[Withdrawn] Amendment to CAIN treaty

[Sygian]

The signatories of CAIN have approved a new amendment to their treaty. For us to remain a signatory, we must ratify the amendment proposed.

Spoiler

By unanimous vote, with The International abstaining, the Coalition has approved the amendment listed below. Per the clauses of the treaty, signatories shall have 14 days to begin the ratification process of the new amendment, else they no longer be considered signatories.

This amendment was introduced to provided a better structure for CAIN's organization. With it, a Secretary responsible for maintaining the day to day operations of the Coalition will be instituted in order to ensure that the Coalition is properly conducting its military, diplomatic, and SC affairs. With this system in place, the Secretary can easily be kept in check by concerned signatories while ensuring that the Coalition's best interests are looked after.

Amendment text is bolded below.

Spoiler

Coalition Against the Ideology of Nazism (CAIN)

We, the undersigned governments; mindful of the impact Nazism has on the community we all share, devoted to combating scientific racism, appalled by the glorification of Nazi Germany, determined to overcome gameplay differences, and committed to making the NationStates community more accessible; do hereby establish and join the Coalition Against the Ideology of Nazism, herein referred to as "CAIN", and agree to recognize and adhere to this Treaty and the commitments set forth within.

1. Definitions

Nazism: The ideology and practice associated with the 20th-century German Nazi Party and Nazi state, as well as other far-right groups. In the context of NationStates, it is an ideology that glorifies National Socialism or Nazi Germany and/or actively practices Nazi beliefs such as antisemitism, pseudo-scientific racism, racial hygiene, slaughter for living space, genocide, eugenics, persecution of LGBT, etc.

Nazi Region: A region recognized by CAIN as a region that practices, or has practiced, Nazism.

Nazi Collaborator: A region recognized by CAIN as a region that assists in furthering the agenda of, and/or shares core beliefs with, Nazism and/or Nazi Regions.

Signatories: The regions and organizations that sign this treaty.

On-Site Embassy: An embassy created through NationStates.

Off-Site Embassy: An embassy created on the off-site forum of a signatory region.

Inter-regional Agreement: Any Treaty, Accord, Pact, or Agreement with another region recognized by a signatory's government as legally binding.

Military Assistance: In the context of NationStates, military assistance shall be described as participation in raiding, defending, assisting in delegate transfers, or any other military action that benefits another region.

Coalition Council: The voting body of CAIN made up of Signatory Representatives.

Executive Officers: Members appointed by the Secretary to assist in the organization details of the Coalition.

Secretary: The organizational head of the Coalition Council charged with the oversight of voting, joint military operations, and joint Security Council efforts.

2. Membership Administration

(a) Signatories shall not maintain off-site or on-site embassies with Nazi Regions.

(b) Signatories shall not enter into inter-regional agreements with Nazi Regions.

(c) In order to be recognized as a signatory, regions must ratify this treaty in concordance with their internal laws. Once ratified, regions must send a legal representative to signify their acceptance of this treaty within the sub-forum of the Europeian off-site forum where the original treaty will be maintained for all signatories.

(d) Any signatory may nominate a region that meets the definition, as described by this Treaty, to be a Nazi Region. Such nominations must be approved by a vote of two-thirds of signatories before being officially designated as such by CAIN.

(e) Any signatory may nominate a region that aids in spreading the beliefs of Nazism to be considered a Nazi Collaborator. Such nominations must be approved by a vote of two-thirds of signatories before being officially designated as such by CAIN.

(f) Any region may be removed from the officially designated list of Nazi Regions by a vote of three-fourths of signatories.

(g) Any region which voluntarily participates in a military operation alongside, or possesses an on-site embassy with, a Nazi Region shall be officially designated as Nazi Collaborators.

(h) Any region officially designated as a Nazi Collaborator shall be subjected to the same clauses as Nazi Regions with the exception of Section 2(g).

(i) Europeia shall maintain a list of all officially designated Nazi Regions alongside the original CAIN treaty.

(j) No region designated as a Nazi Region may join CAIN as a signatory.

(k) Any signatory may be removed as a signatory by a vote of three-fourths of remaining signatories.

3. Functions

(a) Signatories shall not provide military assistance to any region officially designated as a Nazi Region.

(b) Signatories shall append a document to the treaty, which may be amended by a motion supported by a majority of signatories. Within this document will be listed a number of Standardized Responses which signatories are encouraged but not required to use in the intended circumstances.

(c) The circumstances for which a standardized response shall be listed will include, but not be limited to, the following:
(i) A Nazi Region acting militarily against a signatory,
(ii) A Nazi Region participating within a military operation of a non-Nazi Region, and
(iii) A Signatory acting militarily against a Nazi Region.

