[Congress Debate] Termination of special statuses
Day 4,484, 04:09
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Published in Netherlands 
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by
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by UNL Congress
Greetings, citizens of Netherlands,
A new debate has been opened at the request of President Janty F:
Dear members of Congress,
long time ago, when Dutch politics was done out-game, people have devised a plethora of special statuses (expatriate, honorary, etc.), so that players, who were no longer present in in-game Netherlands, could still participate in Dutch politics and make decisions from abroad using their special status. Since we have moved Dutch politics back to the game, where it belongs, these statuses lost their meaning, and were removed from our Lawbook during 2018, meaning they can no longer be obtained. HOWEVER!
Even though these statuses are no longer defined legally, and they have no meaning (they are mentioned in the Immigration protocol to allow their bearers to speed up immigration procedure - however that "speed up" is assumed for all good former Dutch citizens anyway), there is still an active list with names bearing these statutes. The procedure of obtaining these statues was ended, but the statutes already obtained remained active up to this date.
http://wiki.erepublik.com/index.php/Dutch_Expatriates_and_Honorary_Citizens
All the people there are great people without any doubt, two of them even holding our communes. However I see no reason, why we should have their names on a special list with meaningless titles. Not only due to the fact that we can value their contribution without such a list, but also due to the fact there have been dozens of other great citizens of this nation, who are no longer with us, and who simply "didn't make a list". And it is hardly fair for them to not be included, while next to impossible to actually include them all.
Therefore, in order to clear up these meaningless titles from our Law section, I propose to terminate all the active special statuses, and move their list to the "Old Laws" section of the Lawbook.
Final vote count:
Yes/Ja: 18
No/Nee: 8
Neutral/Neutraal: 0
Proposal accepted.
For the debate:
El Gorro
Chairman of Congress
For the vote:
djirtsdew & rainy sunday
Chairman and Deputy Chairman of Congress
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Comments
Constitutie artikel 1.
Hm?
I think odan is trying to say that this would require a change in our Constitution.
Which, as explained two years earlier, is incorrect.
expats hebben de zelfde rechten als alle andere inwoners van eNL.
This proposal does not aim to change text of Constitution.
So... hm?
Er wordt in het openingswoord beweerd dat deze titels geen functie hebben. de constitutie geeft duidelijk aan welke functie expat heeft.
Honorary hebben geen extra functie meer maar de naam zegt genoeg, deze mensen zijn gekozen om op deze lijst te komen door daden die ze gedaan hebben en werden geëerd hiervoor.
Enkel om aan te geven dus dat de starter van dit debat niet alles verteld.
Ah, so he does not say that this would require a change of Constitution.
Good that this is clarified 🙂 !
It's clear, Odan always invokes the Constitution thinking that would scare away Congress from making progress with clear majorities, even if it does not involve the Constitution. I'm glad he at least agrees that ''honorary has no function any more'', so hopefully he will vote along to remove text and titles without effect!
It makes sense,
although If I were one of these honorary members discovering my title taken away, I would be very upset. same for their friends.
When the titles were issues, it probably had meaning enough for the country to issue them. Perhaps they saved the country in its dire hour of need for example.. or secured an invaluable alliance that led to building the country to what it is today.
Therefore it would best need to include those former member's opinions on the matter if they can be contacted. It belongs to them, let them vote.
If one just sack titles, ranks etc. when one feels like it, what would be the point of achieving to earn them then? Who would bother?
This could almost be considered a breakdown of country heritage.
If country's heritage was based on 3 people having a title, it would make for quite a bad heritage, I would say 🙂 .
Honorary was enkel voor uitzonderlijke mensen dus logisch dat er daar maar weinig van zijn.
En het feit dat de mogelijkheid om deze titels uit te geven weggegooid is door congres heeft er misschien ