Mar 31, 17 / Tau 06, 01 14:56 UTC

Re: Discussion for the Constitution Table of Contents  

@sammwich,

Most of my post are not attempts at speculating on the Constitutions' contents. (I've already read all the community suggestions and the current 50 page doc...)

However, I am expressing my concerns over these articles: Article 9, Article 11, Article 23, and Article 32.

Mar 31, 17 / Tau 06, 01 16:46 UTC

Article 9. Key Obligations of Citizens. I'm curious to see what those obligations will be. Article 12 Territory and Article 27 Capital. Does this mean we are going to have a Capital on an Earth-based Territory? Article 19. Labour and Dividends. Sounds like salaries will be dividend payments based on total state income. If so, are all citizens going to be working for the government? And are the shares going to be divided equally? I see nothing in the table of contents about taxes or businesses. Any clarification would be appreciated, as I'm planning to start Asgardian based businesses and would like to know what to expect in terms of taxes and laws regarding holding companies and trust funds.

Mar 31, 17 / Tau 06, 01 18:14 UTC

So Far. So good.

Mar 31, 17 / Tau 06, 01 18:35 UTC

table of contents look good, however, i am more interested in the contents of the table of contents:)

Mar 31, 17 / Tau 06, 01 19:03 UTC

What do mean by citizen security? All I keep hearing from people is that we should have any defend leaving us open. I litteraly think Co2 compressed weapons that shoots rubber laced silicon or a type of sleeping dart. Let us carry even melee weapons. Tasers, batons, and etc. Will it be accepted? We won't have a military, so what can we do to defend ourselves? I wanna discuss this with head bosses if possible.

  Last edited by:  Boone Johnson (Asgardian)  on Mar 31, 17 / Tau 06, 01 20:08 UTC, Total number of edits: 1 time

Mar 31, 17 / Tau 06, 01 20:09 UTC

@OshoNikhil

Very nice Preamble,But i have some points to add:- Chapter IV. Democracy and Social Justice there should be 1:-Article on FRATERNITY: This refers to a feeling of brotherhood & a sense of belonging with the country among its people. It embraces psychological as well as territorial dimensions of National Integration. It leaves no room for regionalism, Communism, caste-ism etc. which hinders the Unity of the State. 2:-Article on EQUITY: the quality of being fair and impartial.

Interesting proposition.

Mar 31, 17 / Tau 06, 01 20:09 UTC

I think the most important is the constitutional process and the laws, I am sure you are very good at it, but in every country it should be established in the centers for the community of asgardia

Mar 31, 17 / Tau 06, 01 20:09 UTC

Will we be aloud to carry a non lethal weapons? I'm willing to put this up for a debate of use. So can we?

Mar 31, 17 / Tau 06, 01 20:24 UTC

I think this is the right way. But I miss something. In the birth of Asgardia and to this moment and probably for to Constitution Day, we don't have a delegate for the regions in the Globe. I hope it is inside of Constitution. Because we don't have a direct and right information same using the official facebook page or the site and forum. We need delegates.

I wanna hope

Mar 31, 17 / Tau 06, 01 20:48 UTC

il faudrait mandater une équipe afin de rédiger les textes pour chaques chapitres de la constitution et soumettre aux votes des Asgardiens pour d'éventuelles modifications

Mar 31, 17 / Tau 06, 01 21:40 UTC

god please Asgardia and the Asgardians and our leader , this nation will be a strong nation and we all will be proud of it , even our children

Mar 31, 17 / Tau 06, 01 21:44 UTC

How will the powers be divided?

Mar 31, 17 / Tau 06, 01 21:45 UTC

God and Goddess bless Asgardia, a continuation of our Earth.

Apr 1, 17 / Tau 07, 01 04:13 UTC

Asgardian Constitution notes:

Citizenship: should we mention if citizenship can be acquired by birth? If one of your parents is Asgardian, do you automatically are one? Or do you have to ask for it to be granted?

