The Druids' Republic

[wolf560]

Okay... I'll play along as the one "trouble-maker" in the crowd.

I demand that we all get two stones; one black and one white.
My recommendations is that everything has to be majority rule (2/3 or more).
Whatever the proposition is; we are given both sides and then we all file past the amphora and deposit one of either stone into it... just to keep things fair we then put the second stone into another amphora which is placed outside the amphitheater as well to make sure that everyone cast their votes and then deposited their "non-vote" (to keep a accurate count if nothing else).

Autonomous rule would only be required in times of distress so during normal times we would need a Governor only that would carry out the Rule of the people.

Unless we have already decided that we need a "Philosopher King" to rule...

...in which case I vote the first proposition to be "Do we keep the Philosopher King or dump him?"

[DJ Droood]

...in which case I vote the first proposition to be "Do we keep the Philosopher King or dump him?"

[Bart]

Having to negotiate 2/3rds of a mayority will take forever. Take it from me. Holland has this down to the grass roots, everything needs to discussed, the whole herd needs to be in on where the herder is taking them: nothing gets done quickly. There are moments when our peacefull village needs to act quickly: rainstroms, springfloods, tasty mamoths show up ahaed of schedule. In a negotiating community these wont get dealt with.

Its like being stuck on the female island on survivor.

I do not mind long term discussions during the dark half of the year, but when action is required we need action. Not a philospher, we need food. Ask the cubans, they survived despite Fidel. And the rest swam accros to the USA.

Concerning the best of the tribe being in charge of basic jobs: what happens if they are old or die. Do we elect the second best. We need a training program. We need a Guils system. (and a secretive free .... guild (masons when we start building))

Natural law: do you mean the right of the strongest? In that case the most beatifull female druid always wins.

[DJ Droood]

Natural law: do you mean the right of the strongest? In that case the most beatifull female druid always wins.

well..."strongest" in the sense of having the most efficient skills to deal with the environment we find ourselves in...not necessarily the people who can bench press a baby calf, but perhaps the strongest intellect..strongest problem solving abilities... strongest compassion and empathy and community building skills....my own personal, bitter experience from high school is there is always at least *one* person who has it all...they are smart, athletic, kind, funny, hard working and yes...they look great....you want to hate them, but you can't...they are like earth angels, so you love them and make them your leaders.

[Bart]

OK but how do we keep ethics in check.

Being good at everything might give the wrong ethics. (born to be a brad)

[wolf560]

The ethics portion would hopefully be taken care of by the Druids themselves.

Bart you are probably right, a 2/3 majority would take forever...
Maybe a 51% or better would have to be good enough.

You're right, some things have to be done in an expeditious manner

[Astrid]

Natural law: do you mean the right of the strongest? In that case the most beatifull female druid always wins.

well..."strongest" in the sense of having the most efficient skills to deal with the environment we find ourselves in...not necessarily the people who can bench press a baby calf, but perhaps the strongest intellect..strongest problem solving abilities... strongest compassion and empathy and community building skills....my own personal, bitter experience from high school is there is always at least *one* person who has it all...they are smart, athletic, kind, funny, hard working and yes...they look great....you want to hate them, but you can't...they are like earth angels, so you love them and make them your leaders.

Are you guys talking about me again

[DJ Droood]

Natural law: do you mean the right of the strongest? In that case the most beatifull female druid always wins.

well..."strongest" in the sense of having the most efficient skills to deal with the environment we find ourselves in...not necessarily the people who can bench press a baby calf, but perhaps the strongest intellect..strongest problem solving abilities... strongest compassion and empathy and community building skills....my own personal, bitter experience from high school is there is always at least *one* person who has it all...they are smart, athletic, kind, funny, hard working and yes...they look great....you want to hate them, but you can't...they are like earth angels, so you love them and make them your leaders.

Are you guys talking about me again

I didn't want to embarrass you by mentioning you by name, but yes....

[Bart]

OOH caught.

What your take on it be?

[Myrde]

*mutters "finally" to himself with a smile*

Astrid, glad to have you on board.

Now, I personanlly feel with the concept that in times of trouble and when time and speed are of essence, we need a leader. At the same time, power can never be trusted for long with one person no matter how pure their intent. Absolute power corrupts = power corrupts absolutely.

So, I was brainstorming this concept today and expanded on what I said before.

