On parties and police states...

[Maniac]

As is evidenced by the comment from Drogue, Voltaire and me in the Constitutional proposal thread, there seems to be a split in our faction regarding some issues. As usual, a poll to hopefully solve them! I put the voting limit on three days.

Question1: Should our state have a multiple-party-system or a one-party-system?

Question2: If the one-party-system wins, how should the official party be called?
Options I included are:
Communist Party
The Party
People's New Revolutionary Party
Write-in

Question3: If the one-party-system wins, should political movements be allowed to call themselves "parties"?

Question4: If the one-party-system wins, should political movements be allowed to call themselves "factions"?

[Voltaire]

As should be evident by our constitution we are indeed a communist state, our General Secretary is General Secretary of the Communist Party. Only the Communist Party, the Party of the People, should be allowed to stand for government and be the only official party in the Human Hive.

For RP purposes other parties can form, but their members should not be able to stand for government (unless they overthrow us via revolution). Factions within the Communist Party of course can exist, against mainly for RP purposes.

[Nubclear]

There are no parties.

Only GUILDS

[Octavian X]

For RP purposes, there is only one Party (Personally, I like the Reople's New Revolutionary Party). However, political movements should be allowed to form for game political purposes, and should be allowed to call themselves as they please.

[Drogue]

What do you mean 1 or multi party? We already decided that others could form themselves into groups, is this meant to remove that? If one party wins, are we allowed to form groups? If yes, then what is the difference?

Originally posted by Voltaire
As should be evident by our constitution we are indeed a communist state

We don't have a constitution, it has not been ratified yet. And we are not taken as being communist. The Hive is a Police State, not a communist faction. If you wanted a workers paradise, you should have tried to be Drones. Our economic system is a point of debate, not a given. It is not the Hive ideal.

Originally posted by Voltaire
For RP purposes other parties can form, but their members should not be able to stand for government (unless they overthrow us via revolution). Factions within the Communist Party of course can exist, against mainly for RP purposes.

The Parties are for fun. This game would be boring without them IMHO. Yet you are now saying they have no place? And since when does your party get to start as rulers, and all other shave to attempt a revolution. Moreover, the last time I checked, we had not agreed on revolutions being a part of this game.

[Drogue]

Also, why should some people be able to say what others can called their parties? How can we call them factions, seeing that we are the Hive, a faction in the game. How can we have both factions being called factions and parties being called factions?

Wouldn't it be weird having a party called the Communist Party if we aren't running Planned?

[Lemmy]

Sub-Faction for science and knowledge!

[Maniac]

Originally posted by Drogue
What do you mean 1 or multi party? We already decided that others could form themselves into groups, is this meant to remove that?

No. Octavian X explains it well: if the one-party system options wins, as seems likely, for RP purposes, there will be only one Party. However, political movements, groups, cliques, societies... are allowed to form for game political purposes,

If one party wins, are we allowed to form groups? If yes, then what is the difference?

The difference would be the groups aren't allowed to call themselves a "Party".

[Drogue]

So the difference is in name only?

Though this seems unlikely, what if one party wins, but also "Movements called "parties"? YES!". Then there would be only one party, but there would be many?

I still stand by what I said that I don't see why it is up to others the name of any particular group to which they don't belong. And this poll is a little late seeing as parties have been discussed for weeks with some started already.

[Snowflake]

I voted one party system and Movements called "parties"? YES!. The idea being the government is controlled mainly by the Party but there could also be many alternative parties that do not controll the government. Kind of like the current China situation. You could serve in the government and be a member of the alternative parties. But all understands when we say the Party we mean the Party, not any of the alternative parties. You could advocate different ideologies and social agendas. However, if you serve in the government, you must not act against the Party, at least not openly until the time you are going to throw in a revolution. And the Party itself can evolve too. Different groups could fight to gain influence and control.

[Drogue]

I agree completely with HongHu

[Voltaire]

Wouldn't it be weird having a party called the Communist Party if we aren't running Planned?

coughchinacough

[Drogue]

What would you class China as? Admittedly they have some form of a market there, but still "State-owned enterprises dominate China's economy". It is closest to a Planned economy of the three, though I will admit it is by no means a totally planned economy. You think the Communist Party would let it become a complete Free Market? Or even anything that closely resembled it?

[Nubclear]

Yep.

Have you seen some of those Nokia commercials in China? Talk about neat....

[Impaler[WrG]]

Well to be honest "Planned" economics is not actualy Comunism. Its say quite clearly in the Datalinks that Planned is a heavily regulated FreeMarket, this is what the United States and much of Europe was using untill the Reagan/Thatcher Deregulations. In the US the companies were not state owned in Europe they generaly were, but in both cases they were heavily regulated.

