DG4 Discussion - Const: Preamble Thru C

[DaveShack]

OK, let's try to make some concrete progress!

This thread assumes that we consider the results of the poll on where to start from as binding, and we have decided to modify the three books from DG2.

The preamble taken from DG2's constitution is as follows.

We, the people of Fanatika, in order to create an atmosphere of friendship and cooperation, establish this Constitution of our beloved country. We uphold the beliefs that each citizen must have a voice in the government and ruling of our country, that government itself is a construct of and servant to the people, that rules, regulations, and laws should be established to facilitate the active participation of the people and to make possible the dreams and desires of the Fanatiks.

I propose keeping this intact, except for changes related to possibly using a different name for our great nation.

Section A of the DG2 constitution is shown here.

A. All Civfanatics Forum users who register in the Citizen Registry are citizens of Fanatika. Citizens have the right to assemble, the right to free movement, the right to free speech, the right to a fair trial, the right to representation, the right to demand satisfaction and the right to vote.

I propose striking or rewording the right to demand satisfaction because that clause caused problems during DG3 Term 3. The intent here is that an injured party has the right to file a complaint against the offending individual, and to have that complaint handled in a fair and impartial way. The term "demand satisfaction" in a historical context meant the right to challenge the accused to a duel, and the PI process is often used in that context. In the U.S. constitution this is handled by the term "equal protection under the law". Another term which is often seen in contracts is "redress of grievances". The key thing to try to get written down is that one is not guaranteed "satisfaction", only that a complaint is dealt with fairly.

Section B and C taken from the DG2 constitution are:

B. Governing rules shall consist of the Articles of the Constitution, the Code of Laws and the Code of Standards. No laws shall be passed that conflict with an article and no standards shall be used that conflict with a law or an article.

C. The government will consist of the Executive Branch, Legislative Branch and Judicial Branch.

I propose keeping these sections intact. Polls already indicated that we want to modify the Three Books, and have three branches of government.

 

[Bootstoots]

Those proposals for CON A-C as well as the preamble look good to me.

 

[GenMarshall]

Same. Everything looks alright with me .

 

[Cyc]

Now, I like this thread DS. This is an appropriate way to address the Con.

I would agree with you on these three Articles. They are pretty basic and well written. I would say that "redress of grievances" would be an adequate term to use in Article A.

 

[Noldodan]

Everything here looks good here, Dave.

 

[zorven]

I agree with your analysis DS. As far as a substitute phrase in Article A, another option could be "request judicial oversight".

 

[Bill_in_PDX]

I like this overall. Need to be careful in Article A, as the constitution overrides all laws and standards. I would not use specific terms there, and instead support what Cyc said. "redress of grievances" is a good term.

 

[zorven]

I think redress is about the same as the original language. Redress would imply that the citizen making the complaint is right and gets what they are looking for. That is why I suggested something that implies the citizen only gets their day in court, not getting what they are looking for as justice. In the end, we are aguing a minor point here, so lets not put too much into this.

REDRESS
A
(1) : to set right : REMEDY
(2) : to make up for : COMPENSATE

B : to remove the cause of (a grievance or complaint)
C : to exact reparation for

 

[Cyc]

zorven, I fond this:

Redress ~ impose fairness or equality on: to adjust a situation in order to make things fair or equal.

I believe this is the concept we're looking for. I think this term might work for you if we put the word "seek" in front of it. Every citizen has the right to seek redress of grievances. Even if their complaint is shot down as "no merit", they were still able to seek redress.

 

[zorven]

Cyc, I would agree with "the right to seek redress of grievances".

 

[donsig]

First of all I object to the use of the DG2 constiution as a starting point, and I don't care what your silly poll said. We modified the DG2 constitution and came up withthe DG3 constitution. It is plain silliness to go back to the DG2 constitution and and start the process anew. We should be modifying the DG3 constitution not this one. Here are my formal proposals:

Preamble: We, the people of Fanatica, in order to create an atmosphere of friendship and cooperation, establish this Constitution of our beloved country. We uphold the beliefs that each citizen must have an equal voice in the government and ruling of our country, that government itself is a construct of and servant to the people, that rules, regulations, and laws should be established to facilitate the active participation of the people and to make possible the dreams and desires of the citizens.


This is the DG3 preamble with the phrae *each citizen must have a voice* replaced with the phrase *each citizen must have an equal voice*.

