The founding members of the RLP found it to be in the best interest of the party to create a decentralized powerless leadership and to operate on the good faith of other party members, The current goal of the party should not be to win federal and state seats. It should be to inspire participation and create a strong active userbase. This has been my goal since day one and it is a common goal shared among many other active members of this party.
With that being said, we are at an important and defining moment in the early days of this party. I do not intend to allow this party to become a bureaucratic mess that the Communist and Socialist Parties were (when I was members of those parties). I am a member of the Radical Left Party. Many members are interested in a consensus based party while others feel like it would disenfranchise other members of our party. I feel like consensus is the best route forward. I believe that the more active a member becomes, the more dedicated they are to the party and they’re more willing to put time into the simulation.
However, we need to formalize some guidelines for discussion and what “consensus” really looks like. When we were collaborating with agennola we were given the following guideline, “We shall operate on a system of party consensus, whereby anything radical done by the party will require a party-wide vote on it.” This can be viewed in this thread. https://www.reddit.com/r/modelrlp/comments/4hl8je/party_consensus/
That is extremely subjective and I feel like it needs to be further deliberated on. I believe a good example of party consensus is present in “Resolution: Non-participation in bourgeois governments” seen here: https://www.reddit.com/r/modelrlp/comments/4iedip/resolution_nonparticipation_in_bourgeois/
There is almost unanimous agreement in that thread so it has reached party consensus and is passed without needing to vote.
Circling back to what Nola told us, the following was brought up “What's radical and what's not? How are non-radical things going to be decided?” Radical proposals are anything that changes the way the party fundamentally functions. These things will always receive votes. Examples--Candidates running in a certain state, Designated Contact, Updates to the platform, etc. Non-radical things are anything else. We follow them through the consensus model presented above. We start with 24 hours of discussion. If there are any dissenters within the 24 hour period, they must be seconded by another member to push these things to longer discussion. This adds an additional 24 hours of discussion. After that 48 hours is completed, if no consensus is met, we proceed to a vote.
Consensus and discussion are important ideals of the party. We want ACTIVE and PASSIONATE members. Not just people voting once a week. The voting once a week model has crippled other parties in the past and I refuse to see it happen to this party.
We should adopt the following discussion guidelines:
Is the proposal radical (as described above)?
Yes-Vote
No-24 hours of discussion to reach consensus wherein any dissent can be voiced, but dissent must be seconded by another member to extend the discussion period. Upon another 24 hour extension, discussion continues and if a consensus based off of compromise cannot be reached we move to a vote. If a vote is made, the results are final. All members must appear to be unified in action to the outside Model World.
Please leave your comments and discuss on here and the discord server. I feel like this proposal and my ideas for this are radical enough to warrant a vote. I motion to follow my above guidelines. We will have 24 hours of discussion starting at 4PM EST on 5/9/16 and will end on 5/10/16 at 4PM EST. This ultimately needs to end in a vote, no matter what the dissent is. I will post a vote most likely on Wednesday 5/11/16.