-Council of Thirteen - Lunar Council (Wicacans gonna love me for this) - A Council assembled for decisions of the community consisting of 13 members of the community. Each member is selected for the particular decision only and are selected for their experience, wisdom, knowledge, or skills that pertains to the discussion at hand. Age is not a factor; if the community feels you are the one who should speak, then you will. (For example, say a young Blacksmith is more skillfull than his much older mentor. Both, one of the other, or neither might be selected for a Council. The Young Blacksmith for his Skill, the Elder for his experience). The members of the Council will share their views and opinions on the matter, backing such with reasoning, experience, and knowledge. The Council is moreso used to get an expert opinion, and the Tribe votes (majority) on what it would feel would be the best course of action. After the matter is resolved, that particular Council is broken up, and when a new case arises, a new Council, possibly made up of both new and old members whom the Tribe feels are best to deal with the matter at hand, is formed for that particular matter and that particular matter alone.

Council of Four - Elemental Council (for us Druids :P ) - An ever present stand-by Council used for emergency situations. In the event of quick decision making, strategy, planning, ect., emergency powers are quickly bestowed unto this Council. They would act for the best interest of the Tribe, and would give orders. 4 members because sometimes a single leader cannot be everywhere at once. To ensure that power remains within the community, the members of the Council will be elected, once every three weeks, by the members of the community. These members will be selected for similar reasons as the Council of 13: for certain qualities which the community feels would be most useful in a crisis. However, one can only serve on this Council once per season, and cannot serve two seasons in a row. Therefor, if my calculations are correct... which they're most likely not... we'd have 64 different members on this Council over the course of the year.

As far as ethics... we should not teach our young to be good at anything but to be Good Human Beings. Not "Good" as in "good or evil" but rather... lord, Orwell did a better job of this.

To be compassionate both to oneself and to others. To understand self-awareness and awareness of the world around you. To understand their place in this universe, their world. To work alongside nature instead of against it. To cherish honesty, virtue, humility. To find good food, good drink, and good company more valuable than a mountain of diamonds. To be able to pause in the middle of their work and appreciate how the wind is rustling the tree's above them, or a unique cloud formation. To actual see the World instead of being blinded by deadlines, quotas, profits, and numbers. A Good Human; healthy in body, mind, and spirit.

[DaRC]

Hmmmmm what is the background to the creation of this wonderful community?
This will have a great bearing on the organisation structures it will require. People need a driving reason to create a community and the structures will work around food production, energy (or are we giving up on electricity, medicine, clean water and all the wonders of the modern age).
What about separation of the powers - government/decision making, law making/judiciary and the military?
For example, theoretically, within a constitutional monarchy you have separation by Parliament (whom the king/queen is answerable to), law making via the law lords (who the gov't are answerable to) and the military (who are answerable to the king / queen).

The appropriate detail of organisation will depend upon the size of the community. A small council will work for a small community, probably upto a size of a thousand or so but after that social politics will need to be reflected in the organisation. Small tribal grouping, either by family or by related friends, within the community will emerge. Some of these groupings will become overly powerful - how will you structure the organisation against a coupe d'etat from one of these?

For rapid response in an emergency I would suggest that people will tend towards a single charismatic leader, the ancient model of a leader who is elected and advised by a small group representing the most powerful in the community is probably the most effective. At these times continuity of leadership is important. The tribal Celts and Germans used to elect war leaders (i.e. Herman the German aka Arminius)

"we should not teach our young to be good at anything but to be Good Human Beings. " http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lord_of_the_Flies
Gulp - have you read 'Lord of the Flies' which is Goldings realistic refutation of the saccharine morality of Swiss Family Robinson? I think many of us take a lifetime trying to be good human beings....

Finally, how is this community going to cope with the outsider mentality, one that is quite prevalent in our own individualistic western society?

p.s. Philosopher King all I can hear is Rainbow's "Stargazer", I grew up on Robert E.Howard's "Conan" stories where they're not usually a good thing...

[DJ Droood]

Essentially, we'd plan out every detail; how it would be set up, what sort of government how would the community operate/survive, what would be taught, ect. However, I advise we start off small.

Myrde, why do I get the feeling that you already have a few ring binders filled with notes and plans on this topic that you are just waiting to unleash?

[wolf560]

I did this scenario as a "Humanities" College course role-play class room experience...

We started out with 20 people in the classroom as an unorganized mass with one question; what single concept of a community do we want to begin our 'Brave New World' with?

Each day in class throughout the semester we were given a topic to try to solve within the 90 minute class environment. Each week we split off into one more group as per the scenario guidelines as we tried to tackle some new situation that required our attention.

By the end of the semester we had determined that our 'New World' was to be mostly scientists but even with that many guilds and groups had developed. Two of the groups were fighting for dominance and all the rest arguing over resource allocation.

It was interesting to see that even with 20 people all organizing under the peaceful scientific banner how we turned out in the end... I will say this, we managed to stay outside of 'single leadership' until very nearly the end of the semester.

