[Draft] Choice of Government

[Princess Rainbow Sparkles]

OOC: This is way rougher than I wanted it to be, but I've seen so many attempts to reinstitute the ideological ban rule in some way that I felt compelled to field something showing the other way we might choose to go at this point. Please enjoy, and let me know your thoughts. Particularly if you think of ways this concept might be improved or refined.

Choice of Government

~*~*~*~ Furtherment of Democracy ~*~*~*~ Strong ~*~*~*~

---

The Member Nations of the World Assembly:

Convinced that the form and nature of a nation's government cannot be effectively or sustainably imposed over the long term by an outside force;

Recognizing that the form and nature of a nation's government must ultimately be derived from the will of the people, who are that nation.

Aware of the following universal truth: that every person who lives under a government wants their government to be responsive to their needs, respectful of their liberties, and capable of changing for the better;

Proceeding only upon those basic premises, the General Assembly resolves as follows:

Article 1: Every member nation must ensure that their form of government (whether communism, liberal democracy, psychotic dictatorship, or anything besides) is the form of government freely chosen by the people of that nation.

Member nations may comply with this requirement in any way they choose, subject to their national and international law, so long as their system produces reliable extrinsic evidence (such as election results or equivalent data) clearly showing how the form of government was chosen by the people.

Article 2: Every member nation must ensure that the people of that nation have regular, periodic opportunities to influence the national government by directly choosing the national leaders who are empowered to (1) make or change the laws of the nation and (2) enforce the laws of the nation.

Member nations may comply with this requirement in any way they choose, subject to their national and international law.

[Comfed]

Member nations may comply with this requirement in any way they choose, subject to their national and international law, so long as their system produces reliable extrinsic evidence (such as election results or equivalent data) clearly showing how the form of government was chosen by the people.

"...and if you look at figure three thousand four hundred and twenty seven, you can see Mr. John Q. Public reading and signing amendment A24323.A to our elections act..."

[The Orwell Society]

IC: "Against. The general populace has no right in my nation to choose how they are governed. People make dumb decisions, and if this is passed, several nations like mine may collapse into anarchy."

OOC: Nice try, Princess. You definitely took it a way that nobody suspected. If I wasn't using this nation as my WA main (which probably isn't the best idea, anyways), I would be in support of this.

[Imperium Anglorum]

OOC. How do you intend to separate "form of government" from "people in charge of the government"? What I mean by that more specifically is that people in – basically all – countries rarely decide the fundamental laws by which they are governed. Even in the countries where they do, they take them as given and modify them slowly, if at all, through their representatives (eg the stupid Fixed Terms Parliaments Act 2010). Questions of organic law are settled and rarely revisited in most societies.

My nation's lore involves a descendant government which claims to be the continuation of the Roman republic; a subset of the army voted over a thousand years ago to restore the republic, acting as the comitia centuriata under the presidency of the consuls who had been elected illegally – under Roman religious law – by a non-patrician first interrex. Nobody since has called something like a constitutional referendum, though that might be beside the point, inasmuch as the constitution is not written and exists in the mos maiorum only.

But there are similar parallels in the real world: the basic law of San Marino was adopted almost five hundred 421 years ago, the US constitution over 230 years ago, etc. Would you call the election of consuls, captains-regent, or presidents "reliable extrinsic evidence" of a popular choice for the relevant "form of government"? It certainly would be evidence that the specific people elected had been kindly honoured by the people (cf Cic. Leg. Agr. 2.1,) but is it evidence that the people as a whole have confidence in their mode of government? Even if they can conceive of no alternative? (Cf Christian Meier, Re publica amissa, s.v. "crisis without alternative", passim.)

[Anne of Cleves in TNP]

“The Clevesian Empire is strongly opposed to this proposal, no matter how many revisions are done. The pure essence of this proposal, as I see it, is enforced democracy. Furthermore, concurring with the Orwellian ambassador, all humans are imperfect and can thus screw up any elections that occur.”
-Ms. Charlotte Schafer, WA Ambassador for the Clevesian Empire

[The Orwell Society]

"Furthermore, how would a "psychotic dictatorship" (a rather unfortunate name) be "freely chosen by the people"? This proposal's idea is too flawed to stand."
-the Orwellian Delegation

[Comfed]

"Furthermore, how would a "psychotic dictatorship" (a rather unfortunate name) be "freely chosen by the people"? This proposal's idea is too flawed to stand."
-the Orwellian Delegation

"It is impossible for a 'psychotic dictatorship' to comply with this proposal, ambassador."

