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by Christian Democrats » Tue Nov 08, 2016 8:20 am
Leo Tolstoy wrote:Wrong does not cease to be wrong because the majority share in it.
by Sierra Lyricalia » Tue Nov 08, 2016 10:17 am
by Bears Armed » Tue Nov 08, 2016 10:49 am
by Christian Democrats » Tue Nov 08, 2016 1:50 pm
Christian Democrats wrote:I'll post my dissent early this afternoon (U.S. time, within the next six hours or so).
Leo Tolstoy wrote:Wrong does not cease to be wrong because the majority share in it.
by Separatist Peoples » Tue Nov 08, 2016 2:08 pm
by Sierra Lyricalia » Tue Nov 08, 2016 2:20 pm
). Bears, the analysis of the actual extent of FoD blockage is virtually unchanged; the new first three paragraphs detail the necessity of using a different standard to judge broadness than either Sciongrad or Glen-Rhodes used.I join the Majority opinion as to all parts except how to test "broadness" in determining what constitutes an illegal blocker (the sentence beginning "The only reliable test"). I do not parse the meaning of the apparent oxymoron "broad and specific" because testing for illegal broadness does not require linguistic analysis. It's enough merely to determine whether the resolution at hand is too broad to permit serious further use of the category. I find it is not.
I.
If as Majority claims the entire category must be blocked in order to render a proposal illegally broad, then virtually nothing could ever be an illegal blocker. There's often room for some outlandish, left-field sidestep. Take an International Security blocker: a provision mandates that all weapons research, manufacturing, procurement, deployment, and usage decisions must revert to member nations. It's still possible later for the WA to require (say) 2,000 hours of weapons safety training for police and military personnel - artfully dodging the IS blockade. The blocker rule cannot possibly be intended to allow this, so we cannot expect to require the entire category to be blocked in order to declare an illegal blocker. There must be some other standard at work.
Minority's second stated standard (the one apparently used), that a legal proposal may "only... block[] a non-significant portion of a category" is not terribly helpful. A "non-significant portion" may be as large as 49% or as small as you please, and gives the Secretariat too much leeway to declare even a small blockade "significant," or a large one inconsequential. Between "significance" and the equally unworkable "entire category" standard there only remains a majority standard.
Differing from Minority's first stated standard ("nearly impossible to utilize a category") only by semantics, this easily lets us determine whether or not most of the category is blocked, both by appeal to extant law and by imagining possible future topics. By that standard NCoE is legal, as Section II shows.
II.
The category "Furtherment of Democracy" seems straightforwardly focused on elections. The essence of democracy, its sine qua non, is voting; and by far the bulk of official voting takes place for representative elections. Therefore voting must be synonymous with elections; and by extension the "furtherment" of democracy must hold elections to be its primary or even sole focus.
But the record, both IRL and IC, belies this simplistic view. Referenda, plebiscites, and ballot initiatives are things for which one votes, but do not count as "elections" as the voter is not then voting to elect someone to office. Nations that use direct democracy, as opposed to representative democracy, vote quite often without ever once holding an election. So in this respect even the rights of voters, narrowly construed, may remain open to World Assembly regulation, as long as WA law on those rights doesn't affect elections per se.
If that's too fine a distinction, though, there is far more to a successful democracy than mere voting. As any formerly marginalized group, ex-fringe party, or successful minority activist can tell you, voting may well be the least important step in exercising a citizen's political power. Petitioning members of the government, protesting in the streets, writing letters and editorials to news organizations, and submitting draft bills to the legislature are all essential techniques of drawing public attention to national issues. Furthering democracy is a fool's errand if one doesn't take these activities into account. All of them are important to the successful exercise of political rights by the people, some of them have already been the subject of FoD resolutions, and none of them are blocked from WA action by the proposal at hand.
The category "Furtherment of Democracy" encompasses election laws, it is true. But as with Minority's example of the Nuclear Arms Possession Act, elections "are not the entirety, or nearly the entirety, of what the [Furtherment of Democracy] category is about."1 It is far broader than that, and to assume that barring action on election laws bars all or even most avenues of furthering democracy is to fundamentally misunderstand the nature of political power.