Article 8. Civil rights? What is this? Do we have a definition? And when we say entitled, do we mean these rights are granted?

Article 8.x : All persons shall have the right to freely express their opinion and to communicate their ideas verbally, in writing, in print or with images, within the limits of the law and civil morality;

Can we just say “freedom of expression”? Or “A person’s right to freedom of expression is guaranteed by this constitution.”

Now, the problem that I have is that this language assumes that rights are being granted, rather than protected. I think the law should be more along the lines of “the government should not infringe on the rights of freedom of expression…”

The language must make it clear that a person already possesses these rights by virtue of being born and that this document is ensuring that those right won’t be oppressed by the power of the government.

I don’t think we should include censorship in the constitution. Any matter of censorship should be left to legislation. This is just too dangerous a concept to be codified in the constitution. Just make sure to guarantee freedom of expression and later on we deal with when it is appropriate to censor information.

Can we please add the right to personal security against unreasonable search and unusual punishment.

I think it would be good to also add this: The enumeration in the Constitution, of certain rights, shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.

Article 9.iii Is this taxation? Taxation should not be codified in the constitution.

You should not force people to give money to the government by constitutional law. I would never agree to that. We can create a tax code later on but this is unnecessary because we already pay taxes in the States we live in.

Also, automation might render work obsolete, and rather than citizens paying taxes, the state might have to pay citizen by sharing the economic profit with the population. This should be removed.

As a matter of fact, all obligation should be removed. All of the things in there sound like either forced labor or compulsory military service. And I disagree with both of those.

Let defense to the state itself and simply add a clause in regards to protection and the formation of a militia.

Article 10.iv: why 10 judges? What’s the reason behind this? I’m not opposed, I just need to understand the reason for this particular number.

So the constitutional court will have a president? What will be his role? It sounds like overkill and too much bureaucracy. Ten judges are quite a number of people. Also, if we are going to decide that the constitutional court will have a president, can we create a separate section making this declaration.

Human resources? I don’t know why this is here either. I think it is unnecessary since we are already defining the government role of “human resources” as judges, presidents, etc.

Article 12. “Colonized by Asgardians” shouldn’t this be "Asgardia." Since this implies that the government will have automatic ownership on any territorial discovery or colonization a citizen makes. The government shouldn’t have an automatic claim to citizen discoveries. Unless if the discovery is made while acting as an agent of the government this shouldn't apply.

Article 13.i The State shall exercise sovereignty over mining on celestial bodies and over any energy produced in Asgardia by any means. This sentence is too broad. I get the feeling it might be in violation of some international space law. We are claiming rights to mining celestial bodies. We could keep it there, but I don’t think other states will be happy about it.

ii)All the Humankind will also have a right to a share of the dividends and/or benefits obtained with mining on celestial bodies and energy exploitation, according to the law. This is very unrealistic. Unless we are talking about a guaranteed basic income, I cannot see this as actually doable.

And any dividends and gains should be shared among Asgardians only since they are the ones subject to Asgardian laws and responsibilities. Yes, anyone can become and Asgardian, but until they have done so, they shouldn't be presumed Asgardians.

Article 14. Taxation should be left out. Let legislation take care of that.

v) Rent for leasing Asgardian territory as base for homes, laboratories or spacecraft parking to Earth states with spacial programs <— we have to pay rent by constitutional law? No, I disagree.

Taxation shall pay for all the shenanigans -- in addition to any economic activity like energy production and mining. Stop trying to bleed citizens dry, we are not slaves!

vii)Annual fee to UN or Earth states for space protection of Earth against space-born threats.

So we are like some sort of contractors? We are going to charge the whole planet for protection and we still have the gall to charge rent to Asgardians, on top of taxes and revenue from resource exploitation? What the heck is this? A mafia operation? Plus, I already pay a lot of taxes to IRS. I am too poor for so many taxes. I believe in reverse taxation.

Merchandising? Seriously? We are going to include merchandising in the constitution.

