NationStates

This is my first draft for a Resolution. I don't expect to submit this as a Proposal! I just want to read the criticism so I can learn off it, and possibly make it better. Maybe one day, I will submit it. But I currently have no plans for that now. By the way, I got the Inspiration from the UN Resolution #128. It is not a copy. Please be aware that I am not doing this with total confidence...

The WORLD ASSEMBLY states;

WHEREAS the right of Sovereign Nations to freely tax there citizens is held sacrosanct,

WHEREAS it is the Citizens duty to pay Taxes to their respected Government,

DEFINES "Tax", for the purpose of this Resolution, as the mandatory payment of Currency by Citizens to their respected Government,

WHEREAS many Citizens who live in environments where the Government decides on Tax rates arbitrarily and often without the Consent of the Populace,

WHEREAS that it is a violation of the Citizens Natural Right of Property to impose arbitrary Taxation without the Consent of the Populace,

WHEREAS the Populace has the right to be represented in the matters of Taxation;

THEREFORE,

RESOLVED, That all Member Nations must provide a form of Legislation, Council, Congress, or Assembly to represent the People on the Matters of Taxation and that these Legislations, Councils, Congresses, and Assemblies are protected under General Assembly Resolution #27, Freedom of Assembly,

RESOLVED, That the Members of these Legislations, Councils, Congresses, and Assemblies, must be legal Citizens of the Nation, not Government officials.

RESOLVED, That the Members of these said Legislations, Councils, Congresses, and Assemblies come to Membership by ways dictated by the government, as long as the previous Resolve is uphold by the Government.

AWARE, of nations with existing Legislations, Councils, Congresses, and Assemblies that already provide the proper Representation of the Populace in the matters of Taxation,

RESOLVED, That all Member Nations must follow guidelines concerning Taxation:
1. All matters of Taxation must be made aware to the Legislations, Councils, Congresses, and Assemblies that Represent the People in the matters of Taxation.
2. These Legislations, Councils, Congresses, and Assemblies have the right to Repeal any Taxes passed by the Government if a Quorum, set by the Government, is reached by the Members.
3. The Government can make no infringements, or imposing acts on these Legislations, Councils, Congresses, and Assemblies.

RESOLVED, That the set Quorum of these Legislations, Councils, Congresses, and Assemblies must be Reasonable, meaning the maximum Quorum for Repeal is the Total Members of the Representing Institution, and the Minimum Quorum for Repeal must be at least 51% of the Total Members, to prevent Minority Rule.

RESOLVED, That Nations with already existing Institutions that provide fair Represention of the People in the matters of Taxation are exempt from establishing further Institutions as stated in this Resolution,

RESOLVED, That this Resolution will end Taxation without Representation in all Member States

Here are the major problems I have discovered whilst reading the resolution:

RESOLVED, That all Member Nations must provide a form of Legislation, Council, Congress, or Assembly to represent the People on the Matters of Taxation and that these Legislations, Councils, Congresses, and Assemblies are protected under General Assembly Resolution #27, Freedom of Assembly,

You cannot reference a previous resolution because if GA#27 is repealed then you may gut the base of this draft.

RESOLVED, That the Members of these Legislations, Councils, Congresses, and Assemblies, must be Citizens of the Nation, not Government officials.

This may be an ideological ban. It is possible to provide fair taxation by appointing experts rather than having to go through elections.

RESOLVED, That the Members of these said Legislations, Councils, Congresses, and Assemblies must be either appointed by the Government, or elected by the People.

This is also an ideological ban because this may affect monarchies.

RESOLVED, That the set Quorum of these Legislations, Councils, Congresses, and Assemblies must be Reasonable, meaning the maximum Quorum for Repeal is the Total Members of the Representing Institution, and the Minimum Quorum for Repeal must be at least 51% of the Total Members, to prevent Minority Rule.

No, quorum can only be reached with 6% of the delegates that are active in the WA. It is not possible to change the criteria through resolutions.

