Legality of declearation of war?

[Rik Meleet]

Provolution: No this trial is a matter of principle; "Constitution or no Constitution ?".

EMP's point is clear; "Constitution". That is not sad, that is Democracy. I think EMP should gain a lot of our respect because of it.

That said; I think pointing to the turnplayer (me) as the accused is a bit unjust. Like I said earlier; the only decision I took was to choose the moment of play. Just imagine what would have happened if -because of the poll needing the proper amount of time- war would not have been declared ? Would that be against the "will of the people" ? I think it is. OK, Declaring war before the poll ended is illegal, but so is Not declaring war before the poll ended.

So we have a situation here in which both declaring war and not declaring war is illegal. This should be a signal that "declaring war" is not the issue here and I (and others) should not be accused of this. The issue is "playing too early". Is this a crime according to our laws ? I don't know, but I do know that "Not playing too early" is nearly considered a crime in the ISDG (or at least frowned upon).

That means our Constitution is in conflict with the ISDG-rules. The ISDG-rules are higher in rank than our Constitution, thus I see this legal debate as the prelude to a different legal debate and work on: "Getting our constitution legal".

It cannot be good that doing something is always a CFC-crime while at the same time not an ISDG-crime and doing nothing is never a CFC-crime, but always an ISDG-crime.

 

[RegentMan]

I'm beginning to see that we don't need a constitution. Just a flexible outline explaining elections and each position's duties and responsibilities.

 

[Provolution]

There should be a set of rules on how to conduct negotiations and declaring war, settling treaties, as well as posting instructions based on polls or mandates. I think too many people consider Constitution as the goal, where it is merely a means to an end.
I still consider this a Mickey Mouse Constitution. However, for the sake of satisfying the verbal minority, we can surely waste our time on some peripheral intellectual exercise that has no bearing. Please remember that this is a game. We are here to crush Brazuca. If someone wants to create a Dreyfuss scandal, Kafka Process, Stockholm Syndrome and whatever to appease their bizarre interests, fair enough. From now on I will take the back seat, but this process is nothing but EMPs jealous protection of his legacy as C3B Ambassador, and his hopes of making these his core alliance in a 2 year PBEM .However, 90 % wants to win the war, and I will thank EMP for keeping up such a good diplomacy that they wasted their only chance to win, by the means of using their immortals. Thanks to EMP, they squandered that opportunity.

Thank you EMP for weakening the C3B resolve, but we really do not need this process.

 

[Cheetah]

I'm still feeling that this problem is a bagatelle.

The constitution is only there to serve us, IMHO. It is not there to be served. We are a small team and we don't need tons of laws to function.

 

[Goonie]

"And where will you hide, the laws all being torn down?"

 

[Cheetah]

"In the real world, where this is only a game."

 

[Goonie]

That's not a real quote!

 

[Cheetah]

I know, but it felt like an appropiate answer to your quote.

 

[Goonie]

I miss that Norwegian sense of humour.

All I have as a reminder is that Norwegian flag in my room.

 

[Provolution]

LOL, I got a Texan flag and a Japanese flag, among others. I actually keep flags exchanged from my favorite mistresses overseas at various walls.

 

[Goonie]

May I ask where you reside and your nationality?

Nothing better than momento's from mistresses!

 

[Hygro]

Provolution, there is no "vocal minority" because the number of citizens who post are about as many as the number who vote. The rest of the citizens (who probably don't double the voting and posting figure, and therefore are probably the minority anyway) are subsequently irrellevent.

 

[classical_hero]

There is nothing that RM violated because there is nothing that talks about declaration of war. We need to seriously do something so that we can learn form this little episode.

 

[Emp.Napoleon]

Finally I'd like to point out that the fact that our president is alone in his opinion on the poll's subject and continues to advocate this opinion on and on will probably prove to be political suicide. :suicide:

I would much rather commit poltical suicide than lie about my true belifes just to be in a poltical office. I really do belive that it was possable, and I will stand beside that.

 

[rcoutme]

Reading the Constitution, the words say that the poll must be open for 48 hours. It says that a simple majority vote passes any poll. It does not state what happens if that simple majority (i.e. greater than 1/2 of the possible votes) is obtained before the 48 hours time is up.

As Rik said, he was only following the 'will of the CFC majority'. I directed the attacks (although I had been told that the majority had been reached); Rik clicked his mouse. The Constitution is very vague about playing turns before 48 hours. I agree with Rik that we need to get our constitution in line with the ISDG rules. The turn had to be played (since Rik had opened it up) and there was nothing that could stop that once it was started. We waited 3 hours (or more, iirc) to see if more people were going to vote, and the overwhelming quantity of 'yes' votes made the Declaration of War poll an automatic yes. The total voters left was fewer than required (or so I was told) to get more no votes than there were already yes votes.

The Constitution DOES NOT SAY YOU HAVE TO WAIT! It only says that the 48 hours must be available. If I see tomorrow that a poll is taken to remove me from office and there are already more than 1/2 the voters voting yes, I will not complain if somebody else starts doing the CoMA job...that would be the will of the democracy. Once the votes are cast, they can't be taken back, so a simple majority is a simple majority...especially when it can't be defeated!

 

[Provolution]

Very true Rcoutme, 14 beats one, and when the quorum was reached, we knew that the one vote had lost.

 

[Emp.Napoleon]

One must also remember that both sides did not have time to present thier side of the issue due to the lack of time. However, the problem with Rscoutme's theory is that it can be hard to determine the population of the nation should you want to end it early. If we had a counting, that would be different. But not everyone voted in every poll.

 

[RegentMan]

We really only have ten, fifteen active posters and a few more lurkers. Waiting for everyone to vote, even the ones who join then do nothing, is ridiculous.

 

[Provolution]

Everyone knew the case from the first warpoll, these running turn polls was to decide the timing of the war, not on the war itself. Please read the very warpoll Rik posted where he said he would ask for a greenlight per turn. Emp , sorry, you got it wrong. I also think you have a very poor case in converting the idea that Brazuca had to be crushed.

EMP, you had plenty of time, during the grand plan poll, the war poll and before. Brazuca had their chance, and now it is gone. They forfeited it. And even a couple of candyfloss, huggy feely treehugger posts could not switch this situation.

 

[Cheetah]

Our main strategy was decided upon many turns ago. So it was clear what the people wanted.

I see most of the people are in agreement with me, so this case is now closed. No punnishment, and everyone is reminded to look at the constitution when in doubt.

If anyone want's to change the constitution start a discussion or polls. I am not the legislation.