Well, this is a "Faction Thread" and what I'm going to propose is not a Faction... but since there will be interaction with upcoming factions, I felt that this would be a good place to post it.
As I said previously, I'm affiliated with the SDF, and glad that it will remain as a party running for elections! So I won't "create another party" or a "split-off" or whatever.
However, the right of free association will certainly be present somewhere in our Constitution, and would like to use it to form a non-political organisation called "The Monarchist Cause", which will have as its charter to build up a lobby to influence the citizens and the Government to change Neualtenburg towards a social-democratic, constitutional monarchy (instead of being a social-democratic republic).
Now before everybody jumps at me
I should make a few points very clear:
1) The Monarchist Cause will not ever be a political party. It will not be elected, and will not even encourage a group of eventual monarchists (if I can root them out...) to form their own party to get elected.
2) The Monarchist Cause will not have any "bias" or "trend" in terms of a political view - we're not left-wing, right-wing, center, liberal, conservative, anarchist, libertarian or whatever. The association's charter will clearly state that. We embrace all political views. They should remain at the Representative level - we have higher goals.
3) The Monarchist Cause will not assume that the Constitution is under construction and thus open for discussion if we should consider ourselves a "republic" or a "monarchy". Not at all! We consider that this issue is currently closed, and will await the ratification of the Constitution stating that Neualtenburg is a social-democrat republic
before creating the group supporting the Monarchist Cause.
So, what is the purpose of the Monarchist Cause?
1) Setting up a Royal Person as a formal Head of State in Neualtenburg. The title Prinz(ess) von Neualtenburg should be appropriate, and, if the project grows to other sims, we eventually will have a Konig(in) von Neualtenburg ruling over the rest of the princes
2) Since we cannot have a "hereditary monarchy" (duh!) we will have a "nominated monarchy", where the Royal Person appoints their successors.
3) We propose a constitutional monarchy, not an autocracy. This means that the "nominated heir" (or Heir Apparent) will need to be ratified by the Assembly. If the Assembly disagrees with that choice, the Prinz(ess) will have to appoint another heir.
4) The figure of the Burgermeister will not disappear; it will represent the "common citizen". However, the Royal Person will stand for much more: for a cause, for Neualtenburg as a symbol of order, for a group of people that has ideas outside the anarchistic world of SL, for tradition, etc. Monarchy as an institution will mainly symbolize what we believe in when we created the project.
5) The Royal Person will not hold much formal power - except for a few things: naming the Peerage, dissolving the Assembly, declare formal holidays, and probably many other silly things that will be added as we see fit
6) The Assembly, instead of being "empowered" by a nominated Burgermeister after a new election, will be empowered by the Royal Person instead. There will follow an address to the Assembly as well. The Royal Person will be allowed to make statements and advise the Assembly at any time (but will not have any power of actually interfering with their job, neither veto powers, nothing).
7) The Prinz(ess) is expected to live from its own revenues, and
not from the City's budget. However, in certain cases, it is expected that the Branches make a few offers like a new set of clothes or a new carriage, especially when there is an upcoming event that will have many "foreigners" visiting (eg. Oktoberfest). Or even remodelling the castle if they feel particularly generous
Now, let's talk about the Peerage...
Land owners who have donated tier to Neualtenburg will be entitled to be called Landgraf (or just Graf for short). This will be formally announced by the Royal Person on a regular cerimony (an Event) held just for the purpose. Depending on the size of tier allocated to Neualtenburg, the Royal Person will eventually give away other titles as well
Of course, like in RL, outstanding members of the community will also be "honoured" by the Prinz(ess), even if they are not landowners. There will be three ways of "honouring" them:
1) The Prinz(ess) will just assemble the persons that he/she feels that have contributed most, and annoint them as new members of the Peerage (titles without land ownership). This is absolutely at the Prinz(ess)'s whim!
2) There will be an Order of Chivalry, of which the Prinz(ess) will be the Head, which will award citizens and non-citizens the title of Knight. This will allow non-citizens, who in some way have contributed to Neualtenburg (and are not part of the City), to be thanked for their efforts (example: Haney Linden, of course!). The details of all silly cerimonies pertaining to the Knighthood will be figured out later
3) Every month, the Assembly will prepare a list of people that the citizens think that deserve to be specially honoured by the Royal Person. This list is expected to be respected, ie. the Prinz(ess) may not say NO to the people thus honoured. He/she will, however, have some freedom to pick up titles, and opt for "simple" Knighthood instead of Peerage.
Finally, there will be the Court, an advisory board to the Royal Person, but consisting only of the land owners with titles and eventually a few other Peers picked up by the Prinz(ess). The Court will be senatorial, ie. by appointment only, and, in due course, changes on the constitution will be expected to occur in order that they have the power to approve all laws (ie. essentially turning Neualtenburg into a bicameral legislature).
Now how will the Monarchist Cause work?
Not being a party, it won't run for elections, so it will have to work with
all parties to have them propose small changes in the constitution, until the monarchy is put into place. Think of them as a lobby, working in the background, manipulating the Assembly members to get them to agree to our goals. The first thing is to get the parties to agree upon is that the citizens should be able to vote on a referendum to change the "social-democratic republic" into a "constititutional social-democratic monarchy". After that is in place, the Monarchist Cause will probably round up a, uh, "victim" to be the Royal Person, and try to get the citizen's support for saying "Yes" to the referendum. Since this is an alien concept, the Monarchist Cause will certainly take a lot of time to be persuasive, and use lots of strategies to get support. Remember, an election/appointment is usually for a limited time (yes, probably in the Guild and the Academy as well), but being a Prinz(ess) is for life (whatever that means). Getting people to agree on that will be a very, very hard task
and probably take some years! The first step, however, will be trying to get the landowners' support, even if they initially disagree with the whole concept. So the Monarchist Cause will try to become the "voice of the landowners" in Neualtenburg
Of course, despite my half-serious tone when writing this post, I actually think this should be funny, and a distraction from more serious issues when getting the government to run. Imagine, there will be events where the Heir to the Throne will give titles to the landowners and tell them "one day this could become reality if we get enough support to change the constitution" and generally "spread the word" around the citizens (and even non-citizens). Since these events will be just thematic events, which will attract people to the city, they will probably be allowed (with much grumbling). But they will also promote the idea further, and draw attention to things better left hidden. This will be a challenge for the Government
Heh. I expect lots of fun!
Anyone thinks that this association should NOT be created for some reason?
- Gwyn
(1) Note: "we" and "our" are royal plurals
... there is really just "me"!
