The Progressive Party

[Zimmerwald]

You have foxes.  They don't.  If the past ten years of American politics, at least, has proven anything, it's that that's all you really need.

Also, in lieu of there actually being any other left-wingers in the resurrected region with which to organize, I'd like to tender my application to the Progressive Party.

[Gulliver]

You could always make your own party I mean of course we'll have such an intelligent and respected figure aboard our party... 's ship... that's metaphorical. Anyway, if you're up to it once Elu gets back you can help us finally finish off that draft of a charter we made who knows how long ago, and maybe make it a bit more explicitly leftist to stand out a bit from the competition.

[Zimmerwald]

You could always make your own party

It's a good thought, but such a party founded at the moment would really be "my own", in the sense that I would be the only member.  Such a formation would inevitably be parasitic on one of the larger parties, or on the region itself.

Anyway, if you're up to it once Elu gets back you can help us finally finish off that draft of a charter we made who knows how long ago, and maybe make it a bit more explicitly leftist to stand out a bit from the competition.

Where's Elu gone?

I presume the document you're talking about is not what appears on the Taiji-wiki?  As for making it more explicitly leftist, I'd be happy to give my input, but I'm not really sure what "leftist" means in this economy-less context.  I suppose once the currency system is ressurcted (I'm not sure if this is actually happening: I just heard folks talking about it in IS' flag thread) we could talk about measures like budgeted stipends for maintaining creative services (like flag-making, heh) instead of having people pay out of their individual currency for receiving the service.  But at this point I'm fairly certain that what's at stake are political rather than economic issues, and that the ProP could potentially position itself as the more radically democratic of the two extant parties.  That is, ensure that referenda are seen as parts of the political process, encourage the development of a Gazette of the Senate published every so often where the Speaker can summarize the debates that led to the passage of resolutions, ensure that classified information is declassified in a timely manner once the necessity for its classification has passed, promote the perception of officials as more delegate than representative, that sort of thing.

[Gulliver]

Elu's away for Memorial Day weekend, he will be back shortly.

Well, we did have this on the wiki and GoogleDocs and was what I was referencing.

Well, we're hoping that we'll be able to set things up so that the government is also responsible for managing a collectively controlled in game nation, so that it'll have something to do and there will actually be a political element to it since, as you note quite correctly, we are otherwise in a setting devoid of key things like an economy. I was saving moving ahead with that idea until we actually had an elected government back. I hope we can pull that off and create an interesting political mini-game of sorts through the regional government.

And yes, there was some talk of if the currency system was resurrected and if the government was paying for things like recruiters, having to force it to figure out schemes to make money, like renting Zocalo plots or ad space, rather than printing more money. Not sure if we'll be able to pull that one off. For starters one of the admins'll have to put the shop-mod back in.

All that said, the political stakes are also important, and defining positions on that as well like the ones you are suggesting would also be good to have. The Gazette proposal is certainly intriguing.

[Zimmerwald]

Elu's away for Memorial Day weekend, he will be back shortly.

Hope he's had fun

Well, we did have this on the wiki and GoogleDocs and was what I was referencing.

Ah, that's more like it.  I was referring to this, which is rather less satisfying.

Well, we're hoping that we'll be able to set things up so that the government is also responsible for managing a collectively controlled in game nation, so that it'll have something to do and there will actually be a political element to it since, as you note quite correctly, we are otherwise in a setting devoid of key things like an economy. I was saving moving ahead with that idea until we actually had an elected government back. I hope we can pull that off and create an interesting political mini-game of sorts through the regional government.

That's an interesting idea.  Would the management of this ingame nation be subject to the separation of powers the way the management of the region is?  I should think not.  The management of a nation consists of voting up or down on issues and WA resolutions, and the implementation and consequence-adjudication of policies is something the game handles itself.  If we're going ahead with this idea, then there should be a separate forum for it, outside the spaces for the three branches of government, where decision-making on behalf of this ingame nation takes place, and where every member of government has an equal say.

