Within the Asgardian constitution there are plenty of things worth keeping but also plenty worth revising and, in the interest of the best accommodation of our citizens' well being and governmental engagement I encourage Asguardians to support a shifting of our democratic structure to a Democratic Confederalism.

Democratic Confederalism, as a system, is inclusive of any political, ideological, ethnic, and religious standpoint. It uses this diversity to make the entire Confederalism stronger. A working example of Democratic Confederalism already exists among the Kurds in Rojova and seeks to allow stateless peoples safety and prosperity. While, as Asgardians, we are not stateless, we face many of the same challenges as stateless peoples and will continue to, even once recognized by the UN due to the unique nature of our nation.

As Democratic Confederalism is not well-explained without reading many books by Murray Bookchin and Abdullah Ocalan I will summarize it here as an Democratic Confederalist Asgardia might appear.

A Democratic Confederalist Asgardia would contain the following levels of government:

Community - Consisting of between 30 and a 400-500 citizens, dependent on geographic and social/ideological commonality

Neighborhood Council - Consisting of 7-30 Communities and whose membership would be the board members of each constituent commune. In Asgardia a Neighborhood could include multiple cities.

District Council - Consisting of all Neighborhood Councils within a language group consisting of the board members of the Neighborhood councils. NGOs and political organizing would occur at this level.
National Council- Consisting of all Asgardian and comprised of a 11 representatives from each District.

At the district level all of the following committees would exist. Neighborhood Councils and Communities may also have some or all of these committees based on the needs and interests of their constituents:

Defense Committee - Concerned with the protection Asgardians and their property.
Economics Committee - Concerned with the economic prosperity of Asgardians.

Political Committee - Concerned with governmental procedure and participation as well as fair representation.
Civil Society Committee - Concerned with public works and services, providing for Asgardian needs.
Free Society Committee - Concerned with individual freedoms of Asgardians and ensuring governmental action does not infringe on these freedoms.
Justice Committee - Concerned with policing and court systems and ensuring a just Asgardia.
Ideology Committee - Concerned with promoting the values and goals of Asgardia and its mission.
Committee - A committee established to represent the interests of a Minority group within Asgardia which might otherwise be neglected by the democratic process. One of these committees would interact with all the other committees to ensure fair treatment. The establishment of these committees would be decided by the council of a given governmental level.

This bottom up structure would create locally managed communities, able to coordinate and take care of themselves, while still maintaining a national identity and drive. However, such a structure does not work well for establishing laws which all Asgardian may agree to and to address this a separate federal structure is needed, made up of the already constitutionally extant, Legislative, Executive, and Municpal branches of the government. However, to ensure fair representation, no more than 40% of seats in the Parliament may be held by a single district.

In this case, the majority of public policy is managed within the Council structure via direct democracy and the task of the Parliament is primarily to establish and revise legal frameworks that all Asgardians will operate by. As such, laws from the Parliament would tend to be specific and universal. Granular policy is the work of the councils who are most directly impacted by and therefore responsible for them.

Likewise the Executive would be responsible for enacting the laws of the parliament as well as the assisting with enacting the decisions of the National and District Councils.

To finish, this proposed framework is also predicated on a majority vote system. This is due to the unfortunate side effect of consensus voting which is to silence opposition. By requiring consensus a committee, council, or the Parliament itself inadvertently silences those who do not disagree, either because they do not wish their disagreement to inhibit the functioning of government or because they are bullied into compliance. In either case, this leads to the silencing of differing view points and the homogenizing of ideas. The strength of a decentralized nation is in its diversity and demanding consensus will only stifle that.

Thank you for your time and consideration. If I am elected to Parliament I plan to discuss this with the other Representatives as a possible early amendment to the constitution.

As we near closer to the new goal of 100,000 affirmative votes for the constitution I keep seeing the same protest comments over the voting process come up, and, in many of these cases I'm not seeing actual arguments against the constitution as its written. While there are plenty of those to be found, and they are legitimate, I'd like to focus on the arguments against voting simply because of the process.

