Proposal for Establishment of CDS Constitution Act

[Ashcroft Burnham]

[quote="Gxeremio Dimsum":ulgycmis]1) Because, under my proposal, they do not have to own land or pay land fees to confidently do business with other citizens of the CDS.[/quote:ulgycmis]

I think that you must have quoted me before I edited the post: I have now addressed this issue at length above. Sorry for editing after you replied.

[quote:ulgycmis]2) Because, under my proposal, they have representatives in the Legislature whose constituency is composed entirely of at-large citizens.[/quote:ulgycmis]

Why is that better than land-owning citizens each having a vote in a legislature that represents all?

[quote:ulgycmis]3) Because, under your proposal, they would be handing something over (their land), while under mine they do not.[/quote:ulgycmis]

I explain above (in the part that you might not have seen because my edit crossed with your reply) why this is a bad, and not a good, thing.

[quote:ulgycmis]I do intend to answer those questions in detail this afternoon. I have been snatching moments here at work to deal with shorter topics.[/quote:ulgycmis]

You will answer them at some point, though, will you? They are important questions.

[quote:ulgycmis]Actually, Ashcroft, here's another way to look at it: we have a local government that you would like to make a national government. [/quote:ulgycmis]

Why do you see the government of the CDS as it stands now as peculiarly local? What is the CDS but a nation? Why do you see it that way?

[quote:ulgycmis]There is no provision for local governments in your plan.[/quote:ulgycmis]

How many times do I have to tell you that I am in favour of local governments? See [url=http://forums.neufreistadt.info/viewtop ... 1:ulgycmis]here[/url:ulgycmis] for a detailed explanation. That model [i:ulgycmis]does[/i:ulgycmis] allow for local governments. Furthermore, there are powerful people in government (membesr of the DPU) who are in favour of it. The current opposition party, the CSDF, is not in favour of it, preferring a unitary body with local representatives on the existing RA, but it is not in favour of your idea either.

You propose making a new national government and having the institutions of what is presently the CDS as merely a local government. The proposal that I set out in the thread linked above is retaining the existing institutions as the national government, and creating new local governments (perhaps with a structure similar to that suggested by Rudy). Why do you favour the former over the latter? What benefits do you think that it has?

[quote:ulgycmis]What unique rights would Nstadt keep in the CDS, if any? What if tomorrow, 40 sims became franchulates and then sought to change everything about Nstadt? What is gained by that?[/quote:ulgycmis]

I do not follow - what is this idea of "unique rights" of Neufreistadt? What do you mean by that? The issue that you addressed above has already been considered. Applicants for franchulate status will be screened, and we will not allow too many people to enfranchulate at once. Furthermore, new citizens will have to wait 28 days before they can vote, to help to prevent election rigging by deluge of citizens. Additionally, the people in the 40 new franchulates would have to get themselves elected to government before they could do anything, and, to do that, would have to wait until the next general elections, which are in Janury. In any event, I do not see how the position is any better under your system than it is under the existing one, especially given that your system does not build in the safeguards that I outline above.

[quote:ulgycmis]I have repeatedly specified example of autonomy that are not under your system: the ability to choose how reps to the national govt will be elected and when[/quote:ulgycmis]

What is the advantage of this? Why should the means of selecting members of a [i:ulgycmis]national[/i:ulgycmis] legislature be decided at a [i:ulgycmis]local[/i:ulgycmis] level?

In any event, although this is not part of what I propose in the thread above, because I do not agree that that is the right way of going about selecting representatives for an inherently [i:ulgycmis]national[/i:ulgycmis] assembly, there is no reason why we would have to adopt a wholly different constitution for the CDS, such as you propose, in order to acheive this: it could be done by adapting our existing constitution.

Indeed, the DPU have a policy of creating, when we get larger, a second legislative chamber called the Senate, whose representatives will be drawn from the regions. That system could well give local governments the power to decide the mechanism by which a representative for the sentate is elected (no dobut, with some oversight from national government, to ensure that the process, whatever it is, is fair and democratic).

[quote:ulgycmis]the ability to set unique land fees and raise taxes locally[/quote:ulgycmis]

This would be possible under the local government model that I suggest, albeit within some boundaries set by the central government: after all, enforcement is impossible unless the estate owner is of the central, rather than the local, government, and fees cannot be set by the localities so low as to bankrupt the EO.

[quote:ulgycmis]to choose the requirements for citizenship in the sim[/quote:ulgycmis]

If you mean restricting who may join based on group-specific criteria, that is already possible under the model of local government that I proposed in the thread above: indeed, permitting this was one of the most important reasons that I went about proposing the model that I did, and it is one of its most important functions.