[Gulliver]

I don't see why the general regional government couldn't handle it. The Senate would vote to adopt a position by a majority, and the delegate could decide whether to sign the position or to veto it. Or a position could be adopted by a referendum. If you wanted to you could even get the Court involved if you wanted to extend constitutional protections and limits to what positions could be adopted. Some procedures would have to be agreed upon on how to handle the process (e.g., the use of multiple rounds of voting in the Senate since one position or dismissal might not win an outright majority), but it's entirely doable. And again, part of the reason for this proposal would be so the government would have something to do other than constantly reconfigure regional offices and procedures and the likes, so parties would have a purpose, etc. I was hoping that with the cooperation of the first new Senate and Delegate it wouldn't even have to be explicitly legislated, it could be made into something which is just done.

Also, yes, our wiki page needs a lot of work. I was holding off on that until we had a more definite idea of a charter and basic values. At least we have a pretty infobox.

And from what I've heard from Elu, he is having fun.

[Eluvatar]

Re: fun

My back hurts, my hips ache, and I have at least 107 mosquito (and perhaps fly and tick) bites.

IT WAS AWESOME!!

Anyways, we're obviously not conservative and we don't seem to be libertarian, so I do think we could be a good fit

I do think it appropriate for the taijitu government to be more involved in both growing the region and making it as fun as possible for as many as possible.

[Gulliver]

Oh good, you're back. I probably then should present the brainstorming I was doing for a more concise, bulleted, explicitly leftist values statement.

Liberty: Individuals have the rights to life, property and to act and think freely. The government must defend these liberties from itself, other governments and the criminal acts of private citizens.

Opportunity: All individuals have the right to the opportunity for a succesful and fulfilling life. Where circumstances conspire to deny an individual such a right, the government must intervene to preserve it. [can this be worked into solidarity with different wording? give back to society so others have the same opportunities?]

Meritocracy: Individuals [...] [necessary? implicit in justice if written better and applied to private arena?]

Solidarity: The success of individuals depends in part on the success of society at large. It is just to expect individuals to give back to the society on which they depend for their success.

Justice: All citizens are entitled to equal treatment and protection under the law. No particular person, group or interest should uniquely be given privileges or afforded penalties by government policies.

Democracy: Government must be directly accountable to those ruled by means free and fair elections. Its business must be transparent and always open to public scrutiny [necessary? is there actually any antidemocratic competition]

Reason: Policies enacted in the pursuit of these goals must be informed by evidence and the rigorous testing of ideas, not rhetoric simply stated as truth without support. When necessary for progress, compromise should be pursued rather than avoided.

[Cosmopolitanism/Internationalism]: All individuals regardless of nationality are members of the global community and have the same fundamental rights. Governments must cooperate to protect these rights and to remove international boundries with arbitrarily divide the world's people. [necessary, too specific?]

["Liberty, solidarity, justice, [reason]" wouldn't be the *worst* slogan ever >.>]
[four main tenants, four is a magical power of 2 D:]
[fucking miracles]
[clearly these comments are no longer useful probably should try a rewrite]

[Eluvatar]

It looks good. What do you think, G-C?

[Zimmerwald]

Here's what I think (tidying up, and combining those categories which Gulliver mused could be combined):

Liberty: Individuals have the rights to life, propertyto that which they create, and to act and think freely. The government must be organized to defend these liberties from itself, other governments and the criminal acts of private citizens.

Opportunity: All individuals have the right to the opportunity for a succesful and fulfilling life. Where circumstances conspire to deny an individual such a right, the government must intervene to preserve it. [can this be worked into solidarity with different wording? give back to society so others have the same opportunities?] incorporated into Solidarity

Meritocracy: Individuals [...] [necessary? implicit in justice if written better and applied to private arena?] incorporated into Solidarity

Solidarity: The success of individuals depends in part on the success of society at large and the success of society on the success and fulfillment of individuals. It is the responsibility of government to preserve all individuals' opportunities to achieve success and fulfilment, to reward exceptional dedication and service, and just to expect individuals to give back to the society on which they depend for their success in return. 

Justice: All citizens are entitled to equal treatment and protection under the law, and to an open government made accountable to them by means of free and fair elections. No particular person, group or interest should uniquely be given privileges or afforded penalties by government policies. 

Democracy: Government must be directly accountable to those ruled by means free and fair elections. Its business must be transparent and always open to public scrutiny [necessary? is there actually any antidemocratic competition] incorporated into Justice.  And as for there being no antidemocratic force, the answer would be “not yet”.

[Cosmopolitanism/Internationalism]: All individuals regardless of nationality are members of the global community and have the same fundamental rights. Governments must cooperate to protect these rights and to remove international boundries with arbitrarily divide the world's people. [necessary, too specific?] arbitrary boundaries between peoples.