RESOLVED, That Nations with already existing Institutions that provide fair Represention of the People in the matters of Taxation are exempt from establishing further Institutions as stated in this Resolution,

I am concerned that this may imply optionality.

Overall, this draft is illegal because it is appearing to make an exclusive rule for this draft on how it should be repealed. Also, member states may not want to choose just citizens to be members of the government because they may be looking for experienced people. It is also illegal to reference a previous resolution in any way as under the proposal rules, the draft needs to survive by itself even if all but the said draft is repealed.

I take it this discussion is OOC in scope, then?


This is unnecessary. If nations already have "a form of Legislation, Council, Congress, or Assembly", then they won't have to do anything extra if the resolution is passed. You're merely restating what logic already tells us. Plus, some people will inevitably pop in with optionality violations and whatnot.

I don't think anything here constitutes an ideological ban. The ideological ban rule, based on precedent, is only violated when outright banning an entire form of government. The World Assembly is free to democratize various specific subjects, such as taxation and civil/political freedoms, but it can't say that dictatorships are illegal.

Also, Charlotte Ryberg, the quorum clauses refer to these citizen-assemblies repealing national tax laws, not to repealing the resolutions itself.

You may want to keep this in mind:

WA General Fund wrote:8. Affirms the right of member nations to maintain full authority over domestic taxation policies, barring those that may include unfair discriminatory practices;

This clause cannot be contradicted, so attempting to usurp member states' authority on taxation (barring unfairly discriminatory taxes) is illegal.

Also, the word is "Legislatures." EDIT: finally understood the context

Charlotte Ryberg wrote:

RESOLVED, That the set Quorum of these Legislations, Councils, Congresses, and Assemblies must be Reasonable, meaning the maximum Quorum for Repeal is the Total Members of the Representing Institution, and the Minimum Quorum for Repeal must be at least 51% of the Total Members, to prevent Minority Rule.

No, quorum can only be reached with 6% of the delegates that are active in the WA. It is not possible to change the criteria through resolutions.

That is not what this Resolve is applying. The Quorum that is mentioned in this Resolve is for the Legislations, Councils, etc. It doesn't affect the Proposal Quorum of the WA in any way.

Charlotte Ryberg pretty much summed up the case against this resolution. I would oppose even if it was "cleaned up" and submitted.

Ambridge County wrote:Charlotte Ryberg pretty much summed up the case against this resolution. I would oppose even if it was "cleaned up" and submitted.

As I have said, this probably won't be submitted. Its just an idea.

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Are you speaking of all taxes, or or of a particular type of taxes ( inheritance, sales, property, income, VAT, windfall, exise...etc?).

opposed. completely. Do not push your own political theories onto other nations.

"Praiseworthy indeed though the inentions behind this proposal seem to be, if my own nation was still an actual member of this organisation and this proposal were ever to become passed as a resolution, then -- although we are already effectively in compliance with those intentions -- we would be unable to comply with its actual terms as they are currently worded. 'The Confederated Clans of the Free Bears of Bears Armed' is -- as its name clearly implies -- a confederation of Clans (and some other 'Confederated Bodys'), and each of our nationals can hold citizenship only within a single Clan (or other 'Body') each rather than in the nation as a whole..."


Borrin o Redwood,
Chief Observer at the World Assembly
for
The High Council of Clans,
The Confederated Clans of the Free Bears of Bears Armed.

BURNINATI0N wrote:Remove 'Whereas', it sounds odd in this case. Swap some other word in there, like Understanding or recognizing.

United Marktoria is experimenting with alternative formats.

BURNINATI0N wrote:Just currency? If we were using a barter economy, we could easily get around anything in this resolution involving taxes.

If you're using a 'barter economy', how do you collect taxes in the first place?

BURNINATI0N wrote:]Excuse me what? are these complete thoughts? they appear to be whole paragraphs...

Read the clauses together, and you will find yourself a complete thought.

BURNINATI0N wrote:Umm, are you trying to mandate that I have a government?

You do have a government. How else do resolutions take affect in BURNINATION?

