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Post by Sir Alexandreu Davinescu on Oct 10, 2018 5:42:00 GMT -6
Well, anyway, returning to the conversation we've been having, I repeat that I see no advantage to making entrenchment a special condition that can be slapped on any bill, for purely practical concerns. It'll just get more and more complicated as small protected changes accumulate, and the layman will find it more confusing. Let's just entrench one bit of the the legal code, or (less preferred) make a third legal code.
I also think we should not be excising the Covenants from the OrgLaw. I see no advantage.
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Post by E.S. Bornatfiglheu on Oct 10, 2018 8:34:10 GMT -6
In re: entrenchment, I have no particular preference whether it is a status, a code, a portion, or it doesn't exist at all. Placing things like national symbols, etc, under special protection speaks more volume to me about the fragility of the culture and the symbol. If it cannot maintain even a majority support, how much is it really worth? And why can't it be replaced when the govt. is removed? After all, if the symbol is so important, the people will rush to it's defense, and to the ballot box.
But the separation and raising of the Covenants to supremacy above the Orglaw is something I wholeheartedly support. It makes the protection of the right the Highest law of the land, and underlines the fact that the Orglaw should be organized to do that very thing.
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Post by Sir Alexandreu Davinescu on Oct 10, 2018 13:52:06 GMT -6
Well, we'll see about that when I write my own version of the Organic Law (since now there's four proposed versions out there). I'm going to double include them in the 2030 OrgLaw.
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Ian Plätschisch
Senator for Maritiimi-Maxhestic
Posts: 4,001
Talossan Since: 3-21-2015
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Post by Ian Plätschisch on Oct 16, 2018 20:46:54 GMT -6
Sir Alexandreu, you have been making quite a few arguments about how we shouldn't pass a new Organic Law because then we would lose part of our heritage. However, I think this conflates the principles enshrined in the Law with the name "The 1997 Organic Law."
If there is something that connects us to our past, it is the principles that have withstood the test of time through the past 21 years of Talossan history. Most of those principles are preserved in this draft (and I will be editing it soon to take out a lot of the changes we had initially made). 1997 is just a number.
Besides, you seem amenable to making large amendments to the Organic Law, and have even mentioned making one huge amendment to it that rewrites the entire thing while only preserving the name. But what benefit would that have over simply passing a new Law? At that point it would be very silly indeed to keep the old name when it is an entirely new document.
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Ian Plätschisch
Senator for Maritiimi-Maxhestic
Posts: 4,001
Talossan Since: 3-21-2015
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Post by Ian Plätschisch on Oct 16, 2018 20:56:26 GMT -6
I have removed the following provisions for now, although I plan to reintroduce them when we have the pseudo-clark thing:
I also reduced the number of clarks back to six.
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Post by Sir Alexandreu Davinescu on Oct 16, 2018 21:23:17 GMT -6
Sir Alexandreu, you have been making quite a few arguments about how we shouldn't pass a new Organic Law because then we would lose part of our heritage. However, I think this conflates the principles enshrined in the Law with the name "The 1997 Organic Law." If there is something that connects us to our past, it is the principles that have withstood the test of time through the past 21 years of Talossan history. Most of those principles are preserved in this draft (and I will be editing it soon to take out a lot of the changes we had initially made). 1997 is just a number. Besides, you seem amenable to making large amendments to the Organic Law, and have even mentioned making one huge amendment to it that rewrites the entire thing while only preserving the name. But what benefit would that have over simply passing a new Law? At that point it would be very silly indeed to keep the old name when it is an entirely new document. From what I have seen, it is highly unlikely we will have an entirely new document. Each proposal has included large swaths of the original. Since we're keeping a lot of the language, why not reflect that by retaining the document's essential nature, even if it is heavily amended?
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Ian Plätschisch
Senator for Maritiimi-Maxhestic
Posts: 4,001
Talossan Since: 3-21-2015
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Post by Ian Plätschisch on Oct 16, 2018 21:46:35 GMT -6
But we are retaining the document's essential nature, since we are retaining most of the principles, unless you are saying that reformatting it changes its essential nature.