To tell you the truth, if Asgardia truly is capable of creating an economy based on mining and energy and all that good stuff, this will be the first government that actually produces anything ( apart from the government of Alaska in the US that actually shares the revenue of oil sales with its residents).

If we can pull this off, we’ll most likely end up with reverse taxation. So I would like to encourage to remove all taxation and financial legislation from the constitution and actually deal with it with separate legislation.

vi) Commerce and trade shall be free inside the State within the limits prescribed by law; the admissibility of exclusive commercial and trade privileges for a specified period of time and territory shall be regulated by law. <— I need to understand “admissibility of exclusive commercial and trade privileges for a specified period of time and territory.” Is this legalese for “monopoly protected by the state”?

Article 17. iv) Criminal law will not have retroactive effects if they are not favorable. How do we define favorable? what exactly is it we have in mind when we say this.

Article 18. Sundays and holidays recognized by the State shall be observed as public days of rest, without prejudice to the legal provisions governing rest on Sundays and holidays. I find this very strange, why Sunday specifically? So, if I want to work on Sunday and I go ahead and actually work, I am breaking the law?

I don’t know if labor laws should be encoded in the constitution. Maybe take it out and leave it to legislation?

Article 20 Healthcare should be a guaranteed right. Education should be a right. Agree with all of these statements here.

Article 21. I don’t think it is needed to have this included in the constitution.

Article 26. If we have no official language, please, refrain from naming English anywhere in the constitution. Simply estate that there is no official language.

Although I must say, I agree that we should have a neutral language like Esperanto as our language since it is not a language that is native to any place on Earth. I am also OK with not having any official language.

Article 29 “I swear/promise that I will be loyal to the Asgardian people, that I will obey the laws, and that I will strictly observe and defend the Declaration of Unity and the Constitution” Instead of “/“ add “and” because with a slash it sounds like the person under oath has the alternative to either swear or promise.

Article 31. I like “Jarl” as well. Since most likely we’ll have consulates around the Earth, consul might be reserved for those exercising this position in a consulate.

Maybe instead of one Jarl we can have two Jarls who are both elected in alternate 2-year blocks. It is much more difficult to corrupt a body when it has too many moving parts. Just a thought.

Article 32. i) Parliament shall consist of all registered Asgardian citizens with at least 18 years old and not deprived by Courts of their voting rights. They will be called Members of the Parliament.
I love this. I love the fact that a young person can get engaged early on. However, we most define the term for which a parliament member can serve.

If you don't like representation, what is the role of parliament then? We don’t have a parliament in my country, but I was under the impression that parliament members were, in addition to lawmakers, also representatives? Are you thinking about explicitly restricting this role to just law making? If so, can you please spell this out.

I also agree with direct democracy. Cybersecurity most be a priority to avoid electoral fraud.

The Ministers must be citizens of Asgardia and eligible for election according to law. Aren't ministers appointed?

Article 34. ii) A Cybersecurity Corp* is created to keep safe the Asgardian public informatical systems and to patrol in Internet. To patrol the internet? How will this affect my internet privacy?

  Last edited by:  Yoevelyn Rodriguez (Asgardian, Comm Assistant)  on Apr 1, 17 / Tau 07, 01 04:19 UTC, Total number of edits: 1 time
Reason: Formatting

Apr 1, 17 / Tau 07, 01 04:17 UTC

Also, can we please add Constitutional protection to whistleblowers, please? I don't know how the wording should be, but any person with inside knowledge who risks his or her life when warning the public of government action designed to harm the people should be protected for risking themselves in order to protect Asgardia.

Also, please add constitutional protection for the press. Freedom of the press is the first line of defense of citizens and the most basic way of keeping government accountable.

  Last edited by:  Yoevelyn Rodriguez (Asgardian, Comm Assistant)  on Apr 1, 17 / Tau 07, 01 04:30 UTC, Total number of edits: 1 time
Reason: Adding freedom of the press.