Constitutional Ratification Poll: Article A

Proposed Contitutional Article A


This poll has no replacement article as there is no existing law being replaced.

This poll will be open from 96 hours from the time appearing in this post and is considered RATIFIED/DEFEATED after this time.

Ratify it.

Do the right to assemble mean that we are , or are not allowed to form political parties, organizations or citizen groups. I cannot see a ban on political organizations or parties, pleaser enligthen me on this one. Real life civs have always political factions.

Provolution said:

Do the right to assemble mean that we are , or are not allowed to form political parties, organizations or citizen groups. I cannot see a ban on political organizations or parties, pleaser enligthen me on this one. Real life civs have always political factions.

Click to expand...

I believe parties are banned, because it is against the rule of CFC being one big happy family. We aren't exactly one big happy family anyway and you could see that in certain forums; however, the political parties COULD make the demogame horrible.

Personally, I'm fine either way.

Zarn

Where in the consitution is it written that we are one big happy family ?
And why do they focus so strongly on a few written rules, where one of the most important restrictions are not mentioned in writing. Another point, the lives in many civilizations and nations are horrible, not thanks to the concept of politcal organizations, but horrible people, horrible legislation and a common lack of respect for the other man. Nevertheless, we should make ab amendment explicitly stating which organizations and assemblies are allowed, in order to really define what kind of democracy we are, not taking it for granted it is already perfect.

The CFC Demogame for the most part has avoided of "Political Parties" in a certain sence.

Political Parties as I'm refering to, is an entire organization which, tells it's members (as a organization) to vote for a particular candidate, or use the organization as a campaign tool for specific nominees (Debate Groups wouldn't be under this). Organizations which work twoards trying to fill the government with only members of their own "party." As I saw you mention elsewhere, this is one of those "unspoken" and often debated "rules." I use Rule loosly there.

However, Citizen organizations which support certain goals, but do not, specifically tell their members "vote for him!" do not come under this definition. And individuals (who may be leaders of organizations), however are allowed to put support for nominees in their signature, asking people to vote, in general, but not within the scope of the organization itself.

Now, poltical parties have been done elsewhere, not totally familiar with how they worked out.

But, the general I feel the reason against it is, it encourages mudslinging, it encourages "elitist clubs" discouraging new citizens from running for office.

But, like I said...this is a rather general, loose "rule" can't tell ya how many times I've seen someone try to promote the creation of Political Parties wondering "why not?" and thus starting a large debate about whether we should introduce 'em and see what happens or leave it as is.

Well, I don't see the problem, if the majority wants it like this, we can just make it an amendment and we can vote all over this. As it stands now, they enforce unwritten laws, which confuses, giving mixed messages with "you can assemble all you want" versus "you cannot assemble in order to keep the big happy family happy and not mudslinging each other". Well China has no political parties, we can just say that we are one big happy one
party state in our consitution, but having three branches, the executive, judicial and legal, very much as China, and that the entire forum is the One Party. A Council of Governors and a Peoples Congress is also not far away. We can just leave it like that, and then we will not see political organizations put up and we may see individuals and moderators putting out that fire with sudden censorship. Then these who may consider starting a party can use their energy more constructively in the future.

However, with a proper constitution and proper education of new members with proper sanctions for uncouth behavior, a multiparty system may well exist.

Now that would be for DG VI, not DG V, but still a thought.

The ban on political parties is not opn a constitutional basis, it is on a mod-enforced basis. It is their choice and they decided it was best not to have political parties.

Our constitution is also forbidden to run contrary to that.

Then they should put up a sticky very visible stating that explicitly, is my opinion, and then the entire issue would be finally resolved.

Ive copied your concerns into an email and sent it to myself for later. We will revisit the issue when the constitution is finished (as in, the day it is finished).

Ill do my best to help you get closure on this issue before August 1st.

It doesn't belong in the Consitution, because it is one of the things the Moderators enforce to enforce the Forum rules (which is covered in the consitution, and Immortal reminded me).

HOWEVER, I do agree it should be mentioned (if not already) in the "Welcome to the Demogame, this is what we're all about" thread.

Citizens are given the right to assemble but not to assemble in such a way that breaks the rules of the forums, which political parties encourage. Not to mention all in all can decrease the "fun" in the game and causing a Demogame Failure.

There is nothing wrong with Citizen's groups who band together with a common goal, and discuss how events effect their goals, and rally behind a cause. Trying to work to inform people to vote for their option (ie. declare war on Egypt or rush culture instead of upgrading units), this promotes discussion, and interest in the game.

It's a far cry from Groups which encourage members to only vote for members of the same, or allied organizations, and would attack members of opposition organizations.

Essentially Political parties deal with people, candidates.
Citizen Groups deal with Ideas.

Speaking Historically here, even George Washington (the first US President) told the Nation in several of his speeches to Beware of Political Parties and steer clear of them at all cost. Now there are MANY people who just vote the party line, ignorant of the candidates themselves, (I wish to avoid a real life poltical Debate here) it's just as bad for Republicans to vote for Bush "just because he's a Republican" as it is for Democrats to vote for Kerry "just because he's a Democrat." Voting needs to be based on policy and ideas NOT which party you belong to.

