Defining Political Parties (assembly discussion)

[donsig]

All activities of the citizens group must be open to the public view.

Does this mean two citizens can't share a private message about the demo game? I think you're going a bit far here DaveShack.

Telling members they must vote a certain way

Forcing members to vote a certain way is a form of excluding citizens from joining the citizen group and can be handled in the definition of exclusionary practices. We should also make it clear that citizens groups are allowed to endorse candidates. And if we use secret ballots no one will know how citizens vote anyway.

Threatening sanctions if a member acts / doesn't act a certain way

I'm not sure what sanctions could be threatened. Care to elaborate on what could happen so we know why we have to legislate against it?

Ignoring input of members who are "out of favor" or making them feel unwelcome

This is definitely going too far since it would force citizens groups to go out of their way to not appear to ignore someone or make them feel unwelcome. In our democracy we have the right to free speech but we are not guaranteed a sympathetic audience for anything we have to say.

Arranging for members of the group to run for different offices so as to try to take control of the government

This would be bad, why? So what happens if certain members of a citizens group all decide to run for a different office? And would we close up the citizen group thread in this case? What if a few candidates for different office happen to belong to the same citizen group? Do we disqualify them from office? I know what you're gonna say, DaveShack, that it's the arranging that's key. But don't you see how you invite partisan attacks with this kind of law? All manner of unfounded accusations could be made about citizen group members who run for office. Sure, if unfounded they could be swiftly dismissed but how much damage to the nominee's reputation (and electoral prospects) are done anyway?

Organizing votes, in particular arranging that members only vote for members

Again, I think it is quite proper for citizens groups to endorse candidates and encourage members to vote for them. It's also quite natural and democratic for citizens who share similar views to vote in a similar manner. As long as we eliminate exclusionary practices and use a secret ballot I don't see a problem.

Organized activities to discredit nonmembers as individuals and policies that oppose the group

So if I form a citizens group opposed to war and Cyc runs for office on a war platform I can't say in my citizens group that Cyc is wrong for wanting war? Geez.

DaveShack just remember, when you form the Association Against Democratic Prinicples, AADP is already taken.

 

[Ashburnham]

While I applaud DaveShack for making an attempt at defining the sort of practices we wish to guard against, I agree with donsig that the definition is imperfect. Let us not forget: the whole reason we are at this juncture is because a benign citizens group was accused of being a political party. No exclusion or coercion took place. In fact, it was the total lack of these traits that proved exculpatory. We have seen no evidence of divisive political practices in our Democracy, and until we do I believe we will be "legislating blind" as it were.

I could understand if we want to change the proposed amendment to our Constitution from "exclusionary political practices" to "exclusionary or coercive political practices". I fear, however, that any attempt to create legislation now will be imperfect. It will either disallow perfectly legal actions, a few of which donsig made example of above, or it will prove itself incomplete over time and have to be modified. In both cases, we can save ourselves a bit of work now by amending the Constitution only, and saving any required legislation for a later date.

 

[Nobody]

Good. I like this, DaveShack. I propose we just strike "Political parties are not permitted" from Article A and then use the vacant Article K for this amendment? This will keep our first Article free from all this extra dialog, plus use our empty slot in K.

Article K ~ For the safety of the Demogame and the well-being of its citizens, it is forbidden to impose or infringe upon the rights of any citizen in the normal operation of a Citizen's Group. It matters not if these citizens are members of the Citizen's Group, no one should be subject to exclusionary political practices, coercive, and/or elitist practices by any group.

Code of Laws K.1 could then list the definition and examples posted above. More or different language is welcome. By the way, I don't have problem with the term elitist. It fits well in this discussion.

I think you should be able to restrict membership. What if my citizens group is pro-buliding a navy, and you constantly dont want to build a navy. I dont want you in my group.

I think that alot of ideas in this thread are two extream and take away from the rights of people to organise themself however they want. If someone really wants to make a conspricys to take over the demogame, they wont make a thread about it.

 

[Cyc]

CoL K.2 donsig, Ashburnham, and Nobody are banned from Citizen's Groups!

 

[donsig]

CoL K.2 donsig, Ashburnham, and Nobody are banned from Citizen's Groups!

You're a funny guy Mr. President.

I agree with Ashburnham's comments about just amending the constitution for now. Cyc's proposal is ok (as long as we don't go trying to define those terms just now) but I do like the earlier proposal better.

 

[DaveShack]

There's always the approach of just reporting any posts perceived as being coercive.

Seriously though, whether we're all willing to admit it or not, we know the difference between a group and a political party. We know the AADP is not a party and the factions from the last Civ4 DG were. We're not going to let down our guard any more.

 

[donsig]

So, DaveShack, if I were to say to you, hypothetically of course, "I won't run for the judiciary if you don't", would that be a coercive political action?

 

[Lord Civius]

I am liking Ashs' proposal more and more. Let us just ammend Article A of the Constitution and let the Judiciary handle it on a case by case basis.