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Post by Sir Alexandreu Davinescu on Oct 17, 2018 8:27:07 GMT -6
So your argument is that we're retaining the document's essential nature and most of its principles, but only reformatting it... so we should consider it an entirely new document and change its name?
That doesn't make sense, does it?
As I see it, this is either a radical change to our system, or one that retains the most important elements and historical parts to our current constitution.
I can understand saying, that because we're throwing out most of the essential principles and history of the OrgLaw, we must consider this a new document and give it a new name.
I can also understand saying that we're keeping most of the essential principles and history of the OrgLaw, and so this is just a revised version of it.
I can't understand saying that we're keeping most of the essential principles and history of the OrgLaw, but also it's a radical change that abandons much of that so it must be a new document. I feel like that's trying to have your cake and eat it, too. This was presented as a streamlining, with a few specific changes made to fix specific problems.
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Ian Plätschisch
Senator for Maritiimi-Maxhestic
Posts: 4,001
Talossan Since: 3-21-2015
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Post by Ian Plätschisch on Oct 17, 2018 19:47:23 GMT -6
What I'm saying is that it is such a radical change to the formatting and language that it should be treated as a new document, even if many of the principles are the same.
If we replace the entire text, why should we keep the name? Continuing to call it the 1997 Organic Law after the entire thing was rewritten would not make any sense.
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Post by Sir Alexandreu Davinescu on Oct 17, 2018 20:25:48 GMT -6
We should keep the name and the identity of the document because it is an asset. Half the text is the same and most of the principles are the same, as well as (sort of) much of the governmental structure. The main changes, aside from the ones slipped in unmentioned, are with the legislative process, shuffling some sections, and rewording of some things to be more legalese.
As an example of the last, the phrase "publishing the monthly legislative journal, 'The Clark'" in the Orglaw is expanded in the FDT/MRPT version to read, "Part 1. Mandate to the Ziu. The Ziu must set by law the procedure by which the publication of law in national journals readily available to the People shall be made and may delegate the responsibility to an individual or entity that shall promulgate all laws. The Ziu shall instruct the codification of passed acts into clear journals and shall maintain a separate journal for statutes, statements of intents, treaties, and other acts of the Ziu. Part 2. Failure to Delegate. If the Ziu fails to meet its mandate in part 1 of this section, the Monarch shall have authority to oversee this responsibility until such time as the Ziu remedies its defect."
Incidentally, I am not sure this is an improvement, and there's a lot of that sort of thing -- simple tasks or ideas from the OrgLaw being expanded into vast swaths of specific wordiness.
Honestly, it seems really clear to me that this could easily be recast as a big amendment to the Orglaw, revising it substantially, rather than repeal and replace. And if it could be seen that way, what possible advantage could there be to choosing otherwise?
We all swore an oath to uphold our Organic Law. It represents an important part of our heritage, and in its antiquity speaks to the depth of our history and sets us apart from many others. If we are presented with the viable choice to keep it or trash it, with no difference in the reforms on offer and all else equal, then why on earth would we eliminate it?
Is this a legacy thing... like you clear out part of our history like you were clear-cutting a living oak, so you can plant a new sapling bearing your own mark?
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Óïn Ursüm
Posts: 1,032
Talossan Since: 3-10-2009
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Post by Óïn Ursüm on Oct 18, 2018 7:22:37 GMT -6
This is me speaking as a private citizen:
When I first came to Talossa, I was impressed that they still used a constitutional framework established in 1997. The longevity of the constitution seemed to give Talossa a sense of legitimacy and continuity with the past lacking in many internet micronations. It might seem dumb but these kinds of things, which are fundamentally marketing or window-dressing, are part of what drew me to Talossa.
While not a very strong argument, I feel like these kinds of signals of "longstandingness" are part of what set Talossa apart, and draw people in.
For that reason, I agree with Sir Alexandreu that we should hold on to the label "1997 Organic Law" and frame any changes (even big ones) as amendments to the original document.