(d) Signatories commit to working together, when consistent with internal policy, to oppose Nazi Regions through military means. This commitment includes, but is not limited to:
(i) Invading Nazi holdings,
(ii) Liberating regions raided by Nazi Regions, and
(iii) Defending against raids involving Nazi Regions.

(e) Signatories commit to working together, when consistent with internal policy, to oppose Nazi Regions through Security Council means. This commitment includes, but is not limited to:
(i) Opposing commendation proposals of Nazi regions and players,
(ii) Cooperation on condemnation proposals of Nazi regions and players,
(iii) Supporting defensive liberation proposals for regions raided by Nazis, and
(iv) Supporting offensive liberation proposals against Nazi Regions.

(f) The signatories of this treaty shall maintain a thread on the Gameplay section of the NationStates forums in which standardized responses shall be posted. For the sake of transparency, the original treaty shall serve as the first post in this thread.

4. Structure

(a) Signatory representatives shall make up the Coalition Council. Signatories may send one additional representative to participate in the discussions of the Council but each signatory receives only a single vote.

(b) The highest executive authority of a signatory region, or an internally selected representative, shall be recognized as the Signatory's voting member in the Coalition Council.

(c) All votes described in this treaty shall be undertaken by the Coalition Council.

(d) The Coalition Council, by a majority vote, shall elect from its representatives a Secretary who shall oversee the general administration of the Coalition. During such an election, nominees for the position of Secretary shall require support from three voting members of the Council to be included in the election.

(e) If no candidate receives a majority of the votes during the election process mentioned in 4(c), a run-off shall be held between the two candidates with the most votes.

(f) The Secretary shall oversee the Coalition Council, handle the scheduling of votes, and ensure it follows a fair and transparent process.
(i) The Secretary must be a member of a signatory region in good standing.
(ii) The Secretary must have no ties to Nazi Regions as decided by the Council.
(iii) Should the Secretary cease to be in a signatory region for any reason, the position shall be considered vacant and the election process for a new Secretary shall begin.
(iv) The Secretary shall serve an indefinite term, ended only by a new election, resignation, or by a failure to maintain membership in a signatory region.
(v) An election will be called whenever the position is vacant or on submission of a petition carrying the signatures of five voting members of the Council. For such an election, the Council shall select a temporary Election Commissioner from among its numbers to oversee the vote.

(g) The Secretary may appoint, pending a simple majority confirmation from the Council, up to three Military Commanders to oversee CAIN Military Operations, a World Assembly Envoy to oversee CAIN's interests in the Security Council, and a Diplomatic Envoy to oversee a Diplomatic Outreach and Communications Program for CAIN.
(i) These officials may be broadly classified as "Executive Officers".
(ii) The Council may choose to dismiss Executive Officers by a simple majority vote.
(iii) Executive Officers serve indefinitely but may be removed by their own resignation, failure to maintain membership in a signatory region, simple majority vote of the Coalition Council, or by dismissal by the Secretary.
(iv) With approval from the Secretary, Military Commanders may designate an operation against a Nazi Region as a "CAIN Military Operation."
(v) With approval from the Secretary, the World Assembly Envoy may designate a Security Council resolution targeting a Nazi Region or operation as a "CAIN Sponsored Resolution."
(vi) The Secretary may dismiss Executive Officers. Signatories can postpone dismissals by a petition carrying the vote of five signatories. Should a dismissal be postponed, it will require a majority vote of the Coalition Council before moving forward.

(h) The Secretary is responsible for establishing Standardized Responses.

(i) The Coalition Council may remove any standardized response with a petition carrying the signatures of five voting members of the Council. The Council may also void the designation of any CAIN Military Operation or CAIN Sponsored Resolution with the same process. For any voided CAIN Military Operation or CAIN Sponsored Resolution's designation to be renewed, the Secretary must receive a simple majority vote of the Council.

(j) All votes mentioned in this treaty shall be announced one week in advance of the voting process, and shall last five days.

(k) In order for the voting process to take place, a simple majority of the Council's voting members must indicate their presence. Any region whose voting member of the Council is not present during the voting process will have its vote counted as an abstention.

(l) The votes mentioned in this treaty shall take place on the off-site forum of Europeia in a sub-forum contained next to the original treaty. This sub-forum will be restricted to the Coalition Council, the Secretary, and the Executive Officers.

5. General Provisions

(a) Signatories recognize that signing this treaty does not make them allies of the other signatories.

(b) Signatories recognize that signing this treaty does not signify political, diplomatic, or gameplay agreement with their fellow signatories except on the subject of Nazism and Nazi Regions.

(c) This treaty is considered legally binding upon a signatory's completion of the requirements described in Section 2(c).