Power Corrupts
Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely
So we tried to make sure nobody had any real power

We ended up having elected leaders, but they were allowed only one term and there were no exceptions. Everytime we had to make a decision we kept the decisions and the results so that in many cases laws were enacted so that the decision did not have to be made the second for a similar circumstance.

What I found supremely interesting was that although I was not a Druid yet, the scenario developed with our group separating into essentially Druidic lines with an educators guild, a guild of lawyers, scientists, machinery workers, manufacturers, etc. We dodged the idea of capitol punishment by having the greatest punishment being expulsion from our community.

[Bart]

We should not put to much emphasis on groups, before we know it we have a Caste system.

I agree with DJ Droood that maybe a mild socialst system might be needed. With a firm hand of keeping dead beats at work, we do not want a communist Russia repeat (there they clearly showed that if the state provides for everything, nobody works)

[Bart]

PS I do think we need a common enemy. This will keep the country together. My first vote we declare war on the ugly people across the stream.

[Myrde]

Myrde, why do I get the feeling that you already have a few ring binders filled with notes and plans on this topic that you are just waiting to unleash?

Im a young, bored college student with an IQ of 135. (fine, I lied. It only measures to 131.) Be thrilled I didn't ask about a zombie apocolypse. I have written books (non published stacks of notes, diagrams, data and statistics ect.) for such an occasion. Right now, I'm working from two moderate size notebooks that I used during my first semester of college (this year infact).

Wolf- I did the same exercise this year for my class, as stated above. Except with a class of 50 people. I was, legit, the only one who took it seriously. Class was ultimately a failure due to lack of participation. Everyone got an easy A. <_< Still, was an increadibly good exercise.

As far as Mild Socialism bit... everyone is going to need to work. If we don't, that could result in a bad harvest. In which case, everyone ends up starving and dying. We need as much manpower as we can get. It's not a matter of "Will we get them to work", its "Will they realise they need to work to feed themselves." We're fighting against time, and snow, and hungry bellies.

[wolf560]

I am actually against the use of any term for a social dynamic because inevitably someone does not understand what it means and does something in contradiction to it.

Some studies have been run in a socialized environment in an education setting where everyone was given a grade based not upon the content of their work but upon the relative work as compared to other students. In several of these studies the relative value of the work got worse with each successive submission as the students realized they did not have to have "something really good" they merely had to have something "a little better than the dullard next to them". In simple terms, everyone began shrinking to the level of the lowest common denominator. Similar studies where students were offered greater rewards (including 'extra points' for 'extra effort') the relative classroom experience saw a rise in even the moderate students as they realized that more work and better efforts would results in increased grades.

Without putting a Government in place, how do we ensure that everyone pushes themselves harder for the greater good while keeping the influences of the "One Bad Apple" out of the picture? Perhaps pure Socialism (something that has never actually been achieved, where nobody is actually in charge or individually owns anything) is the answer... but again, it does not exist in its purest truest form anywhere on Earth. Inevitably "One Bad Apple" rises to the top and takes control making it a Dictatorship (or worse) in the end.

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/socialism
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/communism

[Bart]

I think we can handle one bad apple. It's the Orwellian Animal Farm we have to be carefull of.

I am to young to be taken to the glue factory.

[wolf560]

I agree in principle that we can handle "One Bad Apple" but I use the case of the beginnings of the United States of America where the founding fathers wanted to make sure that 'Tyranny and Oppression' would never be allowed to encroach on America.

They did not foresee the effects of 250 years of successive 'Bad Apples' each chipping away at the system (or encumbering it with nonsense) so that at this point we see a top-heavy system where we now have 'Professional Politicians' born and bred to run for yet another office.


If this were a real debate and we were starting to actually write something down... I would have tried to have something written in as founding doctrine that would prevent such a thing from happening later on. Specifically "Term Limits", and perhaps even "How are votes to be counted?"

In America we still use the 'Electoral College system' in some cases. In this particular case if you belong to a County that has 5000 voters and 2501 vote for "Politician A", then the entire County has all of its votes given to "Politician A". while this speeds things up, it begins to distort things the higher up you go.

I would like to see a 'Popular vote' wherein each person vote counts and areas or counties are not subdivided. In this modern age of computers, this will not slow anything down.

[Bart]

I would like to see a 'Popular vote' wherein each person vote counts and areas or counties are not subdivided. In this modern age of computers, this will not slow anything down.

Although how we are voting is far away in designing our republic: computers will not do as of yet. They turn out to be open to fraud. In Holland we just returned to the red pencil, just because it was possible. There are bad apples who will not stop at being a career dead beat (sorry politician), they will do anything to win.