[Princess Rainbow Sparkles]

"Furthermore, how would a "psychotic dictatorship" (a rather unfortunate name) be "freely chosen by the people"? This proposal's idea is too flawed to stand."
-the Orwellian Delegation

"It is impossible for a 'psychotic dictatorship' to comply with this proposal, ambassador."

OOC: Yeah, on second thought trying to jump straight to a universal demand for democratic government is foolhardy. There's lots of intermediate steps that need to be taken first. As IA pointed out in their post, nations often come with generations of legal development and tradition that led to their current form of government. Trying to upend that with a single resolution would probably prove ineffective, and outright dangerous.

I'm not giving up on looking for more ways to promote democracy under the current ruleset. But I'll revise this down to a much more modest first step in the coming days.

Thanks to those who took an immediate interest!

[The Orwell Society]

"It is impossible for a 'psychotic dictatorship' to comply with this proposal, ambassador."

OOC: Yeah, on second thought trying to jump straight to a universal demand for democratic government is foolhardy. There's lots of intermediate steps that need to be taken first. As IA pointed out in their post, nations often come with generations of legal development and tradition that led to their current form of government. Trying to upend that with a single resolution would probably prove ineffective, and outright dangerous.

I'm not giving up on looking for more ways to promote democracy under the current ruleset. But I'll revise this down to a much more modest first step in the coming days.

Thanks to those who took an immediate interest!

OOC: No problem

[Cappedore]

WA Delegate Anthony King | "I do not believe it is fair for the World Assembly to rule on how a nation is run; some people find dictatorships very useful in specific situations."

[Fachumonn]

OOC: This will obviously be a crucially hard topic to legislate, as always.

[Rho Ophiuchi]

Hello All,

Speaking OOC, I should note that the "Autocracy" policy exists, and any enforcement of democracy would conflict with that policy - all nations using it would be in breach. The only way for it to be enforced would be to remove the policy from all WA nations - something I am not even sure if the WA can do.

Also, as a quick side note, what happens if the population of a country decides to vote to abolish democracy and install an oligarchic or autocratic system? Either the will of the people would be followed, making the government nondemocratic, and violating the resolution, or the government would need to go against the people, also violating this resolution.

[Juansonia]

Hello All,

Speaking OOC, I should note that the "Autocracy" policy exists, and any enforcement of democracy would conflict with that policy - all nations using it would be in breach. The only way for it to be enforced would be to remove the policy from all WA nations - something I am not even sure if the WA can do.

OOC: For the purposes of the GA, NS policies do not exist.

edit: many nations don't consider their NS policies canon.

[Bananaistan]

Hello All,

Speaking OOC, I should note that the "Autocracy" policy exists, and any enforcement of democracy would conflict with that policy - all nations using it would be in breach. The only way for it to be enforced would be to remove the policy from all WA nations - something I am not even sure if the WA can do.

Also, as a quick side note, what happens if the population of a country decides to vote to abolish democracy and install an oligarchic or autocratic system? Either the will of the people would be followed, making the government nondemocratic, and violating the resolution, or the government would need to go against the people, also violating this resolution.

OOC: Gameside issues and policies and GA resolutions are entirely unrelated. One could choose answers to many issues which contradict many GA resolutions without any problem. The only issue would be obvious RP non-compliance in this forum - it doesn't go down well when someone says "well I won't follow this law anyway".

[Mesogiria]

OOC. How do you intend to separate "form of government" from "people in charge of the government"? What I mean by that more specifically is that people in – basically all – countries rarely decide the fundamental laws by which they are governed. Even in the countries where they do, they take them as given and modify them slowly, if at all, through their representatives (eg the stupid Fixed Terms Parliaments Act 2010). Questions of organic law are settled and rarely revisited in most societies.

My nation's lore involves a descendant government which claims to be the continuation of the Roman republic; a subset of the army voted over a thousand years ago to restore the republic, acting as the comitia centuriata under the presidency of the consuls who had been elected illegally – under Roman religious law – by a non-patrician first interrex. Nobody since has called something like a constitutional referendum, though that might be beside the point, inasmuch as the constitution is not written and exists in the mos maiorum only.