(d) Should a region wish to resign as a signatory of CAIN, they may do so by going through the process of repealing this treaty in concordance with their internal laws and disseminating a public notice of its repeal. Such notices must be released in a way that reaches a majority of signatories.

(e) Any region wishing to join as a signatory of CAIN after the initial conference on this treaty may do so by receiving sponsorship from two signatories. Sponsored regions will then be voted on by all signatories. Should they receive a simple majority of the vote, regions must complete the requirements described elsewhere in this treaty.

(f) This treaty may be amended by a vote of three-fourths of signatories. Such amendments must then be ratified by the signatories before being considered binding. Amendments will be announced in the CAIN Gameplay thread, after which signatories have two weeks to decide whether they wish to ratify the amendment or not. If no progress has been made on the ratification process after those two weeks the region will no longer be considered a signatory.

(g) Any signatory may opt-out of ratifying amendments to CAIN. After doing so, they will no longer be considered a signatory.

(h) Any signatory which misses two votes consecutively will have their signatory status suspended until such time that they request to be returned to active status. During this suspension, they will not be counted as a signatory for clauses mentioned in this treaty.

The essential purpose of this amendment is to primarily create an elected Secretary who can appoint other Executive Officers with approval from regional representatives, which is a step that the CAIN leadership is taking in attempt to establish an interregional organization government.

Please discuss.

[Adytus]

Seems like a bright idea.

[Sygian]

I believe that this is an effort to stabilize things in CAIN, and I will commend the current leadership on that, though I am concerned at the possibility of the inevitable collapse of this coalition due to already existing bureaucratism and that will now be extended with a leadership very similar to SovCon's, which collapsed for such reasons.

[Cormac]

I'll start by saying that I recognize there are good intentions behind the amendment.

That said, interregional bureaucracy rarely works out. Look at past examples like the ADN, the RLA, the FRA, SovCon, ISRA, etc., all of which had many problems related to their bureaucracy. This bureaucratic structure is nearly identical to SovCon's, an organization that not only failed due to bureaucratic mismanagement and infighting, but did cataclysmic damage to Osiris in the process. Interregional bureaucracy has always led to elitism, lack of accountability, and diversion of attention and activity from signatory regions to the centralized bureaucracy. It has also often led to serious interregional disputes between signatory regions, either through poor bureaucratic mismanagement of competing interests or through deliberate fostering of such disputes in order to to play political factions against each other for the benefit of the centralized leadership.

I have a feeling based on the strenuous rebuttal of the objections Sygian expressed on Discord last night that my concerns will fall on deaf ears and this will pass here, because it has the support of the right people. Nonetheless, I'll be voting against, because I don't want to see this bureaucracy destroy CAIN, damage Osiris, or both, as has invariably happened in the past. I'm sure those who will be voting for it think it won't do that, so it's just a matter of disagreeing over whether history is bound to repeat itself, and reasonable people can disagree about that. I recognize that everyone supporting this has good intentions, and I hope they, in turn, will recognize that I have good intentions as well.

[Wrektopia]

I know I already said a lot of this on Discord but since we are repeating ourselves here, probably in the interest of being "on the record", I'll put forward my thoughts as well for everyone to consider. I understand the concerns voiced here and I think a lot of people who stand in support of CAIN and the recent amendment do, but they are a little too vague for me personally and probably for a number of others to consider as reasoning for giving up participating in this organization. I have seen nothing concrete so far that would inspire me to think that CAIN is failing or destined to fail, aside from the pessimism of some of the members of its signatory regions who believe that the very concept of a large anti-Nazism alliance and/or a multi-regional bureaucracy is fundamentally flawed or impossible.

Just before now you were complaining about the rogue behavior of some signatory organizations and members of these organizations, and the use of CAIN to "politically strongarm" non-signatory organizations into working with them, or shaming them for not doing so. These complaints were mainly due to the comments and actions of a few (out of many) CAIN-involved individuals, but not necessarily of leadership, although at the time there really wasn't any mechanism for establishing a sort of coalition leadership, which unto itself was definitely a reasonable concern. But this amendment should hopefully establish a good leadership structure within CAIN and force accountability for the actions of individuals within or below this leadership. This should be a step towards fixing some of the problems you'd brought up earlier. Could it create new problems? Possibly, but abandoning the entire organization simply because we're afraid of encountering new challenges seems like it would make us the problem, especially if others followed suit and the entire organization was doomed because people were afraid it was doomed. That'd be an ironic way for CAIN to go down.