BURNINATI0N wrote:

United Marktoria wrote:RESOLVED, That the Members of these said Legislations, Councils, Congresses, and Assemblies come to Membership by ways dictated by the government, as long as the previous Resolve is uphold by the Government.

Excuse me, what?

It says that the government is allowed to dictate how members of the citizen-assemblies become members.

BURNINATI0N wrote:

United Marktoria wrote:AWARE, of nations with existing Legislations, Councils, Congresses, and Assemblies that already provide the proper Representation of the Populace in the matters of Taxation,

Completely unnecessary clause here...

Why?

BURNINATI0N wrote:OK...there aren't any further guidelines as to what the 'legislations' (which isn't a word by the way), councils, congresses, or assemblies actually are...

They're groups of people coming together to discuss tax law. Proposals need not define commonly understood words.

BURNINATI0N wrote:Repeal is only 51%? So essentially every single time a different party takes control of congress, they just repeal every single law they don't like.

That's typically how it works in most governments. Spending all of their time repealing laws means that they don't spend any time passing new ones, though.

Bears Armed wrote:"Praiseworthy indeed though the inentions behind this proposal seem to be, if my own nation was still an actual member of this organisation and this proposal were ever to become passed as a resolution, then -- although we are already effectively in compliance with those intentions -- we would be unable to comply with its actual terms as they are currently worded. 'The Confederated Clans of the Free Bears of Bears Armed' is -- as its name clearly implies -- a confederation of Clans (and some other 'Confederated Bodys'), and each of our nationals can hold citizenship only within a single Clan (or other 'Body') each rather than in the nation as a whole..."

How many resolutions can this apply to? 'Bears Armed' is still the single nation responsible for complying with World Assembly resolutions. How it goes about complying doesn't matter -- whether it's a central government dictating the law, or each separate clan coming into compliance. The proposal doesn't state anywhere that a single, centralized government must do X and Y. It merely states that the government must do X and Y; just 'the government', not 'the central government'. For Bears Armed to be in compliance, each Clan (collectively, 'the government') would have to create some kind of citizen-assembly.

If Bears Armed... If the Clans of Bears Armed were still member-states of the World Assembly, that is.

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Glen-Rhodes wrote:

Bears Armed wrote:"Praiseworthy indeed though the inentions behind this proposal seem to be, if my own nation was still an actual member of this organisation and this proposal were ever to become passed as a resolution, then -- although we are already effectively in compliance with those intentions -- we would be unable to comply with its actual terms as they are currently worded. 'The Confederated Clans of the Free Bears of Bears Armed' is -- as its name clearly implies -- a confederation of Clans (and some other 'Confederated Bodys'), and each of our nationals can hold citizenship only within a single Clan (or other 'Body') each rather than in the nation as a whole..."

How many resolutions can this apply to? 'Bears Armed' is still the single nation responsible for complying with World Assembly resolutions. How it goes about complying doesn't matter -- whether it's a central government dictating the law, or each separate clan coming into compliance. The proposal doesn't state anywhere that a single, centralized government must do X and Y. It merely states that the government must do X and Y; just 'the government', not 'the central government'. For Bears Armed to be in compliance, each Clan (collectively, 'the government') would have to create some kind of citizen-assembly.

If Bears Armed... If the Clans of Bears Armed were still member-states of the World Assembly, that is.

But this proposal specifies that the members of the legislatures involved "must be legal Citizens of the Nation": Our having no "citiizens of the nation" means that although each Clan's government would be in full compliance with this measure in all other respects -- including 'in spirit' -- meeting that requirement quite literally wouldn't be possible.
Yes, this could be a problem with other proposals & resolutions too, although in some cases the authors of other measures have adjusted their wording so that it was broad enough to cover our own situation. In this case, a simple change to make the requirement be that they are "legal citizens of the nation or subdivision of a nation concerned" would do the job...

BURNINATI0N wrote:This one was bad.

It's been used before. I think it's a pretty clear style...

BURNINATI0N wrote:By taking payment in pigs or some other goods.