EDIT: Looked at the main DG forum and Provolution is right, this is not clarified in the explination thread or CT's, still to be built, FAQ thread. I feel it should likely be put into the FAQ thread, because it's not something that I feel is really neccisary for starting off the bat. Few people create new citizens groups an hour after they join the demogame.

Parties??? What for??? There are citizen groups lobbying their own interests.

The "difference" put between by most is that political parties specify a candidate which all members should vote for.

Neither the Samurai, Imperial Shadow, PEEDS, Peoples Delegation or the Merchant Guild do this.

And good that everyone has free choise
Parties would complicate rules which are comlex already

The FAQ thread is not the appropriate place in my humble opinion, it should be open in the "Do's and Don'ts" in the "DG5 I am new here - this is fun" Section, so people get no illusions that they join political parties in order to get direcly elected. That fact should be pinned down 100 %, as elections are 1/3 of the game in my opinion (election/organization/strategy). Then people should also get a brief introduction on how to build up a political platform, what to research to be taken seriously, links to the archives to veteran stories like "The Domino Wars", only outsiders and newbees with a larger reading and absorbtion capacity can easily grasp this at short notice, as there are thousands of pages, maybe links to the core DG curriculum should be in place.

One fact about democracy, especially new forms of democracy, is that people need to be educated in order to function properly at any rate. So for an outsiders view, I wasted some time on the following issues where I failed and redeemed myselves:

Political organizations
I failed in setting up a political party and the thread was closed down
consequence
setting up a non-party think thank with a doctrine program
consequence
Constitution Article Preamble A states that assembly is allowed
consequence
Question about Constitution is descriptive of enforced reality
consequence
Moderators decide if parties are allowed
consequence
Option A Constitution is amended to meet reality (Chinese model, fair enough)
Option B Moderators place it in the very initiation to the demogame, as info is critical

Knowledge on the Domino War and other Veteran enterprises
Questions of prior games non-related to the brand new Japanese civilization came up in the election, dating back to DG1.
consequence
I had to read multiple threads I did not really want to read, before I found this thread
consequence
I learnt about individuals, game experiences, group dynamics and running DGs
consequnce
better equipped to play the game with "seniors" as peers
conseqeunce
knowledge is power, and in order to democratize the knowledge of previous DGs, I suggest three options
Option 1. All references to prior wars and experiences of Old DGs should have links to the very pages mentioned in scenario case campaign questions
Option 2. veteran players set up a core curriculum they expect candidates to read, and this curriculum should be voted on by a veteran committee
Option 3. No future references made in expectation of understanding previous DG games but the one in operation

Remember, even though Henry Kissinger could read some 2000 words per minute, not all of us can absorb such massive volumes of knowledge and disemminate that effectively to a new audience. So Falcon02, think about that.

and finally
reading who is nominating and seconding who can be interesting to newbees, too learn
who is technically operating as "parties" or groups, or at least sympathize for each other, and it is also interesting to see who talks more game strategy and who is more into talking technicalities and legalities. I think knowing the personalities is key, and that lends flavor to the game experience and makes it addicitive.

First off, as I'm reading this thread, please people, quit saying this issue about political parties doesn't belong in the Constitution. It was in the very first Constitutions for the Demogame. It was one of the early striong points made in that Constitution, along with "Don't play the save!". You people need to research what your saying before you say it.

Secondly, I do not like political parties. They, in my opinion would only cause division among the ranks when we are trying to develop a more coheasive environment (albeit containing debate). One of the major problems with political parties is (as stated above) block voting. In all four Demogames, this was only really tried once, by CT's Spice Trader's Guild (or what ever that citizen's group was called). This initiated a Public Investigation, as Private Messages were sent out to indiviuals asking for votes for candidates within the STG. All that did was make people mad because they come here to have fun, not be recruited.

So there, I DO NOT WANT POLITICAL PARTIES. But there should be mention of the Ban of political parties in the Constitution. Not in the Preamble. But somewhere.

It is a law. I just checked and it in now posted as CoL A.1 b.

It was in the Constitution for two or three games, but was moved to the CoL and put in the very first section. I believe it should go back into the Constitution.

Im with CYC, it may as well be put into the constitution.

Provolution said:

Zarn

Where in the consitution is it written that we are one big happy family ?
And why do they focus so strongly on a few written rules, where one of the most important restrictions are not mentioned in writing. Another point, the lives in many civilizations and nations are horrible, not thanks to the concept of politcal organizations, but horrible people, horrible legislation and a common lack of respect for the other man. Nevertheless, we should make ab amendment explicitly stating which organizations and assemblies are allowed, in order to really define what kind of democracy we are, not taking it for granted it is already perfect.

Click to expand...

IIRC, there was a motion for some sort of "Happy Rule" last demogame...