[Withdrawn] The Frontier Act Repeal Bill

Sil Dorsett

Sil Dorsett

The Belt Collector
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Let's be honest with ourselves. We had our chance with The Wellspring, and we blew it. We'll never acquire one without changing our military doctrine, and that isn't happening any time soon. It's time to face facts. We're never getting a territory. Period. So, let's declutter our laws to get rid of the nonsense that will never come into effect.

This bill effectively removes all instances and references of territories and frontiers from the law.

The Frontier Act Repeal Bill:
Article 2 of the Constitution is amended as follows:
Clause 1 is amended to strike " or one of its territories".
Clause 2 is stricken in its entirety.
The Speaker will renumber Article 2 as appropriate.

Article 3 of the Constitution is amended as follows:
Clause 1 is amended to strike "and its territories".
Clause 14 is stricken in its entirety.

Article 5 of the Constitution is amended as follows:
Clause 4 is amended to strike "and its territories".


The Bill of Rights is amended to strike all instances of "and its territories".


Chapter 5 of the Legal Code is amended as follows:

Clause 3 is amended to read as follows:
"In this chapter, the Serving Delegate means the person holding the constitutionally-mandated elected office of Delegate or, in the case of a vacancy in that office, the person who has assumed the duties of that office. The WA Delegate means the nation holding the WA Delegacy of the region The North Pacific."

Section 5.2, Clause 8 is amended to strike "Serving Frontier Delegates are responsible for maintaining an endorsement count that exceeds that of any other nation in their respective territories of The North Pacific."

Section 5.2, Clause 9 is amended to strike "Frontier Vice Delegates are responsible for maintaining an endorsement count at least that of 70 per cent of the Frontier WA Delegate’s endorsement count in their respective territories of The North Pacific."

Section 5.2, Clause 10 is amended to strike ", or the Frontier Delegate or Frontier Vice Delegate, "

Section 5.2, Clause 11 is stricken in its entirety.

Section 5.2, Clause 12 is amended to strike ", or the Frontier Delegate or Frontier Vice Delegate "

Section 5.2, Clause 14 is amended to strike "During any period when serving as acting Frontier Delegate, Frontier Vice Delegates will be considered absent from the office of Frontier Vice Delegate."

Section 5.4, Clause 26 is stricken in its entirety.

Section 5.4, Clause 27 is amended to strike "the territory".

Section 5.5, Clause 30 is stricken in its entirety.

The Speaker will renumber Chapter 5 as appropriate.

Chapter 6 of the Legal Code is amended as follows:

Section 6.1, Clause 2 is amended to read as follows:
"Any resident may apply for citizenship using their regional forum account, by providing the name of their nation in The North Pacific, and swearing an oath as follows:
I pledge loyalty to The North Pacific, obedience to her laws, and responsible action as a member of her society. I pledge to only register one nation to vote in The North Pacific. I pledge that no nation under my control will wage war against the North Pacific. I understand that if I break this oath I may permanently lose my voting privileges. In this manner, I petition the Speaker for citizenship in The North Pacific.
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"

Section 6.1, Clause 4 is amended to strike "or one of its territories".

Chapter 7 of the Legal Code is amended as follows:

Section 7.1, Clause 6 is stricken in its entirety.

Section 7.2, Clauses 12, 13, 14, and 15 are stricken entirely.

Section 7.3, Clause 24 is stricken in its entirety.

Section 7.3, Clause 25 is amended to strike "or banning from any territories of The North Pacific"

Section 7.3, Clause 26 is stricken in its entirety.

Section 7.9 is stricken in its entirety.

The Speaker will renumber Chapter 7 as appropriate.

Chapter 8 of the Legal Code is amended as follows:

Section 8.4, Clause 14 is amended to read as follows:
"The resignation, recall, or loss of World Assembly membership of the legal or acting Delegate or any capture of the delegacy of The North Pacific by any nation not the legal or acting Delegate shall be considered an actual emergency, and does not require a declaration by the RA."

Section 8.4, Clause 17 is amended to strike "or in-game Frontier Delegate"


No portion of this bill will take effect unless/until all portions take effect.
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I would encourage everyone to review the Constibillocode to ensure I didn't miss any references.
 
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Against. We should not remove ourselves from the possibility of getting a territory just because today it is unlikely.
 
