The Additional Religious Observance Act.

I second DD's motion for a vote.

Romanoffia:

Democratic Donkeys:

Romanoffia:

Read my post above yours before you jump to any conclusions.

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Who has the time for that?

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Who has time for that? Let me give you a list:


1. People who have an attention span longer than a gnats.

2. People who actually think for themselves.

3. People with vocabularies that contain words longer than four letters.

4. People who value themselves and their intellect beyond the capacity of others to periodically shear them for wool.

5. People who actually have something of value to contribute.

6. People who want to be their own masters and not the tools of others who tell them what to think and how to vote.


Other than that, I have faith in human nature and am naive enough to believe that most people are capable of and actually want to think for themselves.

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I am very independent minded, and also well aware of your inabilty to post concisely. There are members here that tend to produce lengthy posts that I absolutely have the time for, yours are not of that category. Length is no guarantee of insight or cogent argument, as your posts continually prove.

I thank member McMasterdonia for seconding my symbolic motion, and disapprove the resurrection of this "discussion", as it was well on its way to quietly falling down the page. There are very few people interested in continuing this line of discussion, and I hope that this either comes to a vote soon, or is left alone to die due to lack of support, as the proposer has himeslf admitted.

If you are tired of this, then I beg of you to please not post here and drag this out further.

So i took the past hour and half to read the entire thread from the beginning to gather my thoughts and catch up on everything. To sum things up for me, I believe SillyString put it perfectly early i the thread on where I stand about this particular bill going through on this specific religion :

I personally am not convinced that official status ought to be granted to either of the religions suggested. The Church of the Thirteen is an Osiran religion, recently imported from that region by dual citizens, and the other is a weird, half-baked mashup of two RL religious notions into a not quite coherent whole. Neither of them has significant tenure in TNP, neither of them can point to solid contributions to the region, and neither has earned cultural prominence. There is nothing about them that merits recognition as an official religion of TNP.

Everything which exists adds something by virtue of its existence, but simply existing is no great feat deserving of recognition. Legal inclusion is better reserved for things with longevity and an established history of contributions. The RA rejected flemingovianism more than once before it finally welcomed it, and a lot of the change of heart is related to the fact that it stuck around, and grew, and gained converts, and provided entertainment, and put in the effort to win people over. It's not in any way unreasonable to want other religions, or attempts at cultural creations, to put in the same kind of prolonged effort to gain official recognition.

I could be convinced otherwise, but as of yet I am not.

Since the law as it currently stands does not prevent any religion from doing that (despite recognizing one and not others) this is not a violation of the right to religious expression.

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Just because a religion exists does not mean it garnered enough recognition to be an official religion in TNP. On the topic of whether having arbitrary requirements for a religion to apply for official status being an infringement of religion expression, I refer you to another one of SS's posts: http://forum.thenorthpacific.org/single/?p=8156050&t=7222737 When it comes down to it, all other religions, whether officially recognized or not are still able to freely express themselves. The members of the religion still retain all freedoms. Their rights are not infringed upon by recognizing a separate religion. Now we can officially recognize all religions that come through but then what is stopping the RA from recognizing the Nazi Religion or any other extreme idea, RP or not? There must be some sort of limit.

Lastly on the topic of moving this to vote or formal discussion, I have read more into it and to me it does make more sense to have the discussion here. The Agora is the citizens lobby for other, lesser serious or ideas to be disusses or proposed. I dont think there should be a rush for us to move this to formal discussion or a vote. The past 7 pages, while being heavy in "debating" have been very insightful. To force a bill through, would do us, and TNP no good. I rather take 30 days to put out a good, compromised bill, rather than take a couple days for a bill with potential to fail.

Just my


Quick Edit: Can we stop the whole fear mongering of an oligarchy or the "downfall" of democracy in TNP. The past 7 pages, filled with discussion and ideas and people proposing votes and defenses and etc are a testament that while our Region is going through this "fear and religious" phase, our democracy still holds. I would also like to think we are still above calling other intellectually weak just because they disagree with an opinion.

I've been monitoring this issue, and all I have to say is this:

I am under no delusion that Anti-Idiotarianism is a big, widely-practiced, or influential religion. And Tenebritia will recognize al other religions with equal merit to Anti-Idiotarianism.

All that Tenebritia asks is that the same consideration is made region-wide. My Tenebritian constituents have urged me to inform the Assembly that they do not wish the religious freedom of Tenebritia to be curtailed in any way. However it comes about, we ask that there be equal protection under the law.

shadowbird712:

I've been monitoring this issue, and all I have to say is this:

I am under no delusion that Anti-Idiotarianism is a big, widely-practiced, or influential religion. And Tenebritia will recognize al other religions with equal merit to Anti-Idiotarianism.