But there are similar parallels in the real world: the basic law of San Marino was adopted almost five hundred 421 years ago, the US constitution over 230 years ago, etc. Would you call the election of consuls, captains-regent, or presidents "reliable extrinsic evidence" of a popular choice for the relevant "form of government"? It certainly would be evidence that the specific people elected had been kindly honoured by the people (cf Cic. Leg. Agr. 2.1,) but is it evidence that the people as a whole have confidence in their mode of government? Even if they can conceive of no alternative? (Cf Christian Meier, Re publica amissa, s.v. "crisis without alternative", passim.)

OOC: It's a limited example, but there are about a dozen US states that have fixed regular referendums on whether or not to call a convention to replace or modify their state constitutions, at long intervals like 10 or 20 years. https://ballotpedia.org/Mandatory_vote_ ... ll_be_held

I absolutely don't think the WA should mandate all member states require that kind of system, it's just an interesting real-world example of how it could be done.

[Umbratellus]

Hello All,

Speaking OOC, I should note that the "Autocracy" policy exists, and any enforcement of democracy would conflict with that policy - all nations using it would be in breach. The only way for it to be enforced would be to remove the policy from all WA nations - something I am not even sure if the WA can do.

If that were truly the case, then the slavery policy (which I have active) would prevent the World Assembly from acting against such — yet legislation has long stood against it!

[Untecna]

Hello All,

Speaking OOC, I should note that the "Autocracy" policy exists, and any enforcement of democracy would conflict with that policy - all nations using it would be in breach. The only way for it to be enforced would be to remove the policy from all WA nations - something I am not even sure if the WA can do.

If that were truly the case, then the slavery policy (which I have active) would prevent the World Assembly from acting against such — yet legislation has long stood against it!

Its the same with the Death Penalty, where I used an identical argument to that guy.

I have goosebumps.

[Princess Rainbow Sparkles]

"Furthermore, how would a "psychotic dictatorship" (a rather unfortunate name) be "freely chosen by the people"? This proposal's idea is too flawed to stand."
-the Orwellian Delegation

“My dear Anonymous Voice and Eyeball of the Delegation,” says Ambassador Twinklebright, “You of all people should know that, for some reason, some people sometimes choose to have their nation run by a psychotic dictator?

We are still trying to fashion this effort into something remotely reasonable. The preamble, I think, is very sound. If anyone wants to help me out with some specific ideas or suggestion for the active provisions here I would be very obliged.”

[Rho Ophiuchi]

Hello All,

Thank you to all who pointed out the flaws in my reasoning - I am quite new, so having this pointed out was a huge help - Thanks!

Sincerely, Rho Ophiuchi

[Kyoki Chudoku]

The anonymous Chudokuren ambassador, cloaked behind a veil of secrecy, could only offer a morbid chuckle by the time she had finished reading the proposal.

“So, mandatory elections dressed up as national sovereignty protections,” she muttered in disbelief. “The World Assembly has wrought many atrocities upon the word, but rarely so insidiously. Of course, as a patriotic Chudokuren, I am against this proposal. But allow me to offer more than ideological vitriol. Article 2 is far less broad than it initially appears. Most democratic systems are not direct. They tend to be convoluted messes, you see, as it natural for such chaotic beliefs. People vote for people who vote for people and sometimes, another person gets voted in by other people in the name of the people- supposedly. But I believe that in its current wording such a proposal would in fact render the vast majority of democratic countries illegal, for any of them that do not have a direct election system where people get straight to the point and vote for the leadership in one step cannot be considered “direct”.

Further, the criteria mean that a direct public election would also be necessary for judges, police officials, and anyone else deemed to “enforce the laws of the nation”, and to be honest I don’t think half the candidates would still be alive by the time that many elections finished.

As an additional irony, this proposal may also technically ban anarchy, as any system without a leader is now contractually obligated to elect one, therefore enforcing a kind of political inequality. Now I’m not one to complain about hierarchy, but I’m sure someone out there won’t be keen on it.

Aside from that, you know that any dictatorship isn’t going to allow its people to choose anything but what it wants. I can call for an election right now and we all know the Supreme Overlady of All Reality is going to win it. Maybe that’s the point. Maybe this is supposed to be an olive branch. But to be frank, if you want to get this idiotic idea done, you’d better get it done right, or people will spend the next decade poking at all its loopholes. And I’ll be laughing at the prospect, but the legions of oppressed you so intend to liberate might not be so happy.”

OOC: Of course no actual antagonism is intended- Kyoki Chudoku is just being Kyoki Chudoku.