While I recognize, a clearly defined yes or no vote system would be preferable, rather than the existing system, which counts a no if you access and then leave the page without voting to ratify, I don't feel this is a sufficient reason to not wish to vote for the constitution. The overarching mechanisms are present both for establishing the government as well as amending the document to address concerns. Further, the power of the citizenry to forward amendments rather than going through their elected bodies is also established. This is a "first run" at things and for that I feel that where the constitution is lacking it makes up for these in providing fair mechanisms of revision. Given this strength I strongly encourage affirmative votes, however, this is a digression. Ultimately, every nation has bumps in the road in its formation and it is heartening for me that the major bump we're encountering is a procedural one rather than larger ethical concerns. If you are refraining from voting due to procedural concerns, please remember that these are the first grasps at organization as we migrate to a full legal body with ministries who will be in charge of elections which can properly address these concerns through parliamentary law. Changing the voting method after so many votes have already been counted would corrupt the tally and require all Asgardians to vote again. Your concerns are noted, and in my case agreed with, but I implore you that they are better addressed by voting on the merits of the constitution as they currently stand and the rectified via law once we have the legislative framework to do so.

Much conversation is going on in the forums in regard to the draft constitution and going over every word but I was looking over the statements on immorality and anti-social behavior and find their vagueness concerning. While the prohibition against capital punishment and the construction of prisons limits the punishments for these behaviors to suspension/revocation of citizenship, loss of privileges, and fines, I feel the first amendment to the constitution must include, much like the bill of rights in the United States, a clarification of some of this vague language, more specifically to assert which behaviors may not be deemed anti-social or immoral to protect against state discrimination on grounds of political belief, religious belief, sexual orientation, gender identity, and I'm sure others I'm not thinking of at the moment. That is to say that we should insure these may not be deemed immoral excepting where they can be shown to infringe on the rights of other Asgardians or Earthlings or when they conflict with Asgardia's mission and Supreme Values. I would love comments if anyone has ideas for draft language for such an amendment. I'm working on my own but I think a collective discourse on the subject will yield more fully formed ideas.

To begin with a bit about myself: I am a 33 year old IT professional who specializes in lateral thinking and multi-disciplinary problem solving. I am both a writer and game designer in my spare time and have interests in philosophy, economics, political theory, particle physics, astrophysics, and transhumanism. Politically I am a Utopian anarchosyndaclist, however I am also a pragmatist and as such support the constitutionally proposed structure of Asgardian government.

As a member of government I will work diligently for the betterment of Asgardia and to promote well reasoned decisions and assist Parliament in arriving at rational decisions and always seek to execute the objectives of my ministry as efficiently as possible. I would do these things using a few guiding principles.

1. Research, expertise, and accuracy: In any effort, before making a recommendation, I will always research all sides of an issue. Reviewing cost and benefit, not just of the options presented but also the opportunity costs of not taking these actions. In pursuit of this information I will review all recent and relevant historical literature on the subject and reach out to experts on the subject for comment. In the case of referencing conflicting viewpoints I will always be sure to present an accurate representation of what the consensus within the field is as well as how well sourced arguments are regardless of consensus.
2. Least Harm: In any execution or recommendation I will always favor the course of least harm and when harm is necessary I will aim for the lowest severity harm. So if an action would negatively one individual severely or several individuals in a minor way, I will favor the option that only creates a minor harm. I define harm to take into consideration physical, psychological, social, economic, environmental, and prospective. Further I take into consideration not just people but other living things that we share space with. Further, this applies to all peoples, Asgardians or not.
3. Best argument: I will always seek to find the best form of argument against my positions and analyze my position based on that argument, not necessarily the one presented to me by those that disagree with me. If our goal is to better all earthlings, we must rise past simply "winning the day" and getting legislation passed or a program enacted because we defeated the arguments of our opponents while missing externalities we failed to account for. We must focus on what is best for all of us in the long term as well as the near.
4. Multi-disciplinary Assessment: Too often, unforseen consequences of government programs and legislation create problems that either didn't exist before or exacerbate ones that were only minor before and usually in areas unrelated to the core aim of the legislation or program. I always endeavor to address all issues, not just with an eye for the subject at hand from the perspective of experts in the field but also viewing the problem from different perspectives and fields of study to make sure we capture all aspects of a given issue.

It would be my pleasure to serve Asgardia, and though I am inelligible to do so in Parliament I look forward to committing to work diligiently for you all in Government. Thank you for considering me as your candidate for Government.