Dec 22, 16 / Cap 21, 00 23:06 UTC

Type of Government  

Our Constitution will define what kind of government we have. Before we can write one, we certainly should have those ideals hammered down

Dec 22, 16 / Cap 21, 00 23:07 UTC

Asgardia will be run my twelve ministries, each headed by a minister. We will also have a parliament. Who gets to fill these positions? Who is eligible for election? What credentials if any must be held to qualify? What sort of government should we have? What should the Declaration of Unity and the Constitution entail? I will list some of my ideas and ideas of others I have grown fond of. There are many types of government that exist today. Democracies, socialists, monarchies, dictatorships, communists and others to name a few. Democracies have proven the most successful so far, for the most part, by most accepted metrics, so does that mean Asgardia should be democratic? Well, not necessarily. Democracies in their purest states actually do not function very well. It is okay for an economic engine but is rather lacking when adapted to governance. With democracy there is always the pitfall of money corrupting the system. This is true to an extent in all governments. Communist regimes have a long history of failure. Even those that still stand today are often accused of violating basic human rights and restricting its citizens in unfair and often even cruel ways. If Asgardia is to be a nation of knowledge and unrestricted scientific development, which I strongly align with, this would obviously be a detrimental form of governance. Dictatorships and monarchies also have their pros and cons. Having a single leader with a vast amount of power does offer swift react times and decision making when times arise either is needed, but what of the will of the people? A nation is the sum of its constituent parts, not the will of one being. Often in a government where one holds most or all of the power, the views of the citizens go unheard and citizens are punished for voicing them when they do not coincide with that of the leader’s. Socialist governments where everyone runs everything (also a view of communism though not to such an extreme extent) is just another way of saying the government and those who administer it run everything. Again, the success of the nation is contingent on the incorruptibility of its leaders. Every existing government type today has its pitfalls. I believe we should look at each of these and learn from the thousands of examples history and the modern political arena offer us in regard to deciding our government. I am of the conclusion that none of the afore mentioned types are our best option. Time and time again each has shown to fail in one aspect or another in very critical ways. We, Asgardia, can do better. I believe we should try something completely new. There are other designs that no nation today has yet implemented. We keep going back to the “tried and true” designs that history has shown us do not work. Why? Is it fear of the unknown? Is it because only these existing regimes can work in any real capacity? Or is it because each offers its particular advantages to the leaders and are chosen for what those advantages are? I believe it is a mix of the first and third. What other options do we have? Who or what is stopping us from taking the positive aspects from some of these existing regimes and combining them into something new? Why not try something like a technocracy or a meritocracy? Technocracy is a form of government where the leaders are all experts in the field over which they rule. For example, a Minster of Science would have to have an advanced scientific background and a parliament member would have to have some advanced background in law. A meritocracy is a government or other type of regime that promotes its leaders based on talent, achievement, and ability. One is advanced through merit versus pre-existing credentials, wealth, or class of privilege. These, as far as I know, have never been implemented on a governmental scale. Nearly all corporations exercise some form of technocracy and some educational institutions use variations of a meritocracy. So which of these, if any, should we choose? Well either has its advantages and disadvantages as all things do. In a technocracy the advantage is in all decisions made at the highest levels are made by those highly knowledgeable in that field. Bad decisions and policies can still be made, but the odds of such being implemented in ignorance is much less likely. Many laws are rushed into action in countries all over the world based on fear and ignorance and with little educational input. Almost all of these have had a mostly negative impact. The disadvantage of a technocracy is that it closes the highest reaches of governments to the vast majority. Not everyone can be a scientist, a lawyer, an agricultural expert, etc. Yet many people may wish to run such agencies because what these agencies do have a real impact on everyone and even though one has no background in a particular area, they do have the general wellbeing of the people in mind. Many would say that is a good quality in a leader and the rest can come from the advice of experts. The disadvantage of a meritocracy is that policies and laws can be put into play with little or even no input from the field in which such affects. This can be disastrous on a large enough scale. I propose a mix of the two with elements of existing regimes tossed in. I propose a leader can be elevated from within by personal achievement, talent, and ability by the public to become a nominee to hold an office. All such nominees are then voted into office by a panel of experts in the field of that office. This way one can advance regardless of educational background and yet the informed input of experts is retained. Each member of that panel is voted in by the people. In this way, democratically, everyone has a say in that they choose the nominees as well as who resides on the panels of experts in each field, and, by voting on those most aligned to their views and beliefs, can be assured that nominees voted into office by these panels will reflect those at least to some extent.