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Ian Plätschisch
Senator for Maritiimi-Maxhestic
Posts: 4,001
Talossan Since: 3-21-2015
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Post by Ian Plätschisch on Oct 18, 2018 15:15:04 GMT -6
We should keep the name and the identity of the document because it is an asset. If we did that, we would basically have to pass a bill that removes the entire text of the Organic Law and replaces it fully. At that point I don't see how it should still keep the same name, but I suppose if that is a condition of RUMP support for the reform I would be OK with that. I think that much more than half of the text is new, and the text that is the same is heavily reformatted. Also, I promptly provided a list of the changes we made, as I was planning to do before you requested I do it, so stop saying we slipped them in "unmentioned." We can debate over whether the changes in this draft are improvements or are just legalese, but the changes do exist and are significant enough to warrant a new document. This seems very not clear to me. How would this draft be separated into amendments to the current Organic Law when almost all of it is different? Please explain how you would go about this and we can discuss it. Again, I think this confuses the principles in the Organic Law with the document itself. Yes, we have had the 1997 Organic Law for a long time, but replacing it won't erase the memory of it, nor its heritage or history. Present me with the "viable choice" and I'll look at it. But at the end of the day the reforms are so significant that I still don't see the point of keeping only the name. This analogy is as untrue as it is oddly specific. I suppose there is nothing else to say about that.
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Ian Plätschisch
Senator for Maritiimi-Maxhestic
Posts: 4,001
Talossan Since: 3-21-2015
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Post by Ian Plätschisch on Oct 18, 2018 15:25:47 GMT -6
This is me speaking as a private citizen: When I first came to Talossa, I was impressed that they still used a constitutional framework established in 1997. The longevity of the constitution seemed to give Talossa a sense of legitimacy and continuity with the past lacking in many internet micronations. It might seem dumb but these kinds of things, which are fundamentally marketing or window-dressing, are part of what drew me to Talossa. While not a very strong argument, I feel like these kinds of signals of "longstandingness" are part of what set Talossa apart, and draw people in. For that reason, I agree with Sir Alexandreu that we should hold on to the label "1997 Organic Law" and frame any changes (even big ones) as amendments to the original document. Passing a new Organic Law would not change the fact that we kept the previous one for 22 years. Immigrants would still see that and understand we don't make huge changes willy nilly. The problem with chopping the reform up into amendments is that it will still change the entire document. If all of the reform amendments pass, and all we have left of the previous Organic Law is the name, we would basically be lying if we pretended it was still the same. If not all of them passed, we would be left with different parts of the Organic Law that have very different formatting, and that would look pretty ugly.
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Post by Munditenens Tresplet on Oct 18, 2018 16:16:56 GMT -6
We should keep the name and the identity of the document because it is an asset. If we did that, we would basically have to pass a bill that removes the entire text of the Organic Law and replaces it fully. At that point I don't see how it should still keep the same name, but I suppose if that is a condition of RUMP support for the reform I would be OK with that. Maybe a reference to the 1997 Organic Law can be added to a preamble?
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Post by Sir Alexandreu Davinescu on Oct 18, 2018 17:35:27 GMT -6
I think that much more than half of the text is new, and the text that is the same is heavily reformatted. Happily, I already used a text comparison program to compare the two documents, excluding header elements such as Section, Article, and paragraph breaks. It's about half. And many of the changes that do exist are wildly unnecessary (again, see the previous example of the two-step, complicated Clark instructions). This seems very not clear to me. How would this draft be separated into amendments to the current Organic Law when almost all of it is different? Please explain how you would go about this and we can discuss it. I 100% guarantee it could be done. I will volunteer to lead the discussion. It was happening in this thread earlier, with discussion about the first articles and entrenched law. The future steps are obvious to me, in fact. Changing the legislative process is also discrete and manageable. A third amendment to reorganize how items are presented is easily done, moving Sections 1s and 2s from elsewhere to a new early article and renumbering. If practical concerns are your worry, fear not. It can be done. Believe me. Our entire conglomerate of hundreds of laws was once said to be deprecated and in need of repealing and replacing, but instead we worked and combined it into a single cohesive legal code, clipping away errors and problems in the process through a collaborative and open process. We can do this, if you permit us to try.
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