Wouldn't that be the currency then?

BURNINATI0N wrote:Even together, it's a bit confusing.

Hm. Is this more understandable?

BURNINATI0N wrote:I know. That's why the clause confused me.

What's confusing, specifically? The clause says that all nations are required to have some form of citizen-assembly, where citizens are represented in matters of taxation. I assume that this is a specialized group, separate from the government.

BURNINATI0N wrote:Because it is informing us that it is aware we have governments.

It's not entirely unnecessary. It reads like a preambulatory clause.

BURNINATI0N wrote:For repeals in Burnination's (extremely limited) parliament, you need at lease 66%. I will not support this if repeals are at 51%.

51% isn't a set figure. It's simply the minimum. Burnination is free to keep the repeal quorum at 66%.

Bears Armed wrote:But this proposal specifies that the members of the legislatures involved "must be legal Citizens of the Nation": Our having no "citiizens of the nation" means that although each Clan's government would be in full compliance with this measure in all other respects -- including 'in spirit' -- meeting that requirement quite literally wouldn't be possible.

Yes, this could be a problem with other proposals & resolutions too, although in some cases the authors of other measures have adjusted their wording so that it was broad enough to cover our own situation. In this case, a simple change to make the requirement be that they are "legal citizens of the nation or subdivision of a nation concerned" would do the job...

But you admit that plenty of resolutions apply to 'nations' or 'national governments' only... For example, National Economic Freedoms. Would Bears Armed, or any other nation with similar workers, be exempt, simply because NEF doesn't say 'REQUIRES national governments or governments of subdivisions to compensate any individual...'?

At some point, the World Assembly has to say, "Okay, you have an unconventional form of government. That's great and all, but we can't account for how hundreds of unique forms of government work. You're just going to have to live with applying our resolutions to your form of government, because it's too difficult for us to apply everybody's form of government to our resolutions." Today, we're adding 'or subdivision of a nation', tomorrow we're adding something else, and the next day another thing. The goal should be to simplify resolutions, not make them more complex to write.

In this case, couldn't we just say that the Compliance Commission would be lenient here, so long as each Clan has these assemblies? Or, we could just avoid mentioning citizenship altogether, but that creates more problems than it solves. OR, we could mandate how citizenship works, but that would make a lot of people very unhappy. So... how do we keep proposal writing as simple as possible, while accounting for unconventional forms of government that may not fit perfectly into a resolution?

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BURNINATI0N wrote:Really? I don't like it. It wouldn't stop me from voting for the proposal if it was good, but overall, the readability of this one is not good.

I guess if you read enough city ordinances, it becomes easier to understand.

BURNINATI0N wrote:Not really, because I couldn't take a pig from everyone, I'd have to take a piece of whatever people are producing.

Maybe the pig wouldn't be the currency, but simply a good would be. Currency doesn't have to be a single object.

United Marktoria wrote:The WORLD ASSEMBLY states;

WHEREAS the right of Sovereign Nations to freely tax there citizens is held sacrosanct,

WHEREAS it is the Citizens duty to pay Taxes to their respected Government,

DEFINES "Tax", for the purpose of this Resolution, as the mandatory payment of Currency by Citizens to their respected Government,

WHEREAS many Citizens who live in environments where the Government decides on Tax rates arbitrarily and often without the Consent of the Populace,

WHEREAS that it is a violation of the Citizens Natural Right of Property to impose arbitrary Taxation without the Consent of the Populace,

WHEREAS the Populace has the right to be represented in the matters of Taxation;

THEREFORE,

RESOLVED, That all Member Nations must provide a form of Legislation, Council, Congress, or Assembly to represent the People on the Matters of Taxation and that these Legislations, Councils, Congresses, and Assemblies are protected under General Assembly Resolution #27, Freedom of Assembly,

RESOLVED, That the Members of these Legislations, Councils, Congresses, and Assemblies, must be legal Citizens of the Nation, not Government officials.

RESOLVED, That the Members of these said Legislations, Councils, Congresses, and Assemblies come to Membership by ways dictated by the government, as long as the previous Resolve is uphold by the Government.