Moving on to Cormac's arguments: from what I've heard from others around here, the ADN lasted for years despite being a multi-regional bureaucratic institution. Not that almost anybody here was actually around to watch the creation and dissolution of the ADN, which was apparently created in 2003 or 2004 and dissolved around 3 years later (around ten years ago). Using this as an example of a multi-regional institution that failed like all the others makes your list look like an arbitary, cobbled-together set of examples intended to support a predetermined mindset: a position based on a mere sense of defeatism more so than factual and experiential understanding of the subject. It makes your argument harder to take seriously.

But this is not to say that your argument is entirely absent of examples you've had experience with. Like you said, you played a role in the organization of SovCon, the immediate failure of which was apparently very bad for Osiris (internally, foreign affairs-wise, both, or...?). But it seems like your experience with SovCon, which you had no idea was going to implode, would be something that could help us build something like this better the next time around. It seems like your input could be cautionary but constructive. Like, what specifically were the conditions that caused SovCon to destroy itself? How can we avoid letting this happen to CAIN? What SPECIFIC things should we watch out for, SPECIFIC behaviors should we keep an eye on and discourage, to avoid letting this attempt fail and harming ourselves? "Abandon all hope" just really doesn't seem helpful. And, by the way, if we fail to ratify this amendment, we won't be changing the treaty back to what it was before. The CAIN treaty does not change based on the failure of one signatory region to approve of changes made by the entire multi-regional voting body. I'm pretty sure we'd be effectively resigning from CAIN. Which might trigger or be a part of a serious of signatory withdrawals done just because of this amendment and, as a result, destroy CAIN. Frankly, because of this and because you are voting against regardless, it seems like you DO want this bureaucracy to destroy CAIN ... before the bureaucracy is even allowed to take shape.

I may be relatively inexperienced, but I for one have a few ideas on how to avoid encountering some of the problems you have brought up: I do find the prospect of Osiris leading CAIN or being involved in the CAIN leadership exciting like others here do. I do think it could be fun for us and good for us, but I can definitely sense the dangers of a sentiment like this carrying across all of the CAIN signatories. And I think we should all go into this knowing full well that we might not win a spot in or near the top of the hierarchy and accept that, regardless of who wins, we stick with the alliance and stick with the system and accept the situation for what it is instead of pitch a fit and whine and cry and storm out. Shit, someone from The Gray Wardens could end up near the top (I doubt it, but it's not impossible). Because this is definitely the kind of "serious interregional dispute" through "competing interests" that I could foresee as a challenge to CAIN's success. But we made an agreement when we entered CAIN and we shouldn't eat our words now: we are transcending any wars or other bad blood to work together against this enemy. This is bigger than petty disagreements.

Finally, I just want to note your comment regarding "the strenuous rebuttal of the objections Sygian expressed on Discord last night". I'm not sure exactly what you mean by "the right people". If you are referring to myself, or to anyone else who responded to objections against this amendment (or, really, this entire coalition) yesterday as being part of a caste you have identified, I would like to know what the details of this discovery are. Who are the right people? I take it you feel they do not represent the general citizenry of Osiris, or are somehow unfairly influential over the voting results. This seems like a concern worth elaborating on.

[Cormac]

I know I already said a lot of this on Discord but since we are repeating ourselves here, probably in the interest of being "on the record", I'll put forward my thoughts as well for everyone to consider. I understand the concerns voiced here and I think a lot of people who stand in support of CAIN and the recent amendment do, but they are a little too vague for me personally and probably for a number of others to consider as reasoning for giving up participating in this organization. I have seen nothing concrete so far that would inspire me to think that CAIN is failing or destined to fail, aside from the pessimism of some of the members of its signatory regions who believe that the very concept of a large anti-Nazism alliance and/or a multi-regional bureaucracy is fundamentally flawed or impossible.

Just before now you were complaining about the rogue behavior of some signatory organizations and members of these organizations, and the use of CAIN to "politically strongarm" non-signatory organizations into working with them, or shaming them for not doing so. These complaints were mainly due to the comments and actions of a few (out of many) CAIN-involved individuals, but not necessarily of leadership, although at the time there really wasn't any mechanism for establishing a sort of coalition leadership, which unto itself was definitely a reasonable concern. But this amendment should hopefully establish a good leadership structure within CAIN and force accountability for the actions of individuals within or below this leadership. This should be a step towards fixing some of the problems you'd brought up earlier. Could it create new problems? Possibly, but abandoning the entire organization simply because we're afraid of encountering new challenges seems like it would make us the problem, especially if others followed suit and the entire organization was doomed because people were afraid it was doomed. That'd be an ironic way for CAIN to go down.

I assume these comments were directed at Sygian, since you later direct comments specifically toward me, but I just wanted to note that I don't think "the very concept of a large anti-Nazism alliance . . . is fundamentally flawed or impossible," and I don't think CAIN is doomed to failure. I do think it's impossible to have an interregional bureaucracy of the type that is being created that doesn't lead to dysfunction.