  Last edited by:  Brandon Stidham (Asgardian)  on Dec 22, 16 / Cap 21, 00 23:10 UTC, Total number of edits: 1 time

Dec 22, 16 / Cap 21, 00 23:12 UTC

I propose all the highest members of the ministries and the parliament be installed in this way. Also, the Head of State, President, or whatever we call our chief executive (since we are run my ministries, the title Prime Minister makes sense to me), should be installed in a different way. We want a leader that reflects at least a little of what each of us believe and value and also reflects the core values of Asgardia itself. We want input into who that is, and we should. It would also be beneficial if such a person were at least somewhat knowledgeable in how to administer on a large scale. I propose that a Prime Minister should have to have held a Minister position or parliamentary position at least once in their lifetime and should be nominated by the people or be proposed by the parliament. The reign of a Prime Minister, Minister, and parliamentary member should be finite. The US installs a new president potentially every four years, and certainly every eight. This is good in that it keeps any one person from holding power for too long, and bad because four years and even eight just isn’t long enough for long-term progress to be made. If a Prime Minister changed every four years, his successor can choose to change the direction of the Ministries from that set by his predecessor and thus erase much progress that it made while setting us in a new direction only to have it repeat again with the next Prime Minister. I propose all Minister positions be capped at a maximum of two six-year terms per Ministry, a parliamentary position be capped at eight years, and the Prime Minister position be capped at a once ever ten-year term. Of course, the Parliament should have checks to its power as well as the Prime Minister. A panel of judges, each having to hold an advanced law degree, should have the power to challenge any decision made by the Parliament or the Prime Minister in regards to Constitutionality. These judges should all be voted in directly by the people. In the US, a law must be challenged as unconstitutional after it passes and has done potential damage. According to my research, many similar mechanisms also exist abroad. This makes no sense to me. The process of trying to get such a challenge before the courts is often expensive beyond the means of ordinary citizens impacted by such laws or decisions, disenfranchising them, but also beyond their levels of expertise as it often requires advanced legal knowledge. Parallel to this, I propose the panel of judges, perhaps called the Sovereign Court, should have the duty of automatically checking any new bill for constitutionality before it can precede to the Prime Minister’s desk to be signed into law. Also, all ongoing executive policies should undergo a similar check though they can be implemented before the check to ensure the Prime Minister can act swiftly when times require it without being hindered. The Sovereign Court could hold nine judges, an odd number to ensure draws in legal matters are kept to a minimum and only happening while a judge is unable to report to duty due to illness or other factors. A ruling can never be made with fewer than seven judges. In times of emergency, the Prime Minister can appoint a judge to temporarily keep the Court running smoothly. This judge can appeal to be voted in by the people should they desire this. Also, the Prime Minister should have the power to veto a law as many executives around the world can. Unlike the style of veto that the US has, where a law must be vetoed in its entirely, I propose the Prime Minister be given the power to veto parts of a law. As seen with the US, many laws are drafted that encompass much of what a chief executive may find bad for the nation for whatever reason as well as some of what the nation needs. He or she must either accept the bad to get the good, or veto all of it. This, too, makes no sense to me, and represents, in my opinion, an overreach of legislative power. A Prime Minister can veto any portion of a law while signing in the rest. Of course, parliament should have the option of overriding this veto. It seems a conflict of interest to me that they should hold this power themselves and thus no check or balance is observed or maintained. Instead, I propose, on a majority vote of perhaps seventy-five percent, the legislature can appeal to the Sovereign Court to override this veto. The judges can only do this on a majority vote. Now as to how many members the Parliament should have or how many parts it should have are details yet to be worked out. Something like the Congress in the US or the Parliament in the UK might be good examples to look toward. These are only proposals and ideas in which are far from complete. Just a suggestion on a beginning of a framework that might prove fair. Of course, the first Head of State and Ministers and perhaps Sovereign Court members (if it will be called that or exist at all) and Parliamentary members will likely be chosen in a means different than stated hear even if this was something everyone wanted. They would be the first to start the mechanism so they kind of get a pass from said mechanism. I would also like to mention some things in terms of economics. Capitalism if a good system to a point, but there comes a point when too much wealth become a problem. For example, the elite in the US basically own the system. The top one percent wealthy of American make nearly ninety percent of all the new wealth generated, or so I have read. They use this wealth to buy the system. I do strongly believe this should be fought by the system itself. If each company and citizen were capped at a wealth limit and the rest were filtered back into Asgardia itself, this would minimize the impact of money on politics. What that cap for each could be is a concept requiring my knowledge in economics than I possess, but I believe if set right, this could be achieved. Also I think the practice of corporations contributing to campaigns should be severely abolished and those made by citizens should be harshly capped. The state itself should provide the funded for the nominees to campaign. Also, I think the practice of lobbying should be outright outlawed. If one wants a law to be passed, he/she should petition the Parliament formally and not in person but via documentation in a public venue. This would cut down much corruption. I also think the Ministries should work under a high level of transparency in the exception of where national security is concerned. If we trust our leaders and we raise them up fairly, we should know they would only hide the secrets that truly needed hidden as it would be in our best interest to do so. Just food for thought. In closing I would like to say that I am obviously not a law expert nor do I have nation-founding experience. These are just suggestions I thought worthy of note. I am merely trying to toss as much media out there as I can to get the collective juices flowing and the gears grinding. This only works if everyone involved gets to pondering how this nation of ours should function. --Brandon Stidham