It seems that the Wellspring wishes to plot its own course. This helps the world understand a bit better the reality of this instead of mistakenly thinking they are an offshoot of us. I'm currently supportive.
 
Wonderess:
It seems that the Wellspring wishes to plot its own course. This helps the world understand a bit better the reality of this instead of mistakenly thinking they are an offshoot of us. I'm currently supportive.
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The only people in the world still claiming otherwise are doing so for propaganda purposes. And they will continue to say so regardless of what we do with this bill.

I do not believe the fact we have not yet utilized this language, or have any plans to expand to territories, necessitates removing it. There is a mechanism for how to handle territories, and it has nothing to do with whatever happens with The Wellspring. The Wellspring, recall, was not the type of scenario this law was originally designed to contemplate, but it is the reason one of the methods of territorial acquisition is an existing region agreeing to become part of TNP. That is unlikely to ever happen, for many obvious reasons, but it is not what we would most likely do if we chose to go down this route. We would more likely create a new frontier designed from the start to be an offshoot of TNP and firmly place it under our structure as the law imagines.

I believe that the last year and change has taught us a lot about how frontiers work and how possible territories would work, what it takes to invest and maintain them, and whether the benefits outweigh the loss in active manpower, resources, and the additional risk they bring. The law is a bit unrealistic in what it requires and what it allows, and we can probably make some substantial changes to make territories more realistic. That is not what is being attempted here, though. I believe this bill comes to the wrong conclusion based on recent events that are entirely unrelated to it. The Wellspring made a choice, over a year ago, not to become a territory of TNP. That is when the original Wellspring strategy and aims ceased to be a thing. Their transition to a stronghold has nothing to do with it, and is not the end of anything as it relates to us and our territories. Their status as a stronghold also is irrelevant to possible application of the territory provision in our treaty, because the territory provisions in our law apply to frontiers and strongholds equally.

The game changed in a big way and we changed our law to be able to adapt to it. We created a toolbox and a system to handle a possible extension of our activities to include territorial expansion. That continues to be a possibility, even if we do not currently use the options available to us. I do not see how it is practical to eliminate options you may someday use, and I do not see the harm in having those options. There's plenty of things in our legal code and constitution that are not regularly, or are rarely, used. Should we eliminate them from our laws as well?
 
Pallaith:
There's plenty of things in our legal code and constitution that are not regularly, or are rarely, used. Should we eliminate them from our laws as well?
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That's exactly my point as well. Just because something is not used does not necessitate its removal.
 
If there comes a time where a territory is an option, we could just create some sort of governing document that is tailored to that region specifically. This one size fits all approach is both limiting and unable to keep up with the changing dynamics of how frontiers are utilized. The law must adapt to the reality. It's not like we are removing these references and laws and that they can never be put back. We thought things were going to develop one way and changed the laws to match. They didn't so now we must correct course.
 
Wonderess:
If there comes a time where a territory is an option, we could just create some sort of governing document that is tailored to that region specifically. This one size fits all approach is both limiting and unable to keep up with the changing dynamics of how frontiers are utilized. The law must adapt to the reality. It's not like we are removing these references and laws and that they can never be put back. We thought things were going to develop one way and changed the laws to match. They didn't so now we must correct course.
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I’m not following. These references are mostly just our law explicitly including the idea of territories whenever it mentions the region itself. That has nothing to do with an understanding of how frontiers would work or how we would use them. The law has adapted to reality, that’s why we included territories in our concept of our law.

I’m not sure why the law wouldn’t be one size fits all. Territories should follow the standards set by our law and the rules and practices should be predictable. Exceptions are exceptions and can be handled as needed, like we did with The Wellspring. I don’t see why if we decided to make a TNP frontier we would effectively sign a treaty with it, which is what you seem to want to do. It would be an extension of our region and under our full control, it should be governed by our laws and we should know how that would work. Your suggestion makes more sense for situations like The Wellspring, which as I have said I wouldn’t expect to be the norm, or even to happen again.

If our law isn’t keeping up with how frontiers is working, something I don’t even disagree with, then the correct course is to amend the law. It’s much easier to amend the specific sections related to governing frontiers than it is to hit all three of our major documents again and cut the word territory out of them wherever it exists. This is just needless.
 
I would agree with some of the other posters - just because we're not using it now doesn't mean it should be removed from the law books when, if it arises in the future, we'd just have to put it back in again.

