Wiping all current laws. (ADOPTED)

[Lincoln Republican]

I am completely in agreement with doing away with all existing laws passed under the current Atlasia and associated regions.

The NEW ATLASIA should reflect the new generation of players, and it would be extremely difficult if not impossible to accomplish this with the NEW ATLASIA and the NEW REGIONS being encumbered with years of past legislation.

And I say this in full knowledge of the fact that there is even a Northeast law on the books called The Winfield Doctrine, which would as well fall under this proposal. 

And nobody is going to want to go through legislation from the past and separate the sensible from the ridiculous, and this would be open for argument which legislation falls into which category.  Bedsides, some power obsessed Governor could simply veto the repeals anyway. 

I say let a NEW ATLASIA start from the beginning with a fresh mandate.  Let a NEW ATLASIA set the tone and have NEW debates for the future, not the past.

[Lincoln Republican]

I as well, like Morikai, have fears that legislators may rush to bring back in some of the idiotic, ridiculous, disgusting, revolting, stupid legislation from the old Atlasia,

Hopefully they would have more sense than that, but you never know.

That is why I said before it would be good if we had some way of constitutionally preventing trivial junk from being introduced into the federal or regional legislatures.

[Lincoln Republican]

You must be logged in to read this quote.

I recently remembered this quote by Jefferson, and it reminded me of an idea of his that, while unworkable in the real world, might just be a good mechanism to have in Atlasia: the automatic reboot. In other words, we state in the Constitution that after a given period of time (say, three or four years), all federal and Regional laws currently on the books become null and void, allowing the new generation of players to start afresh. Thoughts?

This is one school of thought certainly worthy of consideration.

I bring up this matter because during the many times I have been elected to the Northeast Assembly, once a particular coalition got their hands on the levers of power, they abused this power and betrayed the region with legislation such as:

Passing a law that a certain filthy, vile, disgusting, obscene song sung by a filthy, vile, disgusting, obscene band, must be played over and over and over again every day to 5 and 6 year olds, and that anybody, parents, teachers, who opposed this filth would be subject to 10 years in prison and a $100,000.00 fine, or whatever.

Can you imagine a responsible Assembly actually passing such a travesty?

I was finally able to get a new Assembly to join me and repealing this atrocity.

But my point is, why should this stupidity and ignorance even be allowed to make it to the bill and debate stage?

The new constitution HAS to have a clause banning this type of behavior, surely.    

[Lincoln Republican]

Obviously we should keep some laws (for example, laws against murder, rape, and robbery), but other than that, I support a clean slate.

These laws can be passed in the new Atlasia.

If we started trying to pick  what stays and what goes we would have a group who thinks a certain law should stay and another group who thinks that same law should go.

[Lincoln Republican]

I would go along with the policy of wiping all laws from the records, using the existing United States laws as a base, allowing for a new beginning for a new Atlasia.

[Lincoln Republican]

Would you be open to support wiping regional governments's laws too, in order to let regional governments be more active?

Most definitely.

Wiping all federal laws and all regional laws is really the only way to go for a new Atlasia.

[Lincoln Republican]

This step must be taken for a truly new Atlasia.

Otherwise, Atlasia will forever be mired in the swamps and wastelands of the past.

[Lincoln Republican]

Should all laws passed by the Senate since 2004 be repealed?
[X] Yes
[  ] No
[  ] Abstain


Should all laws passed by the Regions since 2004 be repealed?
[X] Yes
[  ] No
[  ] Abstain


What should be the basis of the new Statute?
[  ] We should revert to the status quo as of February, 2004
[X] We should use the current US statute (up to the date of ratification)
[  ] All laws, including pre-2004 legislation, should be repealed

[Lincoln Republican]

Aye

[Lincoln Republican]

I'm sorry, but it is absolutely pathetic that over 2/3s of delegates didn't vote on this.

Is there a limit on how many votes a delegate can miss before they are kicked out? I'm tackling a plethora of RL issues and am still able to show up to vote.

I agree.

This is ridiculous.

If they don't participate, out they go.  It should be automatic.

And I really cannot understand this convention burdening down future generations of Atlasian lawmakers with the ancient laws of the past.

I had thought that the very least we could have done was to have given the new Atlasia a fresh start, unencumbered by the thousands of laws from ancient history, some good, some bad, some stupid, some pathetic, some that make no sense at all.

But no, we have decided, in our wisdom, to saddle the new Atlasia with this burden.

Way to go. 

[Lincoln Republican]

Yeah, I had no idea there was a vote happening until just now since this convention is terribly organized.

As Presiding Officer, I have taken steps to ensure that everyone is on the same page from here on out; nevertheless, the delegates who missed the vote have no-one to blame but themselves for their absence. There are only three threads on this board in which issues are being actively debated: it shouldn't take more than 30 minutes to scan through each of them and vote on proposals as necessary. For reference, the Senate regularly debates up to ten different proposals at a time and most active Regional legislatures have 2-3 bills on the floor. I'm willing to bet that almost everyone here has served in a Regional legislature at some point, so this arrangement should not come as a surprise. Provided you're willing to log in at least once a day, it should not be unreasonable for you to keep up with all that is going on without someone hovering over your shoulder.

My job is to enforce the Rules of Order and to keep debate from getting off track, not to babysit the delegates and make sure they do their jobs. If sending out a PM blast announcing each vote is what is needed to keep everyone from dozing off, I'm happy to do it, but let's not pretend that 17 delegates didn't show up for work because they couldn't figure out which thread they were supposed to click on.

EDIT: Can I move that votes be invalidated without a certain level of turnout from the delegates?

I am uncomfortable with this for a number of reasons. First, there is nothing in the Rules of Order that allows the Convention to establish a quorum, and we would be opening ourselves up for a lawsuit should we choose to do so anyway. Second, this would hypothetically allow a minority of the Convention to block the passage of unfriendly legislation by refusing to vote, which is something I will not allow to happen.

I agree completely with Senator Truman on the first point.  It is up to the delegates to check in to see what is going on and what is being voted on.  If some delegates miss some votes, that's the way it goes.  They can take more care for the next time.

As to the second point, there is no way that the Chair should have the authority to invalidate votes unless a certain level of delegates turn out.  If delegates don't turn out, they don't have a say in the way that particular vote goes.  Invalidating votes would add too much lost time in the entire process.   

[Lincoln Republican]

Aye

[Lincoln Republican]

Aye