Constitutional Convention - Commentary thread.

[Unconditional Surrender Truman]

Can everybody just calm down for a minute? Seriously, nobody is trying to set themselves up as dictator and nobody is being robbed of representation.

FACT: 60% of the delegates will be chosen directly by the people (as opposed to by the Regional governments or by some random selection process as Evergreen proposed).

FACT: There is no rule preventing non-delegates from making suggestions and lobbying the delegates.

FACT: 100% of Atlasians will be able to vote on whatever the Con-Con comes up with, and 4/5 of the Regions have to vote yes for it to go into effect.

When Classic Conservative started the Con-Con petition, many said that a Con-Con would inevitably fail because Atlasians could never agree on large scale reforms. I said they were wrong at the time; but here we are, arguing over a selection process that most likely will not effect the composition of the convention.

And contrary to what seems to be the dominant opinion here, the Senate is not some power-hungry cabal of evil-doers scheming to get its way. Having the Senate select some of the delegates was intended to make the selection process go more quickly, nothing more. Please stop blowing this out of proportion.

[Unconditional Surrender Truman]

To Talleyrand's concern: if NNP has a particular candidate in mind for delegate, I would be more than happy to defer to the party's judgement and nominate/support that person in the Senate.

[Unconditional Surrender Truman]

These are the people writing our new Constitution

Northeast: Oakvale, Winfield, RGN08, Clyde1998
Mideast: JCL, Windjammer, vivaportugalhabs, NeverAgain
South: NCYankee, Leinad, Adam Griffin
Midwest: Cris, Marokai
Pacific: Simfan, Classic Conservative
Senators: Kalwejt, Lumine, RPryor, Harry S Truman, PiT
conservative: Tmthforu94, Clark Kent
progressive: Bore, evergreen
centrist: (to be determined; BMotley and pikachu currently tied with 2 votes each)

At least 17 of these 25 esteemed delegates must vote in favor of the final draft for it to pass

or, in other words, a group of 9 anti-reformists can block any significant change from happening.

rip in peace constitutional convention, rip in peace atlasia.

We knew this was going to be hard. Success will depend on whether the reform faction can overcome its internal divisions and unite for the good of the republic.

[Unconditional Surrender Truman]

I note that 7 out of 9, or 78%, of current Senators managed to get elected as Delegates to the Constitutional Convention.

Just sayin'.

Maybe that's because the current batch of senators have been among the foremost advocates for game reform? It's also true that 80% of current governors and 60% of current Regional speakers were elected delegates - I suppose that is part of some nefarious scheme too?

Seriously, can we lay the conspiracy theories to rest? Despite the worst fears of some, the selection process resulted in a Convention that is largely representative of the electorate at large and that includes most of the active members of the game. I'll admit that the selection process was somewhat dysfunctional, but it clearly did no lasting harm, and if anyone has an objection to such storied Atlasians as Yankee, Kalwejt, Lumine, and Cris taking part in the convention (apart from allegations of baldness or whatever nonsense the pundit class cooks up), I for one will be surprised.

Also, there are 10 senators, not 9.

[Unconditional Surrender Truman]

I assume this will be a lost cause since it's utterly dominated by ultra-conservatives (in the 'game reform' sense) of various affiliations like Yankee, Kalwejt, PiT, CLASSIC CONSERVATIVE, various Labor zombies etc etc etc but I will try my utmost to represent the people shut out of the convention by the undemocratic Senate.

yes, yes, it's very democratic to unilaterally seize control of almost half the delegate positions, we know.

I love how Evergreen is accusing the Senate of being "undemocratic" when she literally suggested choosing delegates based on post count.

And Oakvale, I'd love to see a list of the so-called "Labor zombies" that supposedly control the convention. Of the six Laborites attending the Convention, the only one who has not been consistently active over the past month is the president, who you continue to defend despite all rationality. That being the case, I'll just assume that you're blowing smoke as usual and have no intention of doing anything remotely constructive. 