[quote:ulgycmis]and to create additional local laws and systems to carry them out (courts, executive, etc.).[/quote:ulgycmis]

The creation of bylaws is again somthing that is possible under the model of local government that I set out in the thread above, and is another one of the important features of it.

I do not, however, see the advantage of a distinctly local court system: the number of people involved will be so tiny in the early years that it would be absurd to have different [i:ulgycmis]sorts[/i:ulgycmis] of courts, coming under quite different administrations, with quite different rules in each locality. Just imagine how difficult that that would make it for people trying to learn how our court system works, if a nation of, say, 200 people had four or five quite distinct systems of courts! I fail to see what that could possibly achieve.

[i:ulgycmis]However[/i:ulgycmis], the Judiciary Act allows for two levels of Courts of Common Jurisdiction: superior courts, and inferior courts. There will likely only ever be one superior court, the High Court of Common Jurisdiction. Inferior courts, however, could well be made to be specifically local, such as the "Neufreistadt Court of Common Jurisdiction" or the "Esperantoj Court of Common Jurisdiction". They would all be administered by the Judiciary Commisison (that is as independent of national goverment as it is of local government), and enforce the same laws and procedures, but the court building itself may well be paid for by local funds (and the style decided by the local government), and rules of procedure should require that cases concerning bylaws be dealt with only in the local court of the area in which the bylaws apply (if there is one), or in the High Court (if the case is suitable for the High Court).

[Ashcroft Burnham]

[quote="Gxeremio Dimsum":br02f79u]No. Individual member governments would hold their own estates. Enforcement works via bonds of citizenship and good faith among member states, as well as a procedure for terminating involvement in the CDS. It is hard to imagine a situation under this proposal in which the CDS would be left without recourse in a bad situation.[/quote:br02f79u]

This is most unsatisfactory. The only way in which the national government can possibly have any real power is if it has the practical capability, ultimately, to take people's land away. Without that capability, it is utterly worthless. I have already given reasons why bonds are wholly ineffective means of enforcement. How does what you suggest deal with rogue local governments? Throwing them out of the CDS will hardly suffice: what punishment is that if they do not like us in any event because we are stopping them from doing wrong? What protection does that provide local citizens? How can judgments of national courts be enforced against local governments? This is quite unworkable.

[quote:br02f79u]I do not intend to weaken the judicial system.[/quote:br02f79u]

Whether you intended it or not, that would be the effect.

[quote:br02f79u]The elements that have been worked out are admirable. My hope is that the Legislature would make adoption of such legislation one of their first actions.[/quote:br02f79u]

For the judiciary to function properly, there needs to be a great deal that is part of the constitution, and therefore has the special protection of entrenchment and superiority over legislation that does not have the requisite supermajority.

[quote:br02f79u]In all likelihood, the legislation that has made it through the months of discussion here would be their starting point.[/quote:br02f79u]

This is all quite bizarre: why not, then, just use the constitution that we already have if that is the case?

[quote:br02f79u]The point is to make sure that the national government is the one doing the setting up of such a system, and not a local government.[/quote:br02f79u]

The CDS government [i:br02f79u]is[/i:br02f79u] the national government. It has [i:br02f79u]never been[/i:br02f79u] the government of one part of a wider nation. Why do you repeatedly insist that that is what it is? The government of the CDS is no more a local government than the government of Monaco or the Isle of Man.

[quote:br02f79u]It is not an emergency to suspend the establishment of this system for a few weeks - in fact, the system that was approved two weeks has yet to set up any actual judges, as I understand it.[/quote:br02f79u]

Why on earth would you want to suspend anything? What conceivable good would that do?

[quote="Ashcroft Burnham":br02f79u]The current Constitution of Nstadt says, "The RA sets taxation rate and the city budget. " The proposal for the CDS Constitution says, "The Legislature shall have the power to levy fees..." These may seem similar, but in their practice what it has meant is that the RA sets the taxes for land use, and nothing more. Also, as Fernando has pointed out, it says "city budget."[/quote:br02f79u]

That could easily be amended without adopting the vast change that you propose. Why should it not say "The Representative Assembly shall have the power to determine the budget of the Confederation of Democratic Simulators, and set the rates of any taxes and fees charged for the use of land held under the Confederation of Democratic Simulators"?

[quote="Ashcroft Burnham":br02f79u]The powers of the Judiciary and the Executive are separate and succinctly defined in my proposal.[/quote:br02f79u]

Yet you have the executive appointing judges - the issue of judicial independence has been discussed at inordinate length on the forums - why have you utterly ignored all of that?

