What is too much freedom?

Day 741, 00:36 • Published in South Africa South Africa • by mulderpf
How much freedom is enough?

Following the events in congress this weekend, I decided to write an article about freedom and the freedom we allow people of our country as well as congresspeople.

This weekend, Cornelious Maximillian O'Brien applied for citizenship and Exilious decided to fast-track the process and approved his citizenship. It was shouted from the rooftops that Exilious broke the law by approving his citizenship without background checks being done etc. The only thing, as far as I'm aware, Exilious did wrong here was to start a post in a forum where he wasn't supposed to.

So now the CRB will potientially be amended (awaiting approval) to disallow congresspeople to approve any applications, it HAS to be approved by the MoI first. Previously the MoI was there to do the background checks and advise, now it will become law that without their approval, congresspeople cannot approve any new citizenship requests.

EDIT: They will be allowed to click the approve button still, but it has to be done with the approval of the MoI. So the decision is now with the MoI, not the congressperson.

The newly proposed amendment reads as follow: "Citizenship Approvals are the Jurisdiction of the Ministry of Intelligence, to make sure that approvals are used wisely, all new citizens require the approval of an intelligence officer before they can be approved by a congress member."

But in another post, Frank (he is responsible for the CRB, wording etc) said the following:
"There is no direct contradiction, every congressperson retains the right to discuss, vote and approve citizenship applications, it's just for it to now be legal, it has to be looked over by an intelligence officer, which is already done practice and law, this is a set of consolidation amendments, not a set of new ones. The decision to approve or not still remains very much in the jurisdiction of the congressperson."

The proposed amendment reads that it requires the approval of the MoI, but in Frank's explanation, it still sounds very much like the decision lays with the congressperson. Very confusing indeed, since I'm voting on the bill and not on the explanation thereof, I had to vote no.

I was also told that my idea of allowing a congressperson the freedom to approve any application he likes is one of the stupidest ones around. Excuse me for standing up for the democratic right of everyone. This to me is very much along the lines of telling citizens who they are allowed to vote for and who they are not allowed to vote for. A vote belongs to a citizen the same way an approval belongs to a congressperson (remember, we only got one this term - even though it should've been two).

An approval that is considered "a threat to national security" for one group of people, might not be so for another group of people. For this very reason, I think it is wrong and against the idea of democracy and liberty to tell congresspeople who they can let in and who not. Exilious received the same amount of approvals as the rest of us, therefore 1/40th of the approvals must be served in the interests of the people that voted for him. To lay down the law and tell him that his approval was illegal is wrong, it turns our democracy into a dictatorship.

I realise that this control is there to stop a PTO and yes, I wasn't here when it happened to us, but where will this control stop? Are we going to prescribe to people to only buy from specific companies because it's in the interest of national security as the gold might be funding another country's military? Are we going to change the law to make it illegal to vote for Exilious in the interest of national security because we disagree with him?

Citizenship approvals should be run in a similar way to elections. You are given the information upfront, sometimes more, sometimes less, but in the end, its your choice who you will vote for, same way, you are representing constituents and you should use your approvals to further any "agendas" your party might have. Some of us want to approve someone because he is a strong businessman, some of us want to approve someone because he is a strong figher, some of us want to approve someone because they share the same beliefs as us. I do not believe that we can strip anyone of this right simply because what they believe is right is different to what we believe is right.

I'm hoping that people can read this without being clouded by everything else that Exilious has done (I know, it's very difficult), including his attempt to have President Root impeached. I don't agree with most of what he has done and this article is in no way to defend him, it is to defend the liberties and freedom we are all entitled to.

Lastly, I am not dead-set against this, I would however just like to get clarity on where we stop giving our citizens freedom in the pursuit of control to stop potential PTO's. Because the more freedom we allow, the easier a PTO will become, but if we try to stop this, we start moving more towards a dictatorship and away from democracy (also don't get me wrong, I'm not saying in ANY way we are even close to a dictatorship, just that in certain aspects, we are moving closer).

Best regards
mulderpf