Moving on to Cormac's arguments: from what I've heard from others around here, the ADN lasted for years despite being a multi-regional bureaucratic institution. Not that almost anybody here was actually around to watch the creation and dissolution of the ADN, which was apparently created in 2003 or 2004 and dissolved around 3 years later (around ten years ago). Using this as an example of a multi-regional institution that failed like all the others makes your list look like an arbitary, cobbled-together set of examples intended to support a predetermined mindset: a position based on a mere sense of defeatism more so than factual and experiential understanding of the subject. It makes your argument harder to take seriously.

There are different levels of failure. It isn't like the only benchmark for failure is complete collapse of the organization within a few months, as happened with SovCon and ISRA, to name two examples.

The ADN had significant problems, despite its relative longevity. Its bureaucracy started out much like this bureaucracy, but eventually it was further and further centralized until one person -- Pope Hope -- was almost exclusively responsible for decision making with little input from ADN signatory regions. This led signatory regions to feel that they were the subjects of an interregional organization rather than participants in it, and there was reasonable justification for them to feel that way. It also led some signatory regions to feel that the heavy-handed approach of Pope Hope to administering the ADN and the demands she placed upon signatory regions were eroding their sovereignty. This caused particular problems in The North Pacific, though it caused problems in most ADN signatory regions.

The FRA is another example of a failed bureaucracy, despite its longevity. The FRA's problems were different from the ADN's. Again, there was a centralized bureaucracy, but it wielded less power than the ADN bureaucracy -- it wielded about as much power as this proposed CAIN bureaucracy will wield. What happened in the FRA is that the interregional organization became the focus of attention and activity for the most active participants in the FRA's signatory regions, which led to the creation of a trans-regional elite that spent most of their time and energy on advancing the FRA rather than its signatory regions. The eventual effect of this was, first, the collapse of the FRA's signatory regions as they were deprived of activity, and second though much later, the collapse of the FRA as an organization because it did not have new participants coming from its inactive signatory regions.

Do these things have to happen? No, obviously not, because the ADN did not have the FRA's problems, the FRA did not have the ADN's problems, and some other organizations haven't had the problems either of these organizations faced. But the point is that no matter which organization you look at, throughout NationStates history, you see significant problems or tensions between signatory regions and the bureaucracy, or among signatory regions.

Perhaps the one example of a relatively functional interregional bureaucracy was the United Imperial Armed Forces, but several things about that organization should be noted in contrast to the others: It was a purely military organization, its bureaucracy was far less centralized and comprised of regional leaders rather than organizational bureaucrats, and it was comprised of a maximum of three regions that were relatively homogeneous. Even with the relative success of the UIAF, when Osiris and Balder attempted to replicate the UIAF model and created the Imperial Sovereign Realms Army, we were not successful and the ISRA almost immediately collapsed as a result of tensions. So we see that it's difficult to reproduce the results of even the most effective interregional organization a second time, which leads to the conclusion that the UIAF was a fluke rather than a counter-example of how interregional organizations can be effective.

But this is not to say that your argument is entirely absent of examples you've had experience with. Like you said, you played a role in the organization of SovCon, the immediate failure of which was apparently very bad for Osiris (internally, foreign affairs-wise, both, or...?). But it seems like your experience with SovCon, which you had no idea was going to implode, would be something that could help us build something like this better the next time around. It seems like your input could be cautionary but constructive. Like, what specifically were the conditions that caused SovCon to destroy itself? How can we avoid letting this happen to CAIN? What SPECIFIC things should we watch out for, SPECIFIC behaviors should we keep an eye on and discourage, to avoid letting this attempt fail and harming ourselves? "Abandon all hope" just really doesn't seem helpful. And, by the way, if we fail to ratify this amendment, we won't be changing the treaty back to what it was before. The CAIN treaty does not change based on the failure of one signatory region to approve of changes made by the entire multi-regional voting body. I'm pretty sure we'd be effectively resigning from CAIN. Which might trigger or be a part of a serious of signatory withdrawals done just because of this amendment and, as a result, destroy CAIN. Frankly, because of this and because you are voting against regardless, it seems like you DO want this bureaucracy to destroy CAIN ... before the bureaucracy is even allowed to take shape.

It's hard to pinpoint a single problem that led to SovCon's collapse and, again, there is no guarantee this bureaucracy will face the same problems. As I've already noted, each bureaucracy tends to face different problems. The problems of the ADN were not the problems of the FRA, and the problems of SovCon may not be the problems of CAIN. The only thing I know for certain is that there will be problems and those problems will be significant, because that has been the case every single time an interregional bureaucracy like this one has been tried in the past. Can anyone here name a single interregional bureaucracy, other than the already discussed UIAF, that did not face some kind of deep problems between its signatory regions and the bureaucracy, or among its signatory regions? The fact that none of the past examples still exist is evidence enough that these endeavors are rarely, if ever, successful.