[quote:br02f79u] The balance of the system for Nstadt that was passed 2 years has not, in fact, been tested.[/quote:br02f79u]

How can you possibly state that two years of operation is not a test?

[quote:br02f79u]While it seems like a fine system, calling it finely balanced seems premature. And again, I'm not seeking to sweep away anything. I'm trying to help create something useful.[/quote:br02f79u]

What you would be sweeping away is the power of the existing, carefully-crafted institutions to determine the most important parts of the way in which the CDS is governed. What possible good could come of that?

[Gxeremio Dimsum]

[quote="Ashcroft Burnham":2i1sgwnw]Why? In any event, have you already read my detailed critique of using liquid capital as an escrow against enforcement in another thread? I seem to recall you suggesting that the point was only that people had sentimental value in their land, which is certainly not so: whilst that is one reason why money-only escrow is less effective than enforcement against land, there are two other, far more compelling reasons. They are firstly that, if people have already paid a bond, as you call it, they are not able to put that money to any use whilst they are in the CDS. So, as far as they are concerned, they pay a fee to join us, which they might get back one day if they leave on honourable terms. But, actually, leaving on honourable terms is not something very likely: people are likely to want to stay in the CDS indefinitely, if they join us. Few people will think, "I'll join, but only for three months". The purpose of an escrow is to be able to do something against somebody who does wrong that is a substantial and effective [i:2i1sgwnw]punishment[/i:2i1sgwnw]. To do that, one needs to put that person in a far worse position than that in which he or she would have been had he or she not done wrong. A person who is thinking about doing wrong may well (indeed, is likely to) have no intention of leaving the CDS any time soon. So, the punishment of withholding th escrow will be [i:2i1sgwnw]ineffective[/i:2i1sgwnw], as it will not put the person in any worse of a position: if the person stays in the CDS, the CDS keeps the money; if the person does wrong, and loses the escrow, the CDS keeps the money. It makes no difference either way.

Land, conversely, is another thing entirely. Not only do people often have a very real personal attachment to their land, but it can be of considerable economic and social value to them. Although objects can be stored in an inventory, the layout of multiple objects in relation to land cannot, and there is, therefore, a potentially considerable value in the arrangement of objects upon land. That is an ongoing value, one which is being exploited by the citizen during the course of citizensip rather than, as with a bond, only capable of being exploited on leaving. Furthermore, a businessperson owning land is likely to have accumulated a significant amount of business goodwill. The customers will know where the shop is, and go there (and tell their friends to go there, and have their landmarks set to there), rather than anywhere else. If the shop suddenly disappears, or moves, without giving any indication in the place from which it has moved where it has gone, a significant number of customers may go and not come back again. Even if they do come back, it is likley to be after the passage of a significant amount of time during which revenue is lost. Therefore, taking [i:2i1sgwnw]land[/i:2i1sgwnw] away from a person is a far, far more effective punishment than merely not giving a person back money that the person would probably never have considered getting back, and may well have forgotten about entirely. [/quote:2i1sgwnw]

Here is a counterexample:
Joe Fraudman intends to enter into contracts and not meet up to them. He buys the smallest sized plot possible to become a citizen. He defrauds his business partners of L$30,000. Under the land system, his microplot is reposessed, he's out less than L$500. His partners get nothing unless it comes from the treasury of the CDS. Under my proposal, his partners can first of all see how much he is bonded to the CDS and choose not to enter into business with him unless the amount of bonding is satisfactory. When he defrauded them, the amount of his escrow would be repossessed and distributed to the people who were owed money.

Land layout has value for virtual brick and mortar stores, but not for service businesses who can easily obtain office space elsewhere, and not for citizens who just have houses. Taking land away from people is only effective under your example if: (a) they have spent a lot of time in laying out their objects on their land or (b) they have built goodwill with customers on the land. Now take a look around Nstadt. How many citizens fall into these two categories?

By the way, it is possible to take a bunch of objects at once and put them in your inventory, then relocate them. A criminal who wanted to avoid punishment could easily do this before their trial.