AWARE, of nations with existing Legislations, Councils, Congresses, and Assemblies that already provide the proper Representation of the Populace in the matters of Taxation,

RESOLVED, That all Member Nations must follow guidelines concerning Taxation:
1. All matters of Taxation must be made aware to the Legislations, Councils, Congresses, and Assemblies that Represent the People in the matters of Taxation.
2. These Legislations, Councils, Congresses, and Assemblies have the right to Repeal any Taxes passed by the Government if a Quorum, set by the Government, is reached by the Members.
3. The Government can make no infringements, or imposing acts on these Legislations, Councils, Congresses, and Assemblies.

RESOLVED, That the set Quorum of these Legislations, Councils, Congresses, and Assemblies must be Reasonable, meaning the maximum Quorum for Repeal is the Total Members of the Representing Institution, and the Minimum Quorum for Repeal must be at least 51% of the Total Members, to prevent Minority Rule.

RESOLVED, That Nations with already existing Institutions that provide fair Represention of the People in the matters of Taxation are exempt from establishing further Institutions as stated in this Resolution,

RESOLVED, That this Resolution will end Taxation without Representation in all Member States

If I may, I believe this is, as stated before, utterly illegal. It violates #8 within the WA General Fund. Repeal that and maybe this would be legal.

Otherwise, I see no problems with this in construction. Just a different style of proposal, and reminds me of a few I've seen in the archives.

Glen-Rhodes wrote:

Bears Armed wrote:But this proposal specifies that the members of the legislatures involved "must be legal Citizens of the Nation": Our having no "citiizens of the nation" means that although each Clan's government would be in full compliance with this measure in all other respects -- including 'in spirit' -- meeting that requirement quite literally wouldn't be possible.

Yes, this could be a problem with other proposals & resolutions too, although in some cases the authors of other measures have adjusted their wording so that it was broad enough to cover our own situation. In this case, a simple change to make the requirement be that they are "legal citizens of the nation or subdivision of a nation concerned" would do the job...

But you admit that plenty of resolutions apply to 'nations' or 'national governments' only... For example, National Economic Freedoms. Would Bears Armed, or any other nation with similar workers, be exempt, simply because NEF doesn't say 'REQUIRES national governments or governments of subdivisions to compensate any individual...'?

No. We have a 'national government', so it could do whatever resolutions such as that required national governments to do... if the Clauses of Confederation, including the amendment that authorised membership in the WA and that expanded its powers slightly to help deal with this, allowed: That's a different situation from the WA requiring action by something that we don't have.

Glen-Rhodes wrote:At some point, the World Assembly has to say, "Okay, you have an unconventional form of government. That's great and all, but we can't account for how hundreds of unique forms of government work. You're just going to have to live with applying our resolutions to your form of government, because it's too difficult for us to apply everybody's form of government to our resolutions." Today, we're adding 'or subdivision of a nation', tomorrow we're adding something else, and the next day another thing. The goal should be to simplify resolutions, not make them more complex to write. In this case, couldn't we just say that the Compliance Commission would be lenient here, so long as each Clan has these assemblies?

No. What the WA can (& effectively does) say is that nations must comply to the letter with all passed resolutions or resign their membership. Unless it actually passes a resolution specifiying that such interpretations must be made -- which I think would be extremeley difficult to do legally -- the established rule is that "The Law Does What The Law Says" and that doesn't allow for any such exemptions.

Glen-Rhodes wrote:Or, we could just avoid mentioning citizenship altogether, but that creates more problems than it solves.

Even "legal citizens in the nation", rather than "of the nation", we could work with...in any proposal that, unlike this one,isn't illegal anyway.

Glen-Rhodes wrote:OR, we could mandate how citizenship works, but that would make a lot of people very unhappy.

And almost certainly be illegal under the 'No Ideological Bans' rule.

Glen-Rhodes wrote:So... how do we keep proposal writing as simple as possible, while accounting for unconventional forms of government that may not fit perfectly into a resolution?

