflict. It is citizen vs. government only, and I am still open to discussion - do we really need that? I think yes. Does this endanger our freedom? To the contrary, I would say. But talk to me, tell me your arguments, make me change my mind!
Work on the Code of Law
I stand for amending CDSL 17-01, adding a preamble to the Citizen Notification Act to improve its intelligibility.
I stand for repealing NL 5-20 which tries to set up arbitration as an alternative to trials because this never worked. Arbitration is a good concept, but it should not be forced on any governmental branch to perform it.
I stand for repealing NL 5-16 (Soothsayer Rules) which defines a complaint and trial procedure using the excessive exchange of notecards. This does obviously not work. We have other procedures that work with SC, like "meet as a group, consider the issues, hear testimony, agree actions" (Pat).
I stand for finishing what NL 5-19 requires: to develop a model for the judiciary functions i. e. set up the SC as a court of appeals for citizens versus government and repeal that law as soon as done. Of course we would have to pass another law that covers all details and loopholes of the judiciary function of the SC.
Amend the Constitution Art III?
We do not need to change the constitution all the time to make "something happen". The CDS is not a political sandbox, it is a successful and stable project of enpowerment and participation, and it is designed as a representative democacy with checks and balances, working like this since almost 17 legislative periods. I do not want to change this outlines, I want to see the formal mechanisms optimized and used according to the needs and requirements of the population.
Therefore I want to work with the Scientific Council on the constitutional texts according to their well understood intentions and resolve as much legislative inconsistency within the code of law as possible.
The SC reform remained incomplete, CDSL 16-07 is in place, the corresponding constitutional amendment still missing. We should do our best to get that finally done. The relevant forums threads: http://forums.slcds.info/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=3155 and http://forums.slcds.info/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=3850
I think we can convince almost everyone that limited and reasonable constitutional changes which serve the mentioned purposes are generally agreeable. That remains to be proved. Such an extensive change of the constitutional text needs a broad consent, possibly we should legitimate it via a referendum after thorough discussion.
The ultimate source of legitimation
Anyway I will not give away the fundamental principle of souvereignty of the people. You may want to declare the constitution itself souvereign and defend it against further changes. Or you accept that the people agree to give themselves a constitution and *keep* the role to be the ultimate source of legitimation. I wholeheartedly commit myself to the UDHR. I accept the Linden Rules on the grounds of reason. And I understand the constitution needs to be consistent as a whole to be fully operational. Furthermore I deeply respect all the work that has been done here since the days of the founders. This are the arguments I will accept and consider when the Scientific Council rejects a constitutional amendment. Mind, I tend to agree if further discussion is demanded, the more because I will be new to the RA with decreased democratical legitimation.
But I will not accept a veto with the rationale the amendment being "unconstitutional". If an amendment does not contradict a specific part of the constitution, how can it be an amendment? This is Pat's argument, just logic, and I agree to it. (http://forums.slcds.info/viewtopic.php? ... 850#p19903) After stating this, the Dean asked him to trust. I would like to turn that around: You, members of the Scientific Council, trust your people just as they trust you, letting you be a self elected meritocracy! The sources named in the constitution have a special hierarchical structure. What is the status of the undefined "founding documents"? If we err and fail, we fail all together. You are not the only ones trying to prevent that.
Bound to the better choice
And you know, I am confident. When I joined SL back in 2007, I was fed up quite soon. I entered "democracy" in search and found a wiki entry written by Gwyn. It described an autopoietic political system centered around the idea of self-government. It would not depend on the presence of certain people but on the attraction of this idea put into practice. This is almost proven. Let me share a secret. I saved a RL working council from going down last year. I would not have known how to accomplish that without my CDS experience. Yes, really! There was nothing to lose any more. So I acted as if it was CDS. And it worked. Where I stand and go, there is CDS. If we go down, we will raise again from the ashes. Yes, I am confident.
"A bas, what do you know, where have you been when the merger failed for exampel?" Well, what do you know, where I have been and to which birds I listened? I am ICD-10 F 25.8 - just in case you are looking for a reason to impeach me as soon as possible. Go ahead, I will happily return to my polyhedrons and leave it to you to compare CDS Const. Art. III actual/proposed sentence by sentence!
I hope this is enough to give you an idea who I am, what I am going to do and what I am standing for. Even more, you can take my word and make me accountable. An unrivaled campaign has no other point. Feedback welcome. Thanks for your support. See you sunday noon at CN?
Tanoujin Milestone