In regard to your concerns that declining to ratify this amendment would withdraw Osiris from CAIN, that simply isn't the case. Osiris has already ratified the CAIN charter, which contains a provision that makes clear that an amendment to the charter is ratified and binding upon all signatory regions if it receives support from the requisite number of signatory regions. We have already agreed to that provision in ratifying the charter. Whether we ratify the amendment or not, if enough signatory regions ratify it, it will be amended into the charter for all signatory regions. It will be binding upon us. Failing to ratify the amendment here would not repeal the charter. That would require a separate vote. I oppose repealing the charter and withdrawing from CAIN, just as I was opposed when repeal and withdrawal were recently proposed.

Although I've had my issues with CAIN's performance, I'll remind you that I was, as Pharaoh at the time, an active participant in the conference that drafted the charter. I was more involved than most regional representatives in the charter's drafting. I changed Osiran military policy to make it more consistent with CAIN's aims. Despite being critical of some of CAIN's activities, I have always wanted CAIN to succeed and Osiris to be an active contributor to its success. That is part of the reason I'm opposed to enactment of the same type of interregional bureaucracy that has failed time and time again. I don't want to see that bureaucracy lead to the collapse of CAIN.

I may be relatively inexperienced, but I for one have a few ideas on how to avoid encountering some of the problems you have brought up

Do you think the other folks who were enthusiastic about interregional organizations that failed in the past didn't have ideas on how to avoid encountering the problems of prior organizations? Do you think they believed, anymore than you do, that their organizations would fail? Of course not. Interregional bureaucracy is particularly attractive to newer players -- and I speak from experience, because I was a newer player when I backed SovCon -- precisely because they have not been around to see the repeated failures of interregional bureaucracy. Older players, with some exceptions like those who still fondly remember their past involvement in interregional bureaucracy, tend to be the most resistant to interregional bureaucracy because we have seen it repeatedly fail and we know that it is likely to fail again, to the detriment not only of the organization but also of our regions.

I do find the prospect of Osiris leading CAIN or being involved in the CAIN leadership exciting like others here do. I do think it could be fun for us and good for us, but I can definitely sense the dangers of a sentiment like this carrying across all of the CAIN signatories. And I think we should all go into this knowing full well that we might not win a spot in or near the top of the hierarchy and accept that, regardless of who wins, we stick with the alliance and stick with the system and accept the situation for what it is instead of pitch a fit and whine and cry and storm out. Shit, someone from The Gray Wardens could end up near the top (I doubt it, but it's not impossible). Because this is definitely the kind of "serious interregional dispute" through "competing interests" that I could foresee as a challenge to CAIN's success. But we made an agreement when we entered CAIN and we shouldn't eat our words now: we are transcending any wars or other bad blood to work together against this enemy. This is bigger than petty disagreements.

I have concerns about Osiris being actively involved in the new bureaucracy, if it's enacted.

My first concern is that involvement in the new bureaucracy will -- not may, but will -- divert attention and activity from Osiris to the CAIN bureaucracy. That is not good for Osiris. While I agree that we should put most gameplay issues to the side to support CAIN's aims, there are limits. The limit for me is anything that will be detrimental to Osiris, because it is Osiris that I have spent the better part of five years working to improve. I do not want to see Osiris become less active because its citizens are too wrapped up in CAIN and its bureaucracy, and I certainly do not want to see our active citizens become part of a trans-regional elite that is more interested in CAIN than in Osiris, as happened with the FRA and the active participants in its signatory regions. That is a real concern, and I will be very disappointed if it is allowed to happen here. Given the portfolio of your office, you should be concerned about this as well.

My second concern is what it even means to have Osiris actively involved in the new bureaucracy. Osiris is already actively involved in CAIN's existing bureaucracy, and yet I'm not even sure who our representative is right now. Is it the Pharaoh? Is it the Chief Vizier? Is it someone else one of them has designated? And why is there never any discussion here of CAIN votes before our vote is cast? Why was the vote by regional representatives unanimous with only The Internationale abstaining, and yet our regional representative did not even notify us that this vote was occurring, let alone consult us about how Osiris' regional vote should be cast? It seems to me that the elitism I'm concerned this new bureaucracy will promote is already happening under the existing bureaucracy, because citizens of Osiris are hearing precious little about CAIN and what it's doing, and we are not being consulted about regional decisions in regard to CAIN at all. That is a problem, and one that is unlikely to improve once there is a new bureaucracy that even further promotes centralization and elitism.