Article A: B. All Civfanatics Forum users who register in the Citizen Registry are citizens of our country. Citizens have the right to assemble, the right to free movement, the right to free speech, the right to a fair trial, the right to representation, the right to seek to redress grievances and the right to vote.

This is article B of the DG3 constitution with 2 changes. *Fanatika* has been replaced by *our country* and *the right to demand satisfaction* has been replaced with *right to seek to redress grievances*.

My proposal for article B: Governing rules shall consist of these Articles of the Constitution, such amendments that shall follow and lower forms of law that may be implemented. No rule shall be valid that contradicts these Articles excepting an amendment specifically tasked to do so.

This is Article A of the DG3 constitution. There is no need to spell out a Code of Laws and a Code of Standards in the constitution. the wording of this article allows us to have either a CoL or CoS or both. I was under the impression that it was still to be discussed and decided whether we wanted and/or needed three levels of rules for two levels may serve us well enough.

Article c: The government will consist of the Executive Branch, Legislative Branch and Judicial Branch.

This is article C of the DG3 constitution without the sub-article clauses. They can be hammered into shape and go into the Code of Laws

 

[Cyc]

donsig, I like your proposal. I just think your Article B should list the CoL and the CoS. This is the point of your whole debate on the reforming of the Constitution, I know, but Constitutionally, with your Article B you could legally ignore the workings of both books. I know you've thought about this and if your Article B is passed, I fully expecct to read a post from you stating that in some form. I realize you don't recognize the Will of the People on this issue (our silly poll), but that's the way it is. The wet dishrag Con of DG3 didn't work for us. We want a new version of the Three Books.

But I like the rest of your proposal.

 

[donsig]

Under my propsed article B any CoL or CoS that was in place could not be legally ignored. I am not opposed to the idea (in theory or in practice) of a set of rules under our constitution. I am opposed to a set of rules that is unreasonable and unwieldy and that is what the old CoL and CoS are. It may well be possible for us all to agree that the DG3 constitution with the proper set of underlying laws would be a great combination. It seems obvious that *what didn't work for us* was not the DG3 constitution but the idea that we would make rules as we went along. We've decided that we'll get that underlying set of rules in place before we start DG4.

Unfortunately, (and this is where I denouce the silly poll), rather than discuss the situation clearly, calmly and reasonably to arrive at the conclusion I stated above, we debated a *restrictive* versus a *permissive* rule set. Somehow *restrictive* was equated with the old DG2 rule set while *permissive* was identified with the DG3 constitution. We never once stopped to think that by adding to the DG3 constitution or modifying the old DG2 rules we could arrive at the same document, which could be as *restrictive* or as *permissive* as we choose. We spent alot of time getting nowhere.

I guess my point is that if you don't want my proposed article B to be ignorable then we'd best get around to making some laws to give article B some teeth.

I like my proposed wording for article B simply because it does not lock us into having both A CoL and a CoS. I see no point in retaining both levels of rules as used in DG2. The original proposal was for a CoL enacted by the Congress (the citizens as a whole) and a CoS dictated by leaders. This idea was transformed into a dual level of laws made by the Congress. The idea behind the transformation was that the CoS would serve as a proving ground for new laws that would eventually be bumped up to the CoL. If we've decided we really won't be making rules as we go and are doing all that stuff before we start DG4 then we don't need a proving ground. By using the general wording of my proposal we do not have to debate all that stuff in this thread for it neither locks us into a CoL and CoS nor prevents us from having both. We can pin down article B now and start a thread to discuss whether we really want and / or need both the CoL and CoS.

 

[Cyc]

Responding to donsig:

It seems obvious that *what didn't work for us* was not the DG3 constitution but the idea that we would make rules as we went along.
Precisely. I'm glad we agree on this. The use of the DG3 Con and phantom books just did not work.

We never once stopped to think that by adding to the DG3 constitution or modifying the old DG2 rules we could arrive at the same document, which could be as *restrictive* or as *permissive* as we choose. We spent alot of time getting nowhere.
Of course we thought of that, donsig. I wrote a long-winded post or three) about that. The difference between a restrictive and permissive structure in this case was a vague Con with supporting books and a more detailed Con with no supporting books. Who cares what we should have done or were supposed to get done. It didn't get done, thus the difference between the two structures. But you're right, we did spend a lot of time getting nowhere, just not because of the point you make.