Given the vastity of the universe of FoD resolutions, statistical analysis is unnecessary here. But even if we performed it, only two of the eleven extant FoD resolutions would be blocked; and other relevant subjects remain untouched. I therefore hold the proposed resolution "National Control of Elections" not to be in violation of the blocker rule, and legal as drafted.
1It is worth noting here that one could use Minority's "significance" standard to reach either conclusion: Minority intended the preceding quote to contrast NAPA with NCoE; but obviously I think they're roughly equivalent. Therefore the standard fails. The only way to resolve this contradiction is to require the blockade of a litany (if not a mathematical count) of more than half the category's possible subject matter in order to uphold a blocker rule challenge.
by Christian Democrats » Tue Nov 08, 2016 3:25 pm
Sciongrad joined by Separatist Peoples and joined in part by Sierra Lyricalia and Bears Armed:
The question before us now is whether a proposal, by foreclosing future World Assembly action on elections, is a violation of the blocker rule. In order to answer this question, we must first review the wording of the blocker rule.
Historically, the blocker rule has permitted resolutions to foreclose particular issues (e.g., nuclear weapons disarmament) - the only additional criteria were that 1. the proposal provided for some additional action besides simply blocking, 2. the proposal could not be repeal-proof, and 3. the proposal could not foreclose legislation on an entire category. Under that reading of the rule, this proposal is quite clearly legal because, as appellee rightly noted, this legislation would only block two out of the 11 extant resolutions in the Furtherment of Democracy category.
However, following the GA Rules Consortium, the revised blocker rule declares that"[p]roposals cannot be "repeal-proof" or prohibit legislation on broad and specific issues." This change means that we cannot base the legality of appellee's proposal based strictly on the previous rule. The new criteria, which prohibits blockers on "broad and specific issues," ostensibly appears as if it would, indeed, render this proposal illegal. However, it also appears as if it would render almost any proposal illegal, as every resolution must necessarily foreclose future legislation on "broad and specific issues," as a result of the contradiction and duplication rule. It would be nonsensical, therefore, to declare appellee's proposal illegal simply because it violates the almost absurdly ill-considered prohibition on foreclosing "broad and specific issues." Such an interpretation of the rule would be excessively restrictive. "Broad and specific issues," interpreted literally, is a meaningless and nonsensical phrase. Additionally, interpreting the clause literally would make it internally inconsistent, as it cannot simultaneously prohibit legislation on basically any topic while also declaring that "'(b)lockers' themselves are not illegal." The rule, then, should be interpreted as banning legislation on specific issues when it forecloses "broad" categories of legislation. The only reliable test for "broadness" that does not rely on the normative considerations of council members would be whether or not the proposal blocks off an entire category, which, as has been proven previously, it does not.
As the proposal 1. provides for action in addition to blocking, 2. is not repeal-proof, and 3. does not foreclose all possible legislation in the Furtherment of Democracy category, we hold that the proposal is consistent with the blocker rule.
Sierra Lyricalia joined by Bears Armed, concurring:
I join the Majority opinion as to all parts except how to test "broadness" in determining what constitutes an illegal blocker (the sentence beginning "The only reliable test"). I do not parse the meaning of the apparent oxymoron "broad and specific" because testing for illegal broadness does not require linguistic analysis. It's enough merely to determine whether the resolution at hand is too broad to permit serious further use of the category. I find it is not.
I.
If as Majority claims the entire category must be blocked in order to render a proposal illegally broad, then virtually nothing could ever be an illegal blocker. There's often room for some outlandish, left-field sidestep. Take an International Security blocker: a provision mandates that all weapons research, manufacturing, procurement, deployment, and usage decisions must revert to member nations. It's still possible later for the WA to require (say) 2,000 hours of weapons safety training for police and military personnel - artfully dodging the IS blockade. The blocker rule cannot possibly be intended to allow this, so we cannot expect to require the entire category to be blocked in order to declare an illegal blocker. There must be some other standard at work.
Minority's second stated standard (the one apparently used), that a legal proposal may "only... block[] a non-significant portion of a category" is not terribly helpful. A "non-significant portion" may be as large as 49% or as small as you please, and gives the Secretariat too much leeway to declare even a small blockade "significant," or a large one inconsequential. Between "significance" and the equally unworkable "entire category" standard there only remains a majority standard.
Differing from Minority's first stated standard ("nearly impossible to utilize a category") only by semantics, this easily lets us determine whether or not most of the category is blocked, both by appeal to extant law and by imagining possible future topics. By that standard NCoE is legal, as Section II shows.
