[Shelved] Countering Foreign Fascism

[Cretox]

Between region tags, names, WFEs, and RMBs, it's quite easy to tell when a region's promoting fascism. It's also quite easy to make a new fascist region. However, the NPA must still get delegate authorization or a majority RA vote before closing embassies or permanently damaging/destroying a clearly fascist region, respectively. There's no good reason for the NPA to have to hold regions openly promoting fascism to the same standards of treatment as benign ones.

This bill would allow the NPA to alter embassies or set a regional password for fascist regions without prior authorization, and allow the NPA to remove natives from and refound fascist regions with delegate authorization instead of a full RA vote. I also put in a minor phrasing change regarding "excessive force" out of personal preference ("excessive" is inherently subjective whereas "close embassies" very much isn't).

Clauses 39 and 40 of Section 7.6 of the Legal Code of The North Pacific shall be amended as follows:

39. When deployed in a foreign region, members of The North Pacific Army will refrain from altering the region's chosen embassy list, password protecting the region, or otherwise using excessive force. Before leaving, The North Pacific Army must provide natives with the means to restore the region to its original state. Exceptions to this clause must be publicly authorised by the Delegate when it is in the best interests of The North Pacific or its allies. This clause does not apply when said foreign region identifies as fascist or engages in promotion of fascism in a manner endorsed by the region's native leadership, or when necessary to restore said foreign region to its original native-controlled state.
40. When deployed in a foreign region, members of The North Pacific Army will refrain from forcibly removing natives, refounding the region, or otherwise causing permanent harm to the region. Exceptions to this clause must be publicly authorised by the Delegate when it is in the best interests of The North Pacific or its allies, subject to the approval of the Regional Assembly by a majority vote or pursuant to a declaration of war. Exceptions to this clause are not subject to Regional Assembly approval when said foreign region identifies as fascist or engages in promotion of fascism in a manner endorsed by the region's native leadership.

 

[Cretox]

Spoiler: Markup

39. When deployed in a foreign region, members of The North Pacific Army will refrain from excessive use of force including altering the region's chosen embassy list, or password protecting the region, or otherwise using excessive force. Before leaving, The North Pacific Army must provide natives with the means to restore the region to its original state. Exceptions to this clause must be publicly authorised by the Delegate when it is in the best interests of The North Pacific or its allies. This clause does not apply when said foreign region identifies as fascist or engages in promotion of fascism in a manner endorsed by the region's native leadership, or when necessary to restore said foreign region to its original native-controlled state.
40. When deployed in a foreign region, members of The North Pacific Army will refrain from causing permanent harm to the region, including forcibly removeing natives, or refounding the region, or otherwise causing permanent harm to the region. Exceptions to this clause must be publicly authorised by the Delegate when it is in the best interests of The North Pacific or its allies, subject to the approval of the Regional Assembly by a majority vote or pursuant to a declaration of war. Exceptions to this clause are not subject to Regional Assembly approval when said foreign region identifies as fascist or engages in promotion of fascism in a manner endorsed by the region's native leadership.

 

[mcmasterdonia]

This makes sense to me. I support the change.

 

[St George]

I spoke with Cretox when they had this idea, and I think it's a good one. Fascism is a scourge and we have a history of opposing it. It makes sense to me to have a lower threshold of authorisation for damaging those regions.

 

[Pallaith]

Absolutely agreed. The only potential issue I see here is in determining when the region in question is fascist, since removing RA input also means that there isn’t any check - once the work is done, it’s done. We have seen cases where people have questioned the validity of the label, and there is no possibly way to have that discussion if we go down this road. No one has to worry about the obvious cases, but we have seen reversals in opinion on what were once fascist regions with changes to the CDS. Considering the amount of times lately people have expressed concern for what a delegate who goes too far may do, I’m surprised that hasn’t been considered here.

I’m all for taking as much action against fascists as possible, but let’s not forget that when we open a door as wide as we would be doing here, we don’t have as easy a time pumping the brakes if someone pushes further than we may have anticipated. At the very least I would like us to consider that before proceeding.

 

[Lord Dominator]

My thought when I've thought of authoring similar provisions is too allow for the RA to overturn a region targeted on the grounds of being fascist.

 

[Cretox]

Getting back to this, sorry for the wait and thank you all for the comments.

Absolutely agreed. The only potential issue I see here is in determining when the region in question is fascist, since removing RA input also means that there isn’t any check - once the work is done, it’s done. We have seen cases where people have questioned the validity of the label, and there is no possibly way to have that discussion if we go down this road. No one has to worry about the obvious cases, but we have seen reversals in opinion on what were once fascist regions with changes to the CDS. Considering the amount of times lately people have expressed concern for what a delegate who goes too far may do, I’m surprised that hasn’t been considered here.

