Russell had me feeling bad about not visiting here in a while, so I decided it was time to stop in and catch up- only to find I am not the only one somewhat lax in attending to the community…
So, after reading through some of the past posts, I will throw out a couple of ideas to see if we can't get some fresh discussion going…
1. Weapons/Defense. I am strongly opposed to any requirement to arm oneself, or any restriction on one's personal choice to arm oneself or not. If rules are established, then your potential foes know what to expect. If there are no rules, a potential antagonist doesn't know if I am carrying a can of pepper spray or an uzi. On the other hand, if the antagonist knows that I am, by regulation, required to be armed, then there is a greater chance that the antagonist will take precautions to insure that I am not afforded the opportunity to use any weapon I may have. Keep the opposition guessing.
2. One can avoid all of the unpleasantness, excessive security circus and other such inconveniences by restricting one's adventures in the airport to the General Aviation section. Not only are the security measures more reasonable, the facilities are generally more comfortable and the food better (that is, where food services are available- not all General Aviation facilities have food courts!). One need not check in an hour in advance of a flight- generally the plane is waiting for you, rather than you waiting for the plane. The downside of this is that one must either own one's own airplane, or be good buddies with someone who does, or be willing to pay outrageous prices for chartering a private airplane. I suspect establishing a Transcendian Embassy in the General Aviation section of an International Airport may be much easier than trying to accomplish the same thing.
3. Education. Educational history is inconsequential. Compulsory Participatory Continuing Education (ComParConE) should be a minimum requirement for citizenship. Each citizen should be required to moderate a subject discussion on a regular basis (possibly a rotating roster?). Every citizen should be required to contribute to the discussion. Copy and Paste from Wikipedia or other sources of equally suspect raw information will be allowed only as supporting documentation of the citizen's personal opinion on the subject under discussion. Personal insults (name calling, aspersions against one's sexual orientation or lack thereof, etc.) shall be restricted to private communications, not permitted in the general discussions (the moderator will have the responsibility for maintaining proper decorum). This has the advantage of eliminating the need for voting, since one can make major political decisions based on a consensus derived from the open discussions. While not eliminating the potential for corrupt practices such as purchasing votes, it would make such practices much more transparent. I have something like the traditional method of making commercial decisions in a typical Japanese business in mind…
We already have, thanks to Russell, a number of preliminary discussion topics- Forming a Constitution (i.e., defining the government), Education, Defense, etc…