Finally, I just want to note your comment regarding "the strenuous rebuttal of the objections Sygian expressed on Discord last night". I'm not sure exactly what you mean by "the right people". If you are referring to myself, or to anyone else who responded to objections against this amendment (or, really, this entire coalition) yesterday as being part of a caste you have identified, I would like to know what the details of this discovery are. Who are the right people? I take it you feel they do not represent the general citizenry of Osiris, or are somehow unfairly influential over the voting results. This seems like a concern worth elaborating on.

I simply meant that the amendment has the support of, among others, the Queen-Consort -- who should be regarded as the presumptive Secretary of CAIN if this new bureaucracy is enacted -- as well as the Crown Prince and the Chief Vizier. That these individuals are enormously influential is no secret, nor is it unfair influence. They've earned their influence, and particularly in the case of the Chief Vizier he was elected to make decisions regarding our foreign policy and to put forward and promote new initiatives, so I'm not saying there's anything improper going on. But there is no question that they are influential and that many people will defer to their judgment, and that is all I meant when I said this amendment has the support of the right people and that my concerns, the concerns of a quasi-retired and not terribly popular former Pharaoh, are unlikely to be heeded. That's the way politics work, and I wasn't implying any impropriety.

[Sygian]

I take it you feel they do not represent the general citizenry of Osiris, or are somehow unfairly influential over the voting results. This seems like a concern worth elaborating on.

I am not sure who he means, but when I read it I took it as the people that aren't necessarily legally more influential than others in terms of Osiran government (though that could be it; eg: Neo Kervoskia, Syberis, Adytus), but just more influential in the game as a whole. People that have been here longer tend to have more influence over others than those that haven't. At least, that's what I understood that as.

I'd also like to point out that CAIN has broken their own rules regarding the passing of amendments. CAIN needs a majority of regions present to vote/approve an amendment or change, yet there were not a majority present. Clearly this was a rushed attempt to implement an administration to lead CAIN. So do tell me, why should we remain in a coalition that is breaking their own rules in some sort of suspicious rushed effort? If hardly any of the current leadership can notice when someone is clearly breaking the established rules of CAIN, then I can't see how anyone is fit to lead this coalition, and I sure as hell don't want Osiris involved.

[Cormac]

I'd also like to point out that CAIN has broken their own rules regarding the passing of amendments. CAIN needs a majority of regions present to vote/approve an amendment or change, yet there were not a majority present. Clearly this was a rushed attempt to implement an administration to lead CAIN. So do tell me, why should we remain in a coalition that is breaking their own rules in some sort of suspicious rushed effort? If hardly any of the current leadership can notice when someone is clearly breaking the established rules of CAIN, then I can't see how anyone is fit to lead this coalition, and I sure as hell don't want Osiris involved.

I will note that the Attorney General of Europeia is the one who determined that CAIN violated its own rules for quorum, so this is not just Sygian's opinion. This amendment is clearly invalid under the terms of the CAIN Charter, and cannot move forward for ratification until it is validly approved by regional representatives after achieving quorum. Any ratification vote here would also be invalid.

I will also note that I don't agree with Sygian's conclusions regarding CAIN "leadership" -- which currently includes all regional representatives, including our own -- missing the quorum failure as negatively reflecting on their performance. Mistakes happen.

[Wrektopia]

I think this example of centralization creating a sort of dictatorial environment in the ADN is something we can learn from and adapt to here, and I do think that despite the new leadership structure CAIN still relies extremely heavily on the input of its signatories (most decisions require at least two-thirds, some three-fourths majority), both for defining its enemies and conducting various internal affairs. While this is a good word of warning, I really, really don't see it applying to the situation at hand ... at least not yet. Given some time and some due process a scheme to put an individual at the head of CAIN and amend the treaty to give them more and more power could emerge, and I for one would not support this nor would many of the other signatories, I believe. In fact I think the broad range of political differences within this organization may, ironically, help to stabilize it in this way. Or it could prove to be a lot of different interests vying for supremacy. I will not deny that there are ways this could go sour, but I think this lack of denial is exactly what everyone involved needs to admit to themselves and to each other, and agree to move forward in a fair way that supports input from across the entire coalition and deters attempts at domination by one interest or bitching and moaning and quitting of another if it doesn't get exactly what it wants.