Reason: Policies enacted in the pursuit of these goals must be informed by evidence and the rigorous testing of ideas, not rhetoric simply stated as truth without support. When necessary for progress, compromise should be pursued rather than avoided.

And without editing markup:

Liberty: Individuals have the rights to life, to that which they create, and to act and think freely. The government must be organized to defend these liberties from itself, other governments and the criminal acts of private citizens.

Solidarity: The success of individuals depends in part on the success of society and the success of society on the success and fulfillment of individuals. It is the responsibility of government to preserve all individuals' opportunities to achieve success and fulfilment, to reward exceptional dedication and service, and just to expect individuals to give back to society in return. 

Justice: All citizens are entitled to equal treatment and protection under the law, and to an open government made accountable to them by means of free and fair elections. No particular person, group or interest should uniquely be given privileges or afforded penalties by government policies. 

Internationalism: All individuals have the same fundamental rights. Governments must cooperate to protect these rights and to remove arbitrary boundaries between peoples.

Reason: Policies enacted in the pursuit of these goals must be informed by evidence and the rigorous testing of ideas, not rhetoric simply stated as truth without support. When necessary for progress, compromise should be pursued rather than avoided.

[Gulliver]

Why "that they create" instead of just "property"? Why the addition of "organized to"? I'm not necessarily disagreeing, I just want to know your thinking because otherwise it's tricky for me to see if I agree with your point or not.

[Zimmerwald]

Why "that they create" instead of just "property"? Why the addition of "organized to"? I'm not necessarily disagreeing, I just want to know your thinking because otherwise it's tricky for me to see if I agree with your point or not.

Thinking back on it, "be organized to" is probably suspect, since it identifies institutional structure rather than officers' behavior as the primary means to make government defend liberties, and I suppose to some extent absolves officers of responsibility.  As for "property", part of the point was to differentiate the ProP from the PNLF, and having both parties pledging to defend that exact thing didn't seem conducive to difference.  Also, I think it important to differentiate between different types of property, defining some as more defensible than others rather than defending property as a general principle.  Property created by users includes most of which is considered important, including user accounts, nations, etc.

[Gulliver]

I suspected the that's what your intention was with "organized to", and I have to say that's not a bad idea. As for property, I was hoping that making commitments to solidarity would justify slightly imposing on that particular right. What do you think Elu?

In any case, I'm working on another draft right now working with some of what you've said which'll hopefully be better than the last one.

[Zimmerwald]

In any case, I'm working on another draft right now working with some of what you've said which'll hopefully be better than the last one.

Well, hopefully it gets better each time.  I suspect yours will be more concise than mine, among other improvements.  I have a tendency to qualify beyond the point of necessity.

[Gulliver]

Liberty: All persons have the rights to life, property and to act and think freely. The institutions of government must be organized to defend these liberties from themselves, other governments and the criminal acts of individuals.

Solidarity: The success of individuals depends on the success of society and the success of society on the success of individuals. Government must protect individuals from arbitrary hardship and preserve their opportunties to success and fullfillment. Individuals who can must give back to society in return [for such proction and opportunities/so that others can be given the same protections and opportunities].

Justice: All persons have a right to equal treatment in both the public and private spheres. Individuals must all be equal before the law and government policy. Private transactions must be conducted fairly, and where necessary the government must impose regulations to ensure such equity.

Democracy: Government must be directly accountable to those ruled by means free and fair elections, direct petitions and referendums. Its business must be transparent and always open to public scrutiny.

Reason: Policies enacted in the pursuit of these goals must be informed by evidence and the rigorous testing of ideas, not rhetoric simply stated as truth without support. When necessary, compromise should be pursued rather than avoided.

You'll notice I had some ambivalence in the last line of Solidarity; is helping you fellow man and whatnot sufficiently implicit in giving back to society?  If it is, no reason to clutter things by stating it outright. Also dropped the explicit meritocracy part; it seemed awkward and might be sufficiently implicit in opportunity and the rewritten justice part. Speaking of which, I modified Justice, not quite sure about the wording yet. On the suggestion of G-C, I dropped Cosmopolitanism; that bit may be implicit in the fact that we've been saying "all persons" not "all citizens" or such and the shorter and punchier the better.