[quote="Ashcroft Burnham":2i1sgwnw]A further problem with having many citizens without land is that it substantially reduces the effectiveness of our enforcement. Firstly, how does one tell who is a citizen and who is not? It is easy if all citizens have land: one can just go to their land and see who owns it. With the system that you propose, people would have to go out of world and check a website (assuming that it is kept up-to-date), which fewer would be inclined to do. More importantly, however, if most citizens had land, but not under the CDS jurisdiction, then our aim of creating a distinctly CDS [i:2i1sgwnw]territory[/i:2i1sgwnw] would be defeated. The benefit of a distinctly CDS territory is that there would be an ever-growing area in which people could rely on the fact that, in that area, our laws were enforced. "This is part of the CDS, and these people have to follow the CDS laws, or else they may be banished from here" is a far more powerful thing than "Some of these people claim to be members of some club who will throw them out and not give them their membership fee back if they do something that's against the club rules".

It might very well be the case that it is attractive to prospective citizens that they will enjoy all the advantages, seemingly, of being a member of the CDS, without much of the responsibility, but, for the reasons outlined above, there are far, far stronger reasons why we should not do it. [/quote:2i1sgwnw]

It's not so much in our area that our laws are enforced, as it is among our people that our laws are enforced. Do CDS laws not apply in the interactions of two citizens who happen to be on a non-CDS sim?

As I have suggested elsewhere, griefer ban lists could be offered to all member governments and at-large citizens for use if desired,

Your argument on determining someone's citizenship is plain old silly. Do you really walk around the whole sim and check each plot when you want to see if someone is a citizen? How about when the CDS is many sims? Either way, an offsite list (which can also be available as a notecard inworld) is necessary and is in fact the current method of separating the citizens from the others.

[quote="Ashcroft Burnham":2i1sgwnw]If it is our aim - as it always has been so far, and I very much hope that it will always be - to carve out in SecondLife a true nation, with democratic values, in which law and order prevails, then we must resist the temptation to abandon the idea of creating and expanding territory, and reducing ourselves to a members' club for dispute resolution. We are, and have always striven to be far more than that - what we are seeking to do, that is, bring democracy, law and order substantial parts of SecondLife, cannot be done without a distinctive territory, however attractive that it might be for some people to join us without having to face the possibility that, if they do wrong, they might lose their land and their business, instead of some money that they never really expected to see again in any case.[/quote:2i1sgwnw]

Come now, you've been a citizen of Nstadt for even less time than I have, and I'm fairly new myself. All this, "we've always done this" talk is really unnecessary. As I talk to others, I get the sense that people do indeed see a bigger picture than expanding the territory of our little government system; they want to see democracy take hold in virtual worlds, and reorganize how people relate to one another in such virtual worlds.

Nothing in CDS law under either of our proposals prevents someone from defrauding people, moving elsewhere and setting up another business. The differences in this situation would be which system would give better info before entering into contracts (mine), which would provide better damages to the victims (mine), and which would probably grow faster and include more people subject to enforcement (mine). An added benefit of being popular, or at least palatable, is that there will be fewer non-citizens and thus more stigma attached to losing citizenship.

[Ashcroft Burnham]

[quote="Gxeremio Dimsum":2oaxae24]Here is a counterexample:
Joe Fraudman intends to enter into contracts and not meet up to them. He buys the smallest sized plot possible to become a citizen. He defrauds his business partners of L$30,000. Under the land system, his microplot is reposessed, he's out less than L$500. His partners get nothing unless it comes from the treasury of the CDS. [/quote:2oaxae24]

You are still assuming that land is worth no more to its owners than its purchase price. I have explained in gerat detail above why this is not so. Why do you still assume this? The point is that, unless one is doing business [i:2oaxae24]in CDS territory[/i:2oaxae24], the fact that one is doing business with a CDS citizen is, unless that citizen is somebody who has what Pelanor calls a "high commitment value" to the CDS, does not necessarily mean that enforcement is going to be proportionate to the value of the claim. If one is doing business on CDS territory, conversely, one can know that the CDS will have the power to shut down that business if the person defaults.

[quote:2oaxae24]Under my proposal, his partners can first of all see how much he is bonded to the CDS and choose not to enter into business with him unless the amount of bonding is satisfactory. When he defrauded them, the amount of his escrow would be repossessed and distributed to the people who were owed money.[/quote:2oaxae24]

This does not help because there is no way of any one creditor telling how many other creditors that there are, nor how much that they are owed. a L$10,000 bond is no good when twenty people are owed L$9,000 each.

[quote:2oaxae24]Land layout has value for virtual brick and mortar stores, but not for service businesses who can easily obtain office space elsewhere, and not for citizens who just have houses.[/quote:2oaxae24]

Citizens who just have houses presumably will not be entering into as many contracts.