I think the process of selecting the Secretary and Executive Officers will be very, very important for defining where this goes in the near and probably distant future, and I think the people who wrote this amendment knew this. The indefinite terms imply it. I do not doubt you when you say that it could cause problems right off the bat or later down the line of the kind you've been describing, but I also have seen some of what happens when there's no structure at all: the thing that Sygian was bemoaning earlier, with rogue groups and individuals possibly misrepresenting themselves or using the Coalition for personal political agendas and a general lack of order. This is a massive military organization, and you can't just have it run by nobody, or by some kind of socialist council that doesn't define leaders or organization for operations. That's not how a military works.

If CAIN is going to face "different problems", I say let us figure out what they are and tackle them full force as soon as they appear, to avoid having it die from infighting or power mongering or inactivity like all the others. There is a lot to learn from old failures and hopefully everyone present right now in CAIN is ready to sit down and talk about this and listen to each other in order to make this one work. Nobody should come to the table with a cavalier attitude, but pessimism is also not what we need. None of these examples you provided in the past were an anti-Nazi coalition, something that every signatory agrees is a cause that goes beyond political disagreement, raider or defender designation, or petty personal dispute. And it's a good thing they weren't because then we'd have an example of a failed anti-Nazi coalition like CAIN that people would be waving around and trying to use to discourage any other attempt like this. This is another big multi-regional coalition, yeah, but it's based on a cause that doesn't appear to have emerged in this context before. I think (hope?) people recognize it as important enough to justify keeping their egos at bay for the sake of the coalition's success.

As for diverting attention and activity, this honestly just seems like a total paradox to me. If anything the mere mention of this CAIN bureaucracy has increased interest and activity here lately. It's another thing for us to focus on, to work on, to think about as Osiris and to consider how we fit into the picture. We aren't shuttling our government off to CAIN, we're considering it as a government, as a group. And this is healthy discussion and active discussion that we are having here and will continue to have here, as long as our representatives to CAIN (Syberis and myself) make sure we keep the region informed and engaged. I definitely agree that I would not want CAIN to vampirize us, but I really don't see how that is or would happen. If it clearly starts happening? Yeah, start yelling at us and start a discussion and let's consider how to end or fix the bullshit. But it's not happening and I personally doubt that it will.

Oh, and don't insult "the portfolio of my office" (yeah I saw that, you thought you could just sneak that little jab in there) if you've been gone for a big chunk of my time working within it and haven't bothered to actually look into what it is that I do around here, or ever even bothered to check in personally after I was appointed my positions by Adytus under your administration. Looks like you were just content to think you ran shit and ignore whatever your subordinates were doing or not doing; if it's nothing (and it wasn't) it was fine, as long as you were still on top and could do nothing yourself. Yeah, I went there. Oh right, but this topic isn't about that. This is about the CAIN amendment. So let's endeavor to stay on topic here, please. If you want to challenge my position you can do so in a thread for the recall you threatened me with, and I will have no shortage of words to share in that thread either.

As for Sygian's reply, I agree with Cormac: mistakes happen, and the coalition is not a "they", it is an "us". This was our mistake as well, and I was very newly appointed CAIN representative while all of this was happening. I have since been closely in touch with NK, Syberis, and Brunhilde in order to gain my bearings and provide my personal input and whatever input I think best represents our region and I want to avoid anything like this ever happening again. I think the fact that there was almost a complete turnout and a nearly unanimous vote in favor really kind of renders this a silly argument against the amendment's legitimacy ... if we really need to retroactively get all the "motioning" done, I don't think it will be hard and definitely don't think it will surprise us with a failure, but hey, I'm willing to do that. We should spare no expense to gather the confidence and legitimacy we need to make this a success.

Finally, and back to Cormac and his comment that "failing to ratify the amendment here would not repeal the charter", I will echo Sygian in the original post, where he says in the second sentence that, "for us to remain a signatory, we must ratify the amendment proposed." I will also quote the charter:

(g) Any signatory may opt-out of ratifying amendments to CAIN. After doing so, they will no longer be considered a signatory.

So no. That is false. If we do not ratify this right here in this vote we are no longer a CAIN signatory region, and again we might even trigger a process that could destroy CAIN prematurely. This is a very important decision we are about to make.

[Cormac]

I hadn't noticed the "they will no longer be considered a signatory" language. That's actually really troubling and problematic, because it requires signatory regions to consider whether or not an amendment will pass in other signatory regions in their decision making to ratify an amendment. Essentially, signatory regions will have to risk losing membership in CAIN if they decline to ratify any amendment but it's still ratified by three-quarters of the other signatory regions. That basically turns signatory regions into a rubber stamp for most amendments, because signatory regions won't want to risk losing their membership in CAIN for anything but seriously flawed amendments that are likely to be rejected by most signatory regions.

I am still going to vote against this amendment. If Osiris loses its membership in CAIN, so be it. We should not be forced into an interregional bureaucracy that will damage our region and, in the end, CAIN as well.