I’m all for taking as much action against fascists as possible, but let’s not forget that when we open a door as wide as we would be doing here, we don’t have as easy a time pumping the brakes if someone pushes further than we may have anticipated. At the very least I would like us to consider that before proceeding.

Clause 7.6.42 of the legal code states that the "Regional Assembly must be promptly informed of all military operations upon deployment," and destroying regions takes time, not to mention how high-profile it is whenever it happens. If a delegate starts targeting questionably fascist or non-fascist regions with this, the RA will notice, and there's no way the RA's going to put up with it. The RA may also order the withdrawal of the NPA from any operation as per 7.6.43.

My thought when I've thought of authoring similar provisions is too allow for the RA to overturn a region targeted on the grounds of being fascist.

The RA can already do that as per 7.6.43: "The North Pacific Army must promptly withdraw from any operation that the Regional Assembly cancels by majority vote. Where an operation is cancelled, the North Pacific Army must take reasonable steps to restore or to provide natives with the means to restore any region subject to the operation."

 

[Great Bights Mum]

I share Ghost's concerns. I also empathize with how the RA process impacts the NPA's ability to be nimble. While in many cases it is quite easy to tell which regions are promoting fascism, that is not always the case. If a questionable target is hit, it is going to take awhile for the RA to debate the issue, and the damage will be done. I would rather see us be more proactive with this proposal, and include language which defines specific markers that would allow the NPA to act without prior RA authorization.

 

[Cretox]

I share Ghost's concerns. I also empathize with how the RA process impacts the NPA's ability to be nimble. While in many cases it is quite easy to tell which regions are promoting fascism, that is not always the case. If a questionable target is hit, it is going to take awhile for the RA to debate the issue, and the damage will be done. I would rather see us be more proactive with this proposal, and include language which defines specific markers that would allow the NPA to act without prior RA authorization.

Sorry for taking a while to respond. I talked to some people and the issue with adding specific markers for what makes a region fascist seems to be that context can vary and the markers can be different for different regions. For example, a region might not have a gameside fascist tag or a swastika in its banner (mods handled that second case really quickly ), but its executive delegate could be running around promoting fascism on its RMB with the approval of the rest of its government. It doesn't have to be the RMB either- that delegate could be spouting the fascist stuff in a discord server. I did make the wording more specific, however: "when said foreign region identifies as fascist or engages in promotion of fascism in a manner endorsed by the region's native leadership." With this wording, a region where say a bunch of idiot natives are polluting the RMB before being banned by the delegate wouldn't be a valid target. Nor would a region that was tagged fascist by a raider org so we could help burn it without oversight.

I also added the following to 39: "This clause [also] does not apply... when necessary to restore said foreign region to its original native-controlled state." Just to avoid potential problems with the NPA closing raider embassies while detagging a region (you could argue that "the region's chosen embassy list" doesn't include raider embassies, but you could also argue that the raiders chose those embassies for that region). This makes it explicit.

How does it look now?

 

[BluieGamer]

I also added the following to 39: "This clause [also] does not apply... when necessary to restore said foreign region to its original native-controlled state." Just to avoid potential problems with the NPA closing raider embassies while detagging a region (you could argue that "the region's chosen embassy list" doesn't include raider embassies, but you could also argue that the raiders chose those embassies for that region). This makes it explicit.

How about
39. When deployed in a foreign region, members of The North Pacific Army will refrain from altering the region's chosen embassy list, password protecting the region, or otherwise using excessive force. Before leaving, The North Pacific Army must provide natives with the means to restore the region to its original native-controlled state. Exceptions to this clause must be publicly authorised by the Delegate when it is in the best interests of The North Pacific or its allies. This clause does not apply when said foreign region identifies as fascist or engages in promotion of fascism in a manner endorsed by the region's native leadership, or when necessary to restore said foreign region to its original native-controlled state.

Sorry for shoddy markup, I'm just doing this in a rush and on mobile. This just cuts down on the word count. Anyways, I support this, but I also echo GBM's proposal to add specific language for fascist targeting. While there's probably no one clear way to properly tag a region as fash, we should at least have some guidelines (not hard rules!) to help justify the NPA's actions. My idea is to list a few fash markers (fascist symbolism, fascist tag, fash talk, etc), and say that for the NPA to rightfully target a region, it should have at least one of the markers. Note that I said should, because I believe it is possible for a region to be fash for a reason not listed among those markers, so some wiggle room should be allowed until the list can be added upon (or not, if it's an edge case.)

One minor thing, your amended clause 39's last two sentences bother me. The second-to-last states that exceptions to the clause must be approved by the Delegate. Then the last sentence says that the clause does not apply for certain regions. You could argue that those certain regions are then "exceptions" to clause 39, which would then require Delegate approval.