Cultural Proposal 1

Disclaimer: The following proposal does not reflect the wishes or desires of the Culture Ministry, Curufinwe, Plexus, or any person I have turned to for counsel concerning this. This is purely speculative, and has not been considered by the proposer yet. I implore you to refrain from insulting anyone who participated in the making of one of these proposals if you view that proposal inadequate. This is for discussion, later it may be more appropriately dealt with if the Culture Minister sees fit.

The following proposal seems to me to be not in anywa contrary to any of the laws of the land, and I see a coming amendment that may allow it.

What my idea is, is that all of the six departments, Domestic, Trade, Foreign, Military, Cultural and Scientific, have the authority, right, and responsibility to create certain rules and offices, organizations and other esoteric titles or institutions to take over work falling under the heading of said department.

To argue for these, I state that the people would be indirectl chosen democratically, as the peoples elected official would then choose the said titles, peoples etc. Also, if it were to make the said ministry or department do more than otherwise. This would make the demogame better. For sake of simplicity, the department head could just choose them, as opposed to the work involved in polls.

However, to argue against it (I love arguing both sides in some things, I can contradict myself) I'd like to state that this may cause inefficiency and ruin democracy. The people might be contrary to what would be decided to. The added rules may very from place to place, and in between terms things may go inefficiently if a poor leader has been elected.

In conclusion, whta I've said here is put forth the idea that Department heads make offices and titles to cove work in their department, as wel as making laws and rules covering only their department to more easily facilitate the needs of the people.

I'm siding against this, because without citizen polls, there is no democracy and this is a democracy game.

As this thread was lost in the chaos following the beginning of the fight over Donsig's decision(s) I'd like to hopefully renew interest by putting it to the top of this forum, for now, as I see it necessary. I'm currently preparing a PM to send to Plexus concerning these and other future Cultural Proposals/

there seems to be a lack of participants for this to be effective. Also it seems to me this would create a "pass the buck" phenomenon of leaders not wanting to make the difficult decisions.

As difficult as this proposal was to understand, I believe I get the gist of it. You want the Leaders of any Dept. to be able to appoint people to sub-offices they create in their own Dept. Then once appointed, these people would have powers and abilities the have been given to them unilaterally by their respective Leader. These powers would be drawn up by said Leader and go unchecked by the general populace or Constitution. Hmmm. I would have to agree bacon king and vote against this.

Cyc, the point of this is dilution, not concentration. I wish to have the workload and power spread out, but only the powers and works that the said Leader would have anyways, not additional ones. While I'm sure I made that quite clear when saying " to take over work falling under the heading of said department." which, incidentally, are the powers granted to the departments by the Constitution, I suppose I culd understand you not properly comprehending it. So, to reiterate myself, I again stress that I do not want added powers, but simply easing the workload off of the leaders and increasing participation so as to increase quality in this game of democracy. And Cyc, I don't think you should be saying in your posts "You want" referring to me, as in the disclaimer I stated that this was merely an idea. A harmless mistake, but please pay proper attention. Thanks.

I actually had already considered an advisor / assistant position within Domestic prior to reading this. The idea for that position would be that some player who has not held a leader position and wants to get involved would take responsibility for performing some regular research and recommending the game actions needed to addres the situation. It would also be possible to make the deputy an active position in the same way.

The specific idea I was thinking about for Domestic was to have the advisor/assistant look at corruption, calculate the effects of courthouses (and later police stations) and make direct recommendationis in the provincial threads for when and where these improvements should be built.

In such a case, the department leader would still have the responsibility for reviewing the advisor/assistant's work, and would have the power to countermand orders / recommendations. The same idea could be followed in the military department, where the advisor might identify where barracks need to be built, and which units should be considered for upgrade.

The objective of such a proposal is to give additional players the chance to directly influcence game play, without diluting the responsibilities of the leaders, who would still need to back up and ratify actions.

Great - you want a corrupt official. Just what we need here.

So to boil the morass of text in the first post down to a simple sentence, you're suggesting that leaders be given the power to delegate duties to other citizens?

Ok. While I'm not against this in principle, I see no reason for it to be enshrined in law unless of course you also wish the leader in question to be able to abdicate responsibilities to his delegates. That I would find unsupportable, since ultimate responsibility for carrying out official duties must lie with the elected official and he or she would have to take the rap if incompetent or workshy delegates were appointed.

I believe it should be in law because that way it is supported, so as to not have it challenged at some time, and to maintain order. And fascinating comments Ek, this definitely does need more thought and revision, so your criticism is welcome and wanted. Thanks.

Rather than a law, let's ask Peri for a judicial review of this. I think that's the way something like this should be handled in the first place.

Curufinwe, I would suggest posting a request for the review in the Judicial thread.

-- Ravensfire

@Curu - If you want, I can ask Peri for a Review on this matter .

Happily CG. I'd simply thougth that the constitution didn't mention it, so it would be good to have it so that it could (after discussoin, criticism, revisal by people, etc.) So go ahead CG, I'd greatly appreciate it if ou did.

Curu - I think your interpretation is correct, and has a great deal of potential benefit.

From past lurking experience, your idea is something new which can cause some discussion. By bringing the idea up early for consideration, like you did, you can make sure there are fewere problems down the road. The judicial review, which is using the judiciary for the best possible purpose, will make sure there are no problems.

Good luck!
-- Ravensfire