[quote:2oaxae24]Taking land away from people is only effective under your example if: (a) they have spent a lot of time in laying out their objects on their land or (b) they have built goodwill with customers on the land. Now take a look around Nstadt. How many citizens fall into these two categories?[/quote:2oaxae24]

The more customers that a business has, the more likely it will be that these two conditions are met, and, concomitently, the more likely that it will be that there is a dispute, because there will be more people with whom there could be potential disputes.

[quote:2oaxae24]By the way, it is possible to take a bunch of objects at once and put them in your inventory, then relocate them. A criminal who wanted to avoid punishment could easily do this before their trial.[/quote:2oaxae24]

It is not a trivial thing to do: it is easy not to care about what happens to a bond, but this creates real [i:2oaxae24]work[/i:2oaxae24]. That is a disincentive by itself.

In any event, is not your whole point that people will be reluctant to place their land under our control, and prefer just to give us a bond? And is it not the case that they will be reluctant to place their land under our control [i:2oaxae24]precisely because[/i:2oaxae24] they do not want the possibility of it being taken away from them if they do something wrong? Does that not indicate in and of itself that that is a more effective means of enforcement?

In any event, of course, the landless citizen is not tied to your constittion. Pelanor had already proposed it (and these same issues were again raised) without proposing adopting an entirely new constitution for the CDS, so it is important to separate discusion of the two and understand that an argument for landless citizens is not necessarily an argument for your constitution in its entirety.

[quote:2oaxae24]It's not so much in our area that our laws are enforced, as it is among our people that our laws are enforced. Do CDS laws not apply in the interactions of two citizens who happen to be on a non-CDS sim?[/quote:2oaxae24]

They can, but that is not the main function of having our laws. The whole point of having a nation, and striving, as we do

As I have suggested elsewhere, griefer ban lists could be offered to all member governments and at-large citizens for use if desired,

[quote:2oaxae24]Your argument on determining someone's citizenship is plain old silly. Do you really walk around the whole sim and check each plot when you want to see if someone is a citizen? How about when the CDS is many sims? Either way, an offsite list (which can also be available as a notecard inworld) is necessary and is in fact the current method of separating the citizens from the others.[/quote:2oaxae24]

Commercial transacitons happen for the most part in commercial premises. If one is already in the commercial premises, it is quite trivial to work out whether the person to whom one is talking is the owner. The point is that, under the system as it is at present, the commercial premises themselves are under the jurisdiction of the CDS.

[quote:2oaxae24]Come now, you've been a citizen of Nstadt for even less time than I have, and I'm fairly new myself. All this, "we've always done this" talk is really unnecessary.[/quote:2oaxae24]

Why? Why is it not a vaid point to make that the [i:2oaxae24]purpose[/i:2oaxae24] of what is now the CDS is and always has been to create a [i:2oaxae24]territory[/i:2oaxae24] within which the rule of law prevails? And even forgetting for a moment the historical precedence, do you not consider creating a sizable territory in SecondLife in which the rule of law prevails a desirable objective?

[quote:2oaxae24] As I talk to others, I get the sense that people do indeed see a bigger picture than expanding the territory of our little government system; they want to see democracy take hold in virtual worlds, and reorganize how people relate to one another in such virtual worlds.[/quote:2oaxae24]

How is that incompatible with a civil society based on a territorial jurisdction?

[quote:2oaxae24]Nothing in CDS law under either of our proposals prevents someone from defrauding people, moving elsewhere and setting up another business. [/quote:2oaxae24]

But, as I have explained, taking someone's land away is some real disincentive. Taking away a bond from somebody who probably never really expected to see it again anyway is virtually no disincentive at all.

[quote:2oaxae24]The differences in this situation would be which system would give better info before entering into contracts (mine)...[/quote:2oaxae24]

The information would not be better because, as I explained above, the number of creditors would not be known.

[quote...]which would provide better damages to the victims (mine)[quote:2oaxae24]

Why do you assume that splitting the bond will be more effective than extracting a fine by threat of forfieture of land?

[quote:2oaxae24]and which would probably grow faster and include more people subject to enforcement (mine).[/quote:2oaxae24]

At the expense of the very important aim of creating a territory in which the rule of law prevails. Do you not recognise that as a valuable aim? If not, why not?

[quote:2oaxae24]An added benefit of being popular, or at least palatable, is that there will be fewer non-citizens and thus more stigma attached to losing citizenship.[/quote:2oaxae24][/quote:2oaxae24]

That is highly doubtful - why does the second follow from the first? We will inevitably always be a minority of SL.

[i:2oaxae24]Edit[/i:2oaxae24]: I assume that you are poised to answer the rather more important point about why you favour your constitution itself over our current constitution with local governments any minute now?