Free Market would be more in line with how things are done now in the US or a hypothetical total Lasa-Fare economic system which dosn't exist in any modernized country, Europe is still more regulated and might be considered to be Planned or between Freemarket and Planned with the Scandinavian countries being the farthest left with high taxes and high social services.

A truly Markxest recive according to needs/work acording to ability/no private property type economic system dosen't exist in SMAC (and if it did the modifiers would absolutly stink).

Besides the fact that "Comunism" is a combined political/economic system. Its a combination of extream Socialism, esentialy a 100% tax with a Dictatorship (in the idealized Comunist state the goverment "melts away" and the whole population in essence becomes the goverment, this ofcorse never actualy happens as some Dictator or Olagarcy starts running everything). This is why the USSR was called the united soviet SOCIALIST republic, their economic system was hyper-Socialims with the eventual GOAL of comunism. Russia would now be considered a Planned economy as would China, China will move to a FreeMarket soon though as state owned companies become less significant and regulation is relaxed.

[Maniac]

Ok, poll closed.
We'll have a one-party-system. That ruling party will be called The Party. Political movements are not allowed to be called parties, but they may call themselves factions.

Drogue, I cannot (or rather do not want to) force you to change the name of your movement, but I hope you understand that as long as you have your own Party, you logically cannot be a member of the Politburo of The Party.

[Drogue]

Originally posted by Maniac
Ok, poll closed.
We'll have a one-party-system. That ruling party will be called The Party. Political movements are not allowed to be called parties, but they may call themselves factions.

Drogue, I cannot (or rather do not want to) force you to change the name of your movement, but I hope you understand that as long as you have your own Party, you logically cannot be a member of the Politburo of The Party.

I do not see why? I have my own party, lowercase. The difference is huge, being that The Party is the ruling Party, but a party is just a group of likeminded individuals. Personally, I would like to keep the name, though I guess I'll have to change it I think this is all terribly stupid though. It is different in name only to things like The Avestite Faction. Therefore to state that GT, as the founder of the Avestite Faction, is allowed to be a member but I am not is ridiculous. What is the difference between our groups? Name only. I thought we were all members of The Party? As HongHu said:

The idea being the government is controlled mainly by the Party but there could also be many alternative parties that do not controll the government. Kind of like the current China situation. You could serve in the government and be a member of the alternative parties. But all understands when we say the Party we mean the Party, not any of the alternative parties. You could advocate different ideologies and social agendas. However, if you serve in the government, you must not act against the Party, at least not openly until the time you are going to throw in a revolution. And the Party itself can evolve too. Different groups could fight to gain influence and control.

But if you believe it is enough to stop me being a member of The Party, which since I am a member of the government, I am, then I will change the name.

However calling it a faction seems stupid to me, since the Hive, the Peacekeepers and the Believers, etc are factions. A group of people set up to lobby and debate is not a faction. Indeed, how can someone who is a member of another faction be a member of the Hive government? Isn't that a huge conflict of interest?

Any suggestions as to what I can call it?

[Nubclear]

GUILD is the only way to go.

[Drogue]

No. A guild is, or at least implies, a physical place. You go to a guild, say an assasins guild, or a fighters guild. It is not the group of people, although it may include that, it is a place. The FNP is a group of people.

Remember that only one meaning of party is political. Party can mean:

A group of people who have gathered to participate in an activity

(like the FNP),

A selected group of soldiers: a raiding party

However everyone seems to have simply cottoned on to

An established political group organized to promote and support its principles and candidates for public office

A party of women can go to a party, dressed in party dresses and a party hat, where there is a party atmosphere, and party until dawn, without ever going against The Party. A party is just a group. The Party is the government.

(All sources dictionary.com)

I could call it the Free Nihilist League, the Free Nihilist Sect, the Free Nihilist Association, the Free Nihilist Bloc, the Free Nihilist Group, the Free Nihilist Unit, etc. but they all sound a little strange to me. I just think it makes much more sense, instead of having factions, groups, guilds and anything else we have, if we just use one term, and the only term that makes sense for all of the is party.

Let me ask a question. Are we are, or are we not, allowed lobbying groups? Are these groups sprining up, like the FNP, the Avestite Faction and the Komist Group, legal? Or are they not allowed? If they are legal, what does it matter what they are called? They are all the same kind of entity, there for the same purpose, so to exclude me from the Politburo because my group happens to have a different name to the others seems ridiculous to me. But if that's the way it must be, I will ask the FNP members what they would like it to be called

[Nubclear]

GUILD:

guild also gild ( P ) Pronunciation Key (gld)
n.