That would probably vary from proposal topic to to proposal topic, and according to just how the governments of whichever nations object are "unconventional".

Glen-Rhodes wrote:

Bears Armed wrote:But this proposal specifies that the members of the legislatures involved "must be legal Citizens of the Nation": Our having no "citiizens of the nation" means that although each Clan's government would be in full compliance with this measure in all other respects -- including 'in spirit' -- meeting that requirement quite literally wouldn't be possible.

Yes, this could be a problem with other proposals & resolutions too, although in some cases the authors of other measures have adjusted their wording so that it was broad enough to cover our own situation. In this case, a simple change to make the requirement be that they are "legal citizens of the nation or subdivision of a nation concerned" would do the job...

But you admit that plenty of resolutions apply to 'nations' or 'national governments' only... For example, National Economic Freedoms. Would Bears Armed, or any other nation with similar workers, be exempt, simply because NEF doesn't say 'REQUIRES national governments or governments of subdivisions to compensate any individual...'?

No. We have a 'national government', so it could do whatever resolutions such as that required national governments to do... if the Clauses of Confederation, including the amendment that authorised membership in the WA and that expanded its powers slightly to help deal with this, allowed: That's a different situation from the WA requiring action by something that we don't have.

Glen-Rhodes wrote:At some point, the World Assembly has to say, "Okay, you have an unconventional form of government. That's great and all, but we can't account for how hundreds of unique forms of government work. You're just going to have to live with applying our resolutions to your form of government, because it's too difficult for us to apply everybody's form of government to our resolutions." Today, we're adding 'or subdivision of a nation', tomorrow we're adding something else, and the next day another thing. The goal should be to simplify resolutions, not make them more complex to write. In this case, couldn't we just say that the Compliance Commission would be lenient here, so long as each Clan has these assemblies?

No. What the WA can (& effectively does) say is that nations must comply to the letter with all passed resolutions or resign their membership. Unless it actually passes a resolution specifiying that such interpretations must be made -- which I think would be extremeley difficult to do legally -- the established rule is that "The Law Does What The Law Says" and that doesn't allow for any such exemptions.

Glen-Rhodes wrote:Or, we could just avoid mentioning citizenship altogether, but that creates more problems than it solves.

Even "legal citizens in the nation", rather than "of the nation", we could work with...in any proposal that, unlike this one,isn't illegal anyway.

Glen-Rhodes wrote:OR, we could mandate how citizenship works, but that would make a lot of people very unhappy.

And almost certainly be illegal under the 'No Ideological Bans' rule.

Glen-Rhodes wrote:So... how do we keep proposal writing as simple as possible, while accounting for unconventional forms of government that may not fit perfectly into a resolution?

That would probably vary from proposal topic to to proposal topic, and according to just how the governments of whichever nations object are "unconventional".

Bears Armed wrote:Even "legal citizens in the nation", rather than "of the nation", we could work with...in any proposal that, unlike this one,isn't illegal anyway.

Would the Clans have a problem with allowing Ursines of other Clans to manage their taxes? What about other nations that have no 'national citizenship'? We have to worry about them too, and accommodate their unusual governments as well.

Bears Armed wrote:And almost certainly be illegal under the 'No Ideological Bans' rule.

How so? I would assume that if we could define nationality, we could define citizenship. Simply changing one facet of a form of government does not violate the ideological ban rule.

Bears Armed wrote:That would probably vary from proposal topic to to proposal topic, and according to just how the governments of whichever nations object are "unconventional".

My point is that there's no way to write a resolution that accommodates every single form of government on NationStates. Making that change might make things easier for Bears Armed, but there are a hundred other nations with unusual governments that need some changes made as well. Before you know it, half the resolution simply consists of a definition that makes sure everybody is happy. Something's gotta give, so that the process doesn't become unbearably difficult (no pun intended).

Glen-Rhodes wrote:How so? I would assume that if we could define nationality, we could define citizenship. Simply changing one facet of a form of government does not violate the ideological ban rule.