[Unconditional Surrender Truman]

It seems that several citizens are concerned that a significant portion of the population has been "shut out" of the Constitutional Convention. Some of these people, of course, are the usual malcontents who have spent the last four months trying to destroy the game; however, a sizable number (Winfield, Tmthforu, etc.) are patriotic Atlasians who are genuinely motivated to ensure that this process is as transparent as possible. Therefore, I have compiled these statistics in hopes of putting their minds at ease:



As we can see from this graph, the partisan composition of the convention closely mirrors that of the national electorate, according to the most recent Census. Of the major political parties, only ANUSTART is entirely without representation (this due to the fact that the party ran no candidates for delegate and has largely collapsed as a political entity in recent months). Apart from that, the representation of parties at the ConCon is effectively identical to its share of the electorate. Only two parties - Civic Renewal and, ironically, NNP - has a significantly¹ larger percentage of seats in the ConCon than it would receive in a perfectly proportional system. No party (excluding ANUSTART) is underrepresented.

"But wait!" you say, "This chart says that Independents are underrepresented at the Convention by a margin of 8%! The Senate is evil! Off with their heads!"

While it is true that Independents make up a smaller share of the ConCon than they do the national population, it is also true that 100% of Independents who ran in the Delegate Elections were elected. In other words, independents are underrepresented at the ConCon not because of a nefarious scheme cooked up by the socialist-tea party-newbie-establishment cabal, but because there were fewer independents interested in serving in the ConCon than might have been expected. This is not the work of a power-hungry legislature: this is the effect of rampant apathy and inactivity.

Likewise, if you evaluate the composition of the ConCon based on Regional representation, no Region is significantly underrepresented and one - the Northeast - is actually overrepresented. In short, the selection process actually resulted in a Convention that accurately reflects not only the partisan composition of the electorate, but also the populations of the Regions.

¹For our purposes, a "significant" deviation is one greater than 3%.

[Unconditional Surrender Truman]

I assume this will be a lost cause since it's utterly dominated by ultra-conservatives (in the 'game reform' sense) of various affiliations like Yankee, Kalwejt, PiT, CLASSIC CONSERVATIVE, various Labor zombies etc etc etc but I will try my utmost to represent the people shut out of the convention by the undemocratic Senate.

yes, yes, it's very democratic to unilaterally seize control of almost half the delegate positions, we know.

I love how Evergreen is accusing the Senate of being "undemocratic" when she literally suggested choosing delegates based on post count.

this is a red herring, obviously. seizing a power for yourself is a very different thing from leaving it to purely meritocratic criteria. (not to mention, of course, that that wasn't, in fact, my final proposal)

So anything that contradicts your argument is a "red herring" and should be ignored in favor of your version of reality? How convenient! In that case, we won't bother to talk about how your second plan allowed the Regional governments to circumvent the people entirely and appoint all 25 delegates themselves.

[Unconditional Surrender Truman]

Adam Griffin (has a credible plan but will ultimately be concerned with sustaining indefinitely the failed communist system)

Lmao

1. Write-in: Harry S. Truman
2. Cris
3. oakvale
4. Leinad

Wait, I'm a communist now? The Jacobins are getting desperate, it seems. Thus far, I've been accused of being a "fascist," a "conservative," and a "communist," all in the span of two weeks!

[Unconditional Surrender Truman]

Adam Griffin (has a credible plan but will ultimately be concerned with sustaining indefinitely the failed communist system)

Lmao

1. Write-in: Harry S. Truman
2. Cris
3. oakvale
4. Leinad

Wait, I'm a communist now? The Jacobins are getting desperate, it seems. Thus far, I've been accused of being a "fascist," a "conservative," and a "communist," all in the span of two weeks!

i'm speaking more about the "failed system" part, which is indisputable

I see... so, Griffin voted to make me President of the ConCon, and this is somehow evidence of his nefarious scheme to maintain the status quo? This makes sense, because I am clearly a high-ranking member of the political elite (registered for 10 whole months!) with a vested interest in keeping newbies like Oakvale from gaining power... oh, wait.

[Unconditional Surrender Truman]

hahaha are you seriously trying to claim that oakvale represents the status quo and you and cris don't

Yes, I am. It makes no sense for Oakvale to claim that he is less entrenched in the current system, and less responsible for what it has become, than someone who joined this game 10 months ago. He's free to offer alternative solutions to the current crisis - in fact, I encourage it - but the charge that I am some sort of establishment figure is clearly ridiculous. Do you really expect people to believe that a man who has been registered with the Census Bureau for 5+ years, who was prominent enough to be a presidential candidate in 2011, and who has held the same office for two years straight is the 'agent of change'? In any case, anyone who has payed even the slightest attention to what Cris, I, and others have said and done over the last four months knows that we support radical changes to the system: the world is not divided between secessionists and statists.