All that Tenebritia asks is that the same consideration is made region-wide. My Tenebritian constituents have urged me to inform the Assembly that they do not wish the religious freedom of Tenebritia to be curtailed in any way. However it comes about, we ask that there be equal protection under the law.

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The way the law stands, or would be changed, no religious freedoms are infringed upon. Your constituents are free to practice as they want.

SillyString:

...If anybody really desperately wants this to be voted on, they can make a separate thread and motion their own version into formal debate.

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True they can do that, but it would set a precedent not covered in the RA rule set. As a general rule, one proposes a move to a formal debate/vote/etc., in the originating thread, but whether or not a bill advances is a matter of the author's initiative, as per the existing rules to date.

So, that said, if someone proposes legislation it is up to them to move it to formal debate at which point the rules are clear as to procedure.

If someone else starts a separate thread to move a bill to formal debate or a vote, it would technically require a bill to be passed to move that specific piece of legislation to formal debate/vote at each step since the rules are clear as to the rights of the author of a bill to move it to a vote as an exclusive right. procedurally speaking.

Precedent shows recently and otherwise that while anyone can motion for a formal debate or vote, the move to formal debate is strictly up to the author. And that is clear by rules and precedent not conflicting with rules.

It's actually not the exclusive right of the author to move a bill through the stages of the legislative process, but the member who makes the proposal. Usually, this is the author. However, if someone were to copy/paste someone else's bill and propose it in a new thread, it would become a separate proposal, and as the member who made the proposal, they could move it to formal debate in that thread. This has happened before, when old proposals are abandoned by their authors or their authors CTE.

Aye, what COE said.

Note that I don't recommend this here, as blatantly copying someone else's bill when the author themselves does not want it to proceed would be intellectually bankrupt at best.

Crushing Our Enemies:

It's actually not the exclusive right of the author to move a bill through the stages of the legislative process, but the member who makes the proposal. Usually, this is the author. However, if someone were to copy/paste someone else's bill and propose it in a new thread, it would become a separate proposal, and as the member who made the proposal, they could move it to formal debate in that thread. This has happened before, when old proposals are abandoned by their authors or their authors CTE.

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Let's look at it all this way. I'll tell you what this is really about.

The RA passes a meaningless "Official State Religion" law. This is a law which creates a legal situation and requirement that such as the law is written, is absolutely impossible to violate. Hence, it is a null and void law insofar as there is no way to violate the "Official State Religion" law.

Let's be serious here, for a moment.

We pass a law that declares an Official State Religion. How the Hell can you pass a law which, by the wording of the law itself, cannot be violated nor can anyone who refuses to obey the law be prosecuted for not recognising or obeying?

This Official State Religion law in effect passes a law which encourages the more free-thinking and independent minded people to thumb their nose at the law and say, "Figs to your State Religion. I won't have any of it! PFFFT!" and the same law says that you can't be prosecuted for doing so. What the Hell is the point?!

We already have a meaningless "Official Religion" law that means absolutely nothing, signifies nothing, and at best, is a passing entertainment that will fade away into oblivion for all the obvious reasons.

I say we pass a "Growing list of Meaningless Official Thingies to be Recognised in The North Pacific Legal Code as Official, but yet, utterly meaningless Act".

There I said it. Send me hate mail for calling it all exactly what it is.

"a "Growing list of Meaningless Official Thingies to be Recognised in The North Pacific Legal Code as Official, but yet, utterly meaningless Act".

I proposed that already -- recognizing our regional identiy crisis RMB polls. No one wanted it.

The fact that we are having a 'Regional Identity Crisis' is a sad commentary on the fact that the more we try to change, the more we stay the same. We need to take a close look at where this region is going and why we keep ending up in the same place.

We need a fresh approach to growing the region in a positive direction.

You should try running for Delegate again. I read in the AG nomination thread that Mr. Flem was thinking about running (I still think a roman/flem delegacy would have been interresting -- no offense intended r3n/aba)... you guys debating one another would surely draw regional intrests.

PaulWallLibertarian42:

You should try running for Delegate again. I read in the AG nomination thread that Mr. Flem was thinking about running (I still think a roman/flem delegacy would have been interresting -- no offense intended r3n/aba)... you guys debating one another would surely draw regional intrests.

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Actually, it might be an extremely productive arrangement in terms of actually accomplishing some needed things. We do tend to agree on some of the more important issues when those issues are actually serious.