The simple way: A governmental ideology in which there are no elections and elected bodies actually go against it. Certain forms of theocracy, monarchy, dictatorship, and corporate government styles all come to mind. By requiring an elected assembly, this automatically bans them from practicing a governmental ideology in which there is no form of elected official. It also bans pure democracies, with it being that all laws are voted on by all civilians with no government body existing to vote for them. It, therefore, produces the irony of attempting to further democracy by restricting it.

Sorry about stepping in like this. I just felt I could answer this one.

Ilharessa wrote:The simple way: A governmental ideology in which there are no elections and elected bodies actually go against it. Certain forms of theocracy, monarchy, dictatorship, and corporate government styles all come to mind. By requiring an elected assembly, this automatically bans them from practicing a governmental ideology in which there is no form of elected official. It also bans pure democracies, with it being that all laws are voted on by all civilians with no government body existing to vote for them. It, therefore, produces the irony of attempting to further democracy by restricting it.

Mandating citizen-assemblies for tax laws doesn't prevent dictatorships from being dictatorships. It merely prevents them from being dictatorships when it comes to tax law. The ideological ban rule only applies if an entire ideology is prevented from existing, and only if it is prevented from existing through a single resolution. Slowly democratizing World Assembly nations is completely legal and is what we have been doing for years -- Freedom of Assembly, Freedom of Expression, Freedom of Marriage Act, and Fairness in Criminal Trials are all excellent examples.

When it comes to whether or not mandating how citizenship works violates the ideological ban rule, I would have to come down on the side of 'not'. Yeah, it pretty much dissolves whatever national sovereignty a nation had left, but national sovereignty isn't something the World Assembly is obligated to respect, and dictating how citizenship works doesn't prevent their form of government from existing. In my opinion, at least.

Oh, and sorry for derailing this thread. These OOC threads tend to get eaten up with this type of opining.

Glen-Rhodes wrote:

Bears Armed wrote:Even "legal citizens in the nation", rather than "of the nation", we could work with...in any proposal that, unlike this one,isn't illegal anyway.

Would the Clans have a problem with allowing Ursines of other Clans to manage their taxes? What about other nations that have no 'national citizenship'? We have to worry about them too, and accommodate their unusual governments as well.

Yes, they would have a problem with that... but if the wording of this clause said "legal citizens in the nation", as I've already suggested, then there's nothing here that would keep us from continuing to use each Clan's own legislature to determine the taxation rates for that specific Clan alone: As the clans are within the nation their citizens are within the nation, even though [still] not "of" the nation, and that is why we could work with this change in wording.

Glen-Rhodes wrote:

Bears Armed wrote:And almost certainly be illegal under the 'No Ideological Bans' rule.

How so? I would assume that if we could define nationality, we could define citizenship. Simply changing one facet of a form of government does not violate the ideological ban rule.

That depends on what the form of government and the 'facet' concerned actually are: As things currently stand, for example, a single-party state can say that only 'Party' members are full citizens or a theocratic republic can say that only members of the national religion hold that status, and forcing them to open-up citizenship to all of their [adult] nationals would wreck their systems.

Glen-Rhodes wrote:

Bears Armed wrote:That would probably vary from proposal topic to to proposal topic, and according to just how the governments of whichever nations object are "unconventional".

My point is that there's no way to write a resolution that accommodates every single form of government on NationStates. Making that change might make things easier for Bears Armed, but there are a hundred other nations with unusual governments that need some changes made as well. Before you know it, half the resolution simply consists of a definition that makes sure everybody is happy. Something's gotta give, so that the process doesn't become unbearably difficult (no pun intended).

If a particular proposal can't be written so that it does accomodate every form of government that's in use amongst the member nations then maybe that proposal simply shouldn't be submitted...
(I'll concede that accomodating 'absolute sovereigntist' or 'absolute anarchist' nations is impossible, but then obviously any nations that truly hold to either of those philosophies shouldn't have been able to bring themselves to join an organisation like this in the first place...)