An association of persons of the same trade or pursuits, formed to protect mutual interests and maintain standards.
A similar association, as of merchants or artisans, in medieval times.
Ecology. One of four groups of plants, the lianas, epiphytes, saprophytes, and parasites, having a characteristic mode of existence that involves some dependence on other plant life.

As in: Does not have to be a building. And the General Secretary has made the decision! Continued arguing is counter-productive and capitalistic!

If they are legal, what does it matter what they are called?

Because to attempt to place yourself on equal status as the Party is....

[GeneralTacticus]

Let political groups call themselves whatever they damn well like. As long as they don't question the legitimacy of the Party itself, it doesn't matter what they call themselves.

[Maniac]

Please don't be mad at me. I first voted for banning other parties, but after reading HongHu's post I wouldn't mind allowing them anyway. But even if I changed my vote, there would still be a majority in favour of banning them. So what am I supposed to do? Do you want to have me act against the majority opinion?

[Lemmy]

Is this a democracy, or was this a decisive poll?
If you think it's best for the Hive to go against the majority, i think you can do it. The Hive comes first, and the people didn't elect you to follow mob mentality.

[Drogue]

Firstly, I would like to apologise for the outburst. Last night was stressful, with my final UCAS deadline being 8am this morning, at it was 3 in the morning when I typed those. I am sorry for the rant

Originally posted by Comrade Tassadar
Because to attempt to place yourself on equal status as the Party is....

I am not. The Party is something quite different. The status of the FNP does not change with the name.

Originally posted by GeneralTacticus
Let political groups call themselves whatever they damn well like. As long as they don't question the legitimacy of the Party itself, it doesn't matter what they call themselves.

I agree completely.

Originally posted by Maniac
Please don't be mad at me. I first voted for banning other parties, but after reading HongHu's post I wouldn't mind allowing them anyway. But even if I changed my vote, there would still be a majority in favour of banning them. So what am I supposed to do? Do you want to have me act against the majority opinion?

I am not mad. I am sorry for the outburst. The legitimacy of this poll is what I am disputing. Firstly, we are not a democratic nation, so deciding by that is not the correct way. You are the General Secretary, it is your decision. Secondly, this poll should not have been started, since it is not the business of anyone else what the name of another group is. It is not up to the general populace what the FNP is called, it is up to the founder. What purpose does putting constraints on names serve? And having 2 options of party and faction is not exactly representative of all the ideas either IMHO. I don't see why the name of a group should come into this at all.

However, as I said, i will change, but am having trouble finding a name that works. My rant lasty night was partly a product of stress and partly just my amazement at people wanting to decide what other groups were called I am sorry for the outburst, it should not have been put like that. I will, of course, abide by your decision. Does the name matter? Does it need changing?

Originally posted by Lemmy
Is this a democracy, or was this a decisive poll?
If you think it's best for the Hive to go against the majority, i think you can do it. The Hive comes first, and the people didn't elect you to follow mob mentality.

We are a Police State, not a democracy. Moreover, I don't think it's anyone's business. However I will abide by the ruling. The options, as I see it, are:

• Maniac decides it must stand and I change the name of the FNP.
• Maniac decides that groups can be called whatever and the FNP stays as the FNP.
• Maniac decides, since he and possibly others have changed their minds, that a repoll is needed on what these groups should be called.

I will go with whatever he decides.

[Maniac]

Originally posted by Drogue
I am not mad. I am sorry for the outburst. The legitimacy of this poll is what I am disputing. Firstly, we are not a democratic nation, so deciding by that is not the correct way.

Here polls represent votes in the Central Committee, the elite core group, not referenda by the people.

You are the General Secretary, it is your decision.

I doubt I would survive long as General Secretary if I didn't organize any polls.

And having 2 options of party and faction is not exactly representative of all the ideas either IMHO.

It were the two names people mentioned they had problems with.


Anyway, *cough *cough* "under the absolute and final authority of General Secretary" I'll decide you can keep the name of Free Nihilist Party, as long as you recognize The Party as the legitimate ruling party. (Though if you would change names anyway, I think Free Nihilist League sounds pretty good as well, if not better. )

[Drogue]

Of course, I recognize The Party as the one true rulers of the Hive, and solemnly swear to uphold The Party above all else. I am torn between changing it to make everyone happy, and keeping it because it sounds good I think I'll ask the members in the FNP thread

A nice way of putting if, it you want the poll to stand, is to say it is valid but not backdated, since the FNP was started before this poll, and so could not be changed?

And thank you, oh wise and noble leader, for your generousity in this matter

Glory to the Maniac, Glory to The Party, Glory to the Hive

[Nubclear]

See how glorious Maniac is? He makes everybody happy!

[Drogue]

For once Tassadar, I agree completely