[Unconditional Surrender Truman]

I'd actually argue that, by and large and with obvious exceptions like Yankee, it's the newer players that are far more conservative in terms of reform than those of us who've been around a disgustingly long time and know Atlasia's played itself out.

I don't mean this to be combative, so I apologize if it sounds that way, but nevertheless: if you're convinced that Atlasia has "played itself out," as you say, why are you still here? It would seem that the existence of another game (South America) would provide the perfect solution, allowing the old guard to wipe the slate clean and start fresh while leaving the newbies to rebuild Atlasia. I can understand why you and others would be bored or disillusioned with Atlasia (who wouldn't be, after playing for so long?), but I'm puzzled as to why you chose to remain, especially when an alternative is so readily available. I'm genuinely curious.

[Unconditional Surrender Truman]

Arguing that my policies support the "status quo" is like saying the policies of the Republican Party in the 1850s supported slavery: it completely ignores the substance of the proposals in question and instead seizes on the existence of even more radical ideas as evidence of alleged statism. Neither I, nor you, nor anyone at the Constitutional Convention supports maintaining the existing state of affairs; we merely differ in the extent to which the system must be rebuilt. Like you, I support a totally new charter of government, an end to the current Regional system (not just consolidation, but devolution as well), and a legislative "blank slate": I simply support doing so before we scrap the existing government. Why? Because writing a new Constitution with rules in place to guide the process, rather than a free-for-all dominated by the loudest voices, is more likely to produce a game enjoyable for all. If that makes me a "conservative", so be it.

[Unconditional Surrender Truman]

Frankly, the ConCon has been poorly managed thus far. I don't think that's anybody's fault in particular: we just failed to anticipate what it would be like to have 25 people advocating for their own individual reform plan all at once. I agree with Tmth and PiT that every delegate should have a voice, but there does need to be a streamlining process to that the whole Convention doesn't dissolve into chaos.

I said this when the Convention first opened, and I'll say it again: at this stage in the game, we should not be trying to draft the final text of the Constitution. Formal, written amendments like the ones we use to influence legislation in the Senate and the Regional legislatures are bound to fail at this point (as we can see from the secession debate and now the debate over the Regional map) because we still have not agreed on a forward strategy. Rather than introducing formal amendments¹, we should instead agree on all the major points via principle votes: then we can choose a "Committee on Style" to fancy it up.

¹ I know, I know, I did it it. It was a moment of weakness!

[Unconditional Surrender Truman]

1) Are most constitutional amendments not being included in the new constitution?

Great question. In all, the current Constitution has been amended 28 times since it went into effect. Most of these amendments are minor tweaks concerning specific clauses of the current Constitution, and therefore aren't the sort of thing that would be carried over in a new document. Keep in mind that we're changing the structure of the national government quite a bit, so amendments specifying the method for... electing Class A Senators, say... aren't really relevant to the new document. That's not true of every amendment, of course; for example, the Semi-Presidentialism Amendment has been incorporated into the new Constitution. On the whole, however, we've been seeking to build a new government, not simply rearrange the old one.

2) Has the convention adopted a number of members for a political party to be recognized as official? The 18th amendment specifies the number to be three.

The new Constitution does not set any requirements that must be met in order for a party to be considered "official." The general consensus among the delegates was that the current Constitution is too pedantic, and that the new Constitution should be "a framework, not a blueprint": that is, it should prescribe only the general structure of the game and allow the people to fine-tune the system through their elected lawmakers. Election regulations - including any specifications as to what makes a party "official" - will be made by the first Congress.

3) What happens to Atlasians living in Canadian provinces? Can we still vote in Atlasian elections like citizens living abroad or the new constitution denies us the right to vote?

That's a great question - thanks for bringing this up. Because the statute reboot will not take effect until after the scheduled elections for president and Congress, Atlasians residing in the Canadian provinces will be able to participate in that election under the terms of the Common Market Agreement. Nothing will change as far as how you vote in that first election. Under the terms of the reboot clause, all federal and regional laws - including the ACCMA - will be automatically repealed once the new government takes office. Once that happens, it will be up to the new president and Congress to reauthorize the ACCMA and amend it as necessary to reapportion the Canadian provinces between the three new Regions.