I guess my point is that if you don't want my proposed article B to be ignorable then we'd best get around to making some laws to give article B some teeth.
We're in the process of doing that now. It does seem funny that now we know in which direction to move the game, the forum has died. Now that we've gotten over the restrictive and permissive part of it, we can spearhead to the laws and standards.

The original proposal was for a CoL enacted by the Congress (the citizens as a whole) and a CoS dictated by leaders. This idea was transformed into a dual level of laws made by the Congress. The idea behind the transformation was that the CoS would serve as a proving ground for new laws that would eventually be bumped up to the CoL.
The transformation of the CoS to it present form of Standards imposed to help define the Laws is a much better way of having it, especially as its run by the Congress and not the Leaders, don't you agree?

If we've decided we really won't be making rules as we go and are doing all that stuff before we start DG4 then we don't need a proving ground. By using the general wording of my proposal we do not have to debate all that stuff in this thread for it neither locks us into a CoL and CoS nor prevents us from having both. We can pin down article B now and start a thread to discuss whether we really want and / or need both the CoL and CoS.
We have decided not to make the rules up as we go along (although I sure changes will be proposed throughout the game), and we don't need a proving ground. You're right! And we don't need to debate all that stuff in this thread 'cause its already been decided. I think Article B has already been pretty well accepted as it is and I'm sure a thread debating the laws in the CoL and the standards in the CoS will open shortly.

 

[donsig]

Cyc, my old friend, I can see I still am not making my point clear about the CoL and CoS. Any, yes, the point needs to be made here and now if we are to draft a clause of the constitution that deals with them.

Cyc said:
We're in the process of doing that now. It does seem funny that now we know in which direction to move the game, the forum has died. Now that we've gotten over the restrictive and permissive part of it, we can spearhead to the laws and standards.

donsig replies:
So you agree then that we do not have to specify a CoL and a CoS on the constitution?

Cyc said:
The transformation of the CoS to it present form of Standards imposed to help define the Laws is a much better way of having it, especially as its run by the Congress and not the Leaders, don't you agree?

donsig replies:
No, I do not agree. I do not think we need a Code of Standards to define our Code of Laws which in turn defines our constitution. A constitution defined by a Code of Laws is enough. If you want to take everything in the old COS and fold it into the CoL that's one thing, but we do not need three different levels of laws! The intent behind the Code of Standards was never that a leader or leader be able to make any kind of law. The original intent of the CoS was that it would be a listing of executive orders encompassing things like how the president wanted the game play instruction thread to be formatted or how the domestic leader wanted to handle budget requests or things like that. It was meant for strictly administrative things and that is why it was to be left in the hands of the leaders.
As I've said before, Shaitan changed the whole concept making the CoS a proving ground for the CoL. If, as you seem to agree with, we don't need a proving ground and further, don't want any administrative standards as in the original proposal - then let's get rid of the idea of a CoS. We can still take any useful rules in the old CoS and incorporate them into the new CoL.

But if we write a constitutional article expressly creating a CoS then we are constitutionally bound to have one. Now if we really don't want or need a CoS - despite the silly poll we had - then now is the time to leave it out of the constitution.

Cyc said:
You're right! And we don't need to debate all that stuff in this thread 'cause its already been decided. I think Article B has already been pretty well accepted as it is and I'm sure a thread debating the laws in the CoL and the standards in the CoS will open shortly.

If we have truly already decided we want both a CoL and a CoS then, once again, we've managed to bind ourselves by another ill conceived poll.

 

[Donovan Zoi]

donsig,

The only thing silly about my poll is that I didn't allow an option of using the DG3 Constitution, with a reworking of the two lower books from DG2 to support it. If we would like to endure one more "silly" poll, I can try to rectify this error in judgement by letting the citizens decide between our last two Constitutions. Then we can leave the winner intact for now, while we try to build a ruleset that supports it.

I like the idea of the CoS, as do a majority of the citizenry. While it it true that Book #3 is somewhat of a "proving ground" as defined by Shaitan, my interpretation of it is one of game procedures(ie Standards) that should be easier to change than an item from the CoL. Although not at any leaders's whim, as you seem to suggest.

So, what do you think? Do we want to rework the DG3 Constitution instead? It would be a shame if we put in so much effort into reworking the DG2 Constitution again, only to have it look like DG3's.