Dec 23, 16 / Cap 22, 00 02:27 UTC

First of all, because we´ll be less than a million at the beginning, I'm in favour of a semi-direct democracy. It means that the elected representatives will have to make decisions, but the main and most important decisions have to be taken by all citizens. A few has to govern the much, it´s a political constance in all the political system that works (Cf. Basics principles of politic, Francisco Moreno). We have to define which kind of authority these "few"(means those with authority) have and how they can exercise it.

Te begin: I´ll propose that all decisions made by a member of the Asgardia government can be opposed if at least 100 citizen sign against this decision. In this case(at least if it´s something really urgent) this decision is suspended until it will by submitted to general vote of every Asgardia willing to vote, and confirm or suppressed after the vote. If it´s an urgent decision it stays until the vote. The 100 signatures of citizen to stand against a decision must be collected within a month after the publication of the decision. The vote in favour or against the decision will be summoned by the citizen who has made the petition to collect signature against the mentioned decision, not before one month after collecting the 100th signature, and not after 3 month after the 100th signature.

A member of the government whose more than 20% of decisions are suppressed by popular vote may be immediately proposed for dismissal by a group of 100 citizen or more, using the same procedure that the one used for the decisions.

Thoughts?

Dec 23, 16 / Cap 22, 00 05:36 UTC

Ultimately, I personally politically favour Anarchy. A lack of a system can be a system too - and an effective one. At the end of the day, you shouldn't need someone to tell you what's right and what's wrong - you know. You'd also not be really requiring anyone to tell you what to do - you know that too. However, I'm able to accept that some people are just completely unable to cope with taking social responsibility for their own actions/inactions.

Even with more than a million citizens, it's still possible for them to decide for themselves. Via a forum structure such as this, we can argue amongst ourselves upon the various merits concerning decisions for a set period of time - assuming this is nothing desperately urgent - and then collectively vote.

I'll agree with the opposition to decisions principle, but think it should be set as a % instead of a solid number. Say 60%. To assume that up until the next elections at least the 1'st 100k have a say, then one hundred would be only 1% or so - and not a good representation of the larger societies veiws. 100/600,000 is pretty insignificant.

Should a structure develop wherin individuals make their own decisions, then the role of the ministries would be akin to that of mods in forums. An adjudicator ensuring productive conversation, and in cases where no clear agreements can be reached, the arbiter of the ultimate decision.

I think proposal for dismissal should also require greater than 100 people - again a fixed percentage, 60% sounds like a good minimal.