Draft (mock) amendment to demonstrate many ways of solving the same problem #9
Conversation
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Yes, good point. I do like the idea of having a recall election, and it would even be possible to combine the two approaches (elections at least every x days/months/years with the option of early elections), but you're right - we probably don't understand the problem completely yet. So, we should probably try to agree on what needs to be solved before trying to solve it. To begin, we must keep in mind the objective of the party. The party's aims, as I understand them, are to get members into government, and to have them vote according to the results of the Flux system. What could frustrate these objectives? Well, there is the risk that the person or group holding power would use this power to make the party no longer follow direct democracy. So much is obvious. Another threat could come if there is an argument over what direct democracy is. For example, how are bills to be proposed, should direct democracy be used on every bill, should the number of votes which one person can exercise be limited, must the party accept any changes by Flux developers, should there be a voting age, must one be a member to vote, and must one live in the electorate to vote, what counts as good security, what will be done about people without smartphones, how should questions be worded and how should the votes be counted? These are all questions upon which members are likely to disagree. I list the large number of examples not for you to answer, but as a way of showing that even within a seemingly neutral political party, with members who are all well-intentioned, there is bound to be difference of opinion, especially if Flux holds power. So there needs to be some way of answering these questions. Another issue which may arise is the administration of the party. In particular, there needs to be a way of choosing candidates when multiple people want to be preselected for the same seat. There also needs to be a way of choosing members of the executive, and choosing staff members, and what exactly their powers are. |
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this is quite a stupid comment for me to make but i'm just trying to get used to github - Do we have to use the word "canonical"? most of our members will not know what that means - our constitution should be user friendly as much as possible |
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"Members of The Leadership are hand chosen by the Leader and Deputy Leader and form the support for the Leader. |
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Spill Motion idea of Max's sounds great... |
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"For the purposes of decision making a quorum is achieved when:
can you add the word "or" where applicable? (guys i don't know how to create my own edits) |
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would the controversy over the flux startup/profit issue that occured this year and freaked out a large number of members - would that have led to a spill motion? |
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personally i'm in favour of having both the spill clause and revolutionary's yearly election... and having a yearly election will keep the membership calm.... and give them a sense of pride and a sense of 'usefulness'... it should also work the other way - and make the leader have trust in the membership - should foster a relationship between leader and party members... |
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Following from my previous comment, it is clear that everyone here supports a democratic constitution in some form. I agree for the most part, but there are certain decisions which are so crucial that there should be extra hurdles which must be passed before they can be changed. For example, the party needs to come to an agreement on what its view of direct democracy is, and entrench that in the constitution, for example by requiring any amendments which would change the rules of direct democracy to be passed multiple years in a row, or by requiring the consent of a specific person or group of people, or something similar. This is necessary, because unlike a national democracy, Flux is vulnerable to brigading. But aside from fundamental decisions about the nature of the democracy, internal democracy should be as much as possible. This would mean, for example, not just electing the leader, but electing the other office bearer positions, and candidates, providing the option for member-initiated referendum and (possibly) modifying the roles to avoid a centralisation of power. Because power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. These are my thoughts on the problem, but before I develop them further, I'd like to hear what someone else thinks - I might not have got the balance of democracy right. |
Draft amendment to demonstrate many ways of solving the same problem
Note this about this PR: "The idea isn't actually to merge it, but to demonstrate how we can have a totally opposite approach that ticks some of the same boxes, which usually indicates we don't understand the problem we're solving well enough yet."
See this thread for discussion: https://community.voteflux.org/t/democratising-the-flux-party-constitution/501