To me, this seems more of a kneejerk response against The Wellspring in particular rather than showing there's some sort of fatal flaw in the existing law that we need to fix or erase.
 
The stated purpose of this bill is to "declutter our laws." While I am a fan of decluttering in general, what I am hearing is there should be some additional benefit. Is here another reason to enact this proposal?
 
I would tend to agree with Pallaith and others that the provisions not yet being used does not of itself mean we should repeal them.

I think the question really is whether we can see maintaining a territory at some point in the future or if that would not be something that would be compatible with our ethos. As alluded to, military action to obtain a territory would be something that would be out of place for us but other ways are conceivable which would not be.

If it is merely a question of whether policy right now justifies a territory or if there is the will now to maintain one, I do not think we should repeal the provisions because of the current position as the reasons in support of maintaining a territory or the enthusiasm for the work needed to do so may change. If the reality is, however, that we would not want a territory even if we could then that is a different issue.
 
Great Bights Mum:
The stated purpose of this bill is to "declutter our laws." While I am a fan of decluttering in general, what I am hearing is there should be some additional benefit. Is here another reason to enact this proposal?
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No. There really isn't.

Sanctaria:
To me, this seems more of a kneejerk response against The Wellspring in particular rather than showing there's some sort of fatal flaw in the existing law that we need to fix or erase.
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Exactly.

I withdraw the bill.
 
Not to gravedig, but I wanted to kick the tires on this, because I think it's a good idea beyond the point about The Wellspring.

Many people believed that the advent of frontiers would create a new age of imperialism. Existing UCRs, wanting to benefit from the same advantages currently held by feeders, would create frontier colonies, and inter-regional politics as we know it would be reinvented around geopolitical competition to control these regions. In that atmosphere, it only made sense for us to want to prepare for that by creating a legal framework for territories to exist in our system. I seem to recall expressing skepticism for the original Frontier Act, but it was probably a good idea at the time. And indeed, when the NPA took control of The Wellspring, it seemed very much like these legal provisions would bear fruit.

Unfortunately, the update's flawed mechanics have prevented that from happening. Because spawns are thinly distributed among too many regions, and also because influence decay is in effect in frontiers, almost all of them are extremely vulnerable to invasion. Really every frontier beyond the largest five or so is a sitting duck. With one exception, every frontier colony region has been a failure -- Solidarity is probably the most prominent example, given its total destruction, but basically every other one has been an embarrassing quagmire for the capital region.

I firmly believe this would be the outcome if we were to create a frontier territory. The NPA and allied forces put together probably constitute enough resources to defend a frontier territory, but it would be extremely vulnerable without active piling. That would considerably hinder the flexibility of the NPA, and would contribute to strain with our allies, who would not appreciate us asking them to be the indefinite benefactors of a governorless UCR. Honestly, the balance of pros and cons is more favourable to a flexible NPA without a territory, than to the minimal benefits of a territory that constantly tie down our military resources.

There are also reasons, beyond just the mechanics of the update, that foreign colonialism is problematic. The Wellspring's experience is instructive: it drew in people eager to use the relatively blank slate it provided as an opportunity to be the founding fathers of a brand new and historic region. Inevitably, this lead them to want greater independence from TNP. Any colony would likely face the same problem, and chafe under our yoke. Because the frontier act guarantees the right of citizenship to territorial residences, it's possible to imagine citizens from a colony forming an interest group that influences our elections in favour of the direction desired by the colony. These problems are doubly the case under the Frontier Act, because it allows self-government to territories. If we are going to have a colony, its separation from our community should be as minimal as possible -- it should have no separate forums, no separate discord server, and no separate government. That is the model of Concord, and it's the only way to forestall an independence movement.

One of the most consequential effects of The Wellspring was considerable brain drain from the government, as various TNP politicans moved their activity to the new frontier. This was basically neccessary given the huge amount of effort required to establish and maintain a secure frontier. Given that a secure frontier colony is a pipe dream, and that the benefits are fairly minimal given the aforementioned spawn distribution issue, and considering all the other potential problems, I think the costs far outweigh the benefits. The Frontier Act was a good idea at the time, but now that we can see the realities of the frontier update, it's just setting us up for costly projects that would be enormous wastes of time and energy.
 
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