II.
The category "Furtherment of Democracy" seems straightforwardly focused on elections. The essence of democracy, its sine qua non, is voting; and by far the bulk of official voting takes place for representative elections. Therefore voting must be synonymous with elections; and by extension the "furtherment" of democracy must hold elections to be its primary or even sole focus.
But the record, both IRL and IC, belies this simplistic view. Referenda, plebiscites, and ballot initiatives are things for which one votes, but do not count as "elections" as the voter is not then voting to elect someone to office. Nations that use direct democracy, as opposed to representative democracy, vote quite often without ever once holding an election. So in this respect even the rights of voters, narrowly construed, may remain open to World Assembly regulation, as long as WA law on those rights doesn't affect elections per se.
If that's too fine a distinction, though, there is far more to a successful democracy than mere voting. As any formerly marginalized group, ex-fringe party, or successful minority activist can tell you, voting may well be the least important step in exercising a citizen's political power. Petitioning members of the government, protesting in the streets, writing letters and editorials to news organizations, and submitting draft bills to the legislature are all essential techniques of drawing public attention to national issues. Furthering democracy is a fool's errand if one doesn't take these activities into account. All of them are important to the successful exercise of political rights by the people, some of them have already been the subject of FoD resolutions, and none of them are blocked from WA action by the proposal at hand.
The category "Furtherment of Democracy" encompasses election laws, it is true. But as with Minority's example of the Nuclear Arms Possession Act, elections "are not the entirety, or nearly the entirety, of what the [Furtherment of Democracy] category is about."1 It is far broader than that, and to assume that barring action on election laws bars all or even most avenues of furthering democracy is to fundamentally misunderstand the nature of political power.
Given the vastity of the universe of FoD resolutions, statistical analysis is unnecessary here. But even if we performed it, only two of the eleven extant FoD resolutions would be blocked; and other relevant subjects remain untouched. I therefore hold the proposed resolution "National Control of Elections" not to be in violation of the blocker rule, and legal as drafted.
1It is worth noting here that one could use Minority's "significance" standard to reach either conclusion: Minority intended the preceding quote to contrast NAPA with NCoE; but obviously I think they're roughly equivalent. Therefore the standard fails. The only way to resolve this contradiction is to require the blockade of a litany (if not a mathematical count) of more than half the category's possible subject matter in order to uphold a blocker rule challenge.
Glen-Rhodes joined by Christian Democrats, dissenting:
I must respectfully dissent with my colleagues on this opinion. I believe National Control of Elections would foreclose an incredibly significant portion of possible future proposals in the Furtherment of Democracy category, and should therefor be considered an illegal Blocker.
First, let's consider what the proposal seeks to do. Very plainly, it seeks to place the entirety of law-making (or law-repealing) of anything in relation to elections, into the sole jurisdiction of member states. There is a minor urging clause requesting that member states ensure only "validly registered electors" are allowed to vote, if a member state chooses to hold elections. The broad language used in the proposal would prohibited the General Assembly from passing any future resolutions that not only create strong new pro-democracy mandates, but even mild proposals that merely inch towards more democracy. ("Guidelines" are, by definition, non-mandatory, meaning the proposal's language covers Mild "suggestion" resolutions.)
I would find this proposal to be an illegal blocker, because the above ropes off an incredibly significant portion of the Furtherment of Democracy category. The official GA Proposal Compendium guide describes the following types of policy questions touched on by the Furtherment of Democracy category: "Shall the WA require its members to grant more or less say in the operations of their government? Who makes the decisions? Whether or not you even get to vote on anything (or anyone) is a Political Freedoms issue." While other issues also fall under that category -- consider the World Assembly General Fund -- it is clear that the bulk of the issues that can be addressed under Furtherment of Democracy pertain to matters of political representation. Given that elections are the defining feature of democracies, the Furtherment of Democracy category is effectively neutered by blocking it from housing election-related resolutions.
The test here is simple: Does a proposal make it nearly impossible to utilize a category, by preventing the General Assembly from passing resolutions on a significant number of issues natural to that category? If so, it is a blocker. When analyzing National Control of Elections, my answer to that question is "yes."
The exception to this rule is that proposals may block policy areas, as long as they do something else in addition. This is common for many "national sovereignty" proposals. However, the corollary here is that those proposals must only have the effect of blocking a non-significant portion of a category. The example provided in the official GA Proposal Compendium is the Nuclear Arms Possession Act ("NAPA"). NAPA does block the World Assembly from banning the possession of nuclear armaments. It is legal, however, because nuclear armament regulation is not the entirety, or nearly the entirety, of what the Global Disarmament category is about. It's but one relatively small part, and thus it does not run afoul the test above.
The interest the community has with the Blocker rule is ensuring that players can actually write proposals, here. The rule doesn't simply exist because there's a technical need for "saving" categories-- there is the Game Mechanics rule for that. It has a more serious purpose that I fear is lost in the Majority's reasoning. The GA community cannot exist without a wide variety of issues to debate about and to write laws about. Where will we stand if, in a genuine appeal to national sovereignty, 10, 15, 20, or more, of these proposals are written on broad issues (such as merely "elections" here)? How enjoyable will the community be when the Secretariat strikes down proposal after proposal in the queue, because we must point to two or three sentences of "National Control of This Broad Issue" and say, "Sorry, your proposal belongs under this expansive umbrella."
We must balance the purpose of the game -- to debate issues and write laws -- with the genuine desire for some issues to be beyond the General Assembly's international reach. While some authors may hold strong beliefs about sovereignty, the General Assembly is a game about writing international law, and that must be the broad goal of our rules. As such, we cannot foreclose the use of a category in its entirety. I would have decided here today to uphold that belief.
I respectfully dissent.
Christian Democrats, dissenting:
I join Glen-Rhodes’ dissenting opinion but write separately to emphasize three major faults of the totality test that Sciongrad advocates: “The only reliable test for ‘broadness’ . . . would be whether or not the proposal blocks off an entire category.”
First, the totality test misconstrues the Blocker Rule’s history. Under the old Blocker Rule, blocker proposals were illegal if they sought to “prohibit types of legislation.” GA moderators interpreted “types of legislation” to mean “categories.” Under the new Blocker Rule, blocker proposals are illegal if they seek to “prohibit legislation on broad and specific issues.” This change in the Rule’s wording strongly implies a change in the Rule’s meaning, and a change in the Rule’s meaning necessitates the formulation of a new test. By trying to apply the GA moderators’ old test for blockers to the new version of the Blocker Rule, Sciongrad would abdicate the responsibility of this Secretariat to give each rule a reasonable, historically-informed construction.
Second, the totality test misconstrues the Blocker Rule’s text. I agree with Sciongrad that the new Blocker Rule is very poorly worded, but I do not think it is “meaningless and nonsensical.” In my view, the best possible reading of the Blocker Rule is that a proposal is illegal if it attempts specifically to block legislation on a broad issue. Of course, it is debatable what “broad” means. I can say with complete confidence, however, that the word does not mean and has never meant “everything.” Glen-Rhodes’ view that “broad” means “significant number” is, on the contrary, wholly consistent with the word’s ordinary usage.
Third, the totality test misconstrues the Blocker Rule’s purpose. As Glen-Rhodes accurately puts it, the reason for having a Blocker Rule is “ensuring that [future] players can actually write proposals.” Under the totality test, it would be entirely permissible for a GA author to write a resolution that prevents legislation in 99% of a category. For example, one could write a resolution that bans all Human Rights proposals except for freedom of expression laws. The totality test is totally incompatible with the Blocker Rule’s raison d'être. The adoption of the totality test would be devastating to future GA authors.
I disagree with the decision to uphold National Control of Elections. This proposal would specifically prohibit international legislation on elections, and I believe electoral law is a broad issue. If this proposal had dealt, instead, with a discrete section of electoral law, such as campaign finance, the delimitation of electoral districts, or the choice of a voting system, I would have voted to uphold it. No test in today’s decision receives majority support (four votes), so the question of what “broad” means will have to be settled on another day. I respectfully dissent.
Leo Tolstoy wrote:Wrong does not cease to be wrong because the majority share in it.
by Separatist Peoples » Tue Nov 08, 2016 5:50 pm
by Mousebumples » Wed Nov 09, 2016 5:56 am
by Bears Armed » Thu Nov 10, 2016 11:02 am
Separatist Peoples wrote:I would spoiler those in the final version.
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