With the recent debate and discussion over many topics, including the Judiciary Act, Franculates, the local autonomy question and so on, I believe there is a significant number of citizens whose views are not being well-represented in the CDS to date.
Due to this, I am opening discussion on creating a third political faction. I would like to have at least one in-world meeting as I believe face-to-face discussion is very useful for brainstorming, but I expect a significant amount of forum discussion as well.
In a manner similar to Diderot's "Party of Unity and Justice" post, here are some of the matters of concern to me. This is not an exhaustive list, but the beginnings of a dialogue.
[b:3q26ol0i]1. Minimal government[/b:3q26ol0i] - Aside from the sheer pragmatic value of keeping government positions to a minimum, I believe the government that governs best governs least. The value of the CDS is primarily in acting as an arbitrator in disputes, either in the literal sense (the judiciary) or a metaphorical sense (enforcing the land covenant, which prevents petty disputes as seen on the mainland). Outside of this function, matters should be left to the citizens at large to deal with freely.
[b:3q26ol0i]2. Unity of government[/b:3q26ol0i] - Sims are artificial boundries and should be disregarded in terms of dividing the CDS up into subunits. While a certain amount of local autonomy is desirable - i.e., if the citizens of Colonia Nova wish the local covenant changed, that is logically a local matter - but in other affairs, there should be one government.
[b:3q26ol0i]3. Encouraging the spread of democratic cooperatives in SL[/b:3q26ol0i] - This point is one I can copy straight from Diderot's post. For those who do not wish to search:
"There is no future in a bureaucratic superstructure that acts as a restricting "world government". Instead our confederation should be an open forum based on voluntary participation that enables its members to cooperate on joint initiatives and achieve leverage in areas that are important to them. Specifically, the development of land management tools, governance tools and addressing our needs vis a vis Linden Lab are areas where cooperation would be fruitful. "
I believe (in relation to point 1, above) that there is a danger of developing into that bureaucratic mess; our slow growth makes our way of "Second Living" a hard sell; adding a needless layer of rules will not help. At all stages, we are a voluntary organization and we pretend otherwise at our peril.
For those who might be interested in furthering such goal, please discuss in this thread. It would also be helpful if you could post times you would be available for a possible in-world meeting.