 

[zorven]

Originally posted by Donovan Zoi
So, what do you think? Do we want to rework the DG3 Constitution instead? It would be a shame if we put in so much effort into reworking the DG2 Constitution again, only to have it look like DG3's.

I really don't get it - the DG2 and DG3 constitutions are nearly identical - whether we choose to re-work the DG2 or DG3 constitution we are basically starting from the same place. We already started reviewing the DG2 constitution through section C. Lets continue that and be done with it.

Granted I didn't play DG2, but I just don't understand why we have 3 levels of law. What donsig states as to the original purpose of the CoS makes more sense to me. If the legislature doesn't like what a leader is doing with the CoS, then let them codify it in the CoL, but lets not have 2 additional layers beneath the constitution.

DZ - I assumed you are leading this process, but haven't seen you start any discussions for reviewing and modding the DG2 books since that poll passed. Are you going to be doing that, or is that up to whoever decides to jump on an issue, such as DaveShack has done with this thread. I only want to know so that we don't end up with all of us just sitting here waiting for threads to show up so we can start reviewing specific sections of the DG2 books. I suppose your answer would then dictate who would poll the results of each thread.

 

[Donovan Zoi]

Thanks for your concern, zorven, and my apologies for going astray.

I have actually asked for final toughts in the Judiciary Reform and Election Schedule threads, and will poll them tomorrow if we are ready. Next on the list will be Executive Branch Leadership Structure and Legislative Branch Leadership Structure, as we need to get these basics in place before further defining leadership roles.

I still haven't had the time to iron out an actual timeline for our discussions, but will use my best judgment until then.

 

[donsig]

Donovan Zoi, I do not keep referring to the silly poll in an effort to get you or anyone else to post yet another silly poll. I do so in an effort to prevent more silly polls by any of us.

I have not asked for any new poll. I have made specific proposals in this thread in accordance with the procedure that has thus far been established. If we had a judiciary in place I would be asking for a judicial review on whether the poll in question binds us to have a CoS. I would like to see the idea behind the CoS discussed and maybe even given a nice unbiased poll if consensus is not reached through discussion. I do not think it improper of me to raise this issue now since we are debating the form of a constitutional article directly dealing with the CoS. I also do not think this issue was dealt with sufficiently in the poll in question, which was very broad in scope.

I am also quite willing to debate the issue here in this thread as that also seems proper.

Donovan Zoi said:
I like the idea of the CoS, as do a majority of the citizenry. While it it true that Book #3 is somewhat of a "proving ground" as defined by Shaitan, my interpretation of it is one of game procedures(ie Standards) that should be easier to change than an item from the CoL. Although not at any leaders's whim, as you seem to suggest.

donsig replies:
Well, DZ, do you think we need a *proving ground*? That is a different thing from a set of game procedures that should be easier to change than *laws*. What types of things fall into your category of game procedures? Would standards have the force of laws, i.e., would breaking a standard make one liable to a PI? Would violating a standard be the same as violating a law? (Would the potential punishment be the same?) Would violating either of these be the same as violating the constitution? The DG2 PI systems never really distinguighed between the three levels. I assume the DG3 PI system doesn't either since we only had the constitution in DG3. These are the types of things that have to be considered when making multiple levels of laws.

Would we not be better off removing these game procedures from our legal system? Also, must we tie our leader's hands by specifying things like this regarding the game play instruction thread:

B. First Post:
1. Time and date when the chat will be held
2. Save game which will be used

Does this mean the first post can include only this stuff? If the president adds something (like a summary of our current situation) would he or she be liable to being PIed? Would he or she have to get the CoS amended to allow for such an addition? If that is done aren't future president's bound to do the same? We can trust this person playing our save but we can't trust him or her to format the very instruction thread that he or she must use! This is just one little iota of the things we'll have to deal with once we start work on the CoL and CoS.

So, my constitutional proposal is still on the table.
It is in this post in this very thread. It does not say we cannot have a CoS nor does it say we have to have one. Can we agree on that part of my proposal and debate the fate of the CoS later?

 

[zorven]

I like donsig's proposals for the preamble and Articles A & B. I think Article C should stay as is.

donsig indicates in his proposal (in regards to Article C) that Articles D, E, and F dealing with the details of the three branches should be left to the CoL. I won't comment here because those Articles our outside the scope of this thread. We can discuss their inclusion or exclusion in the constitution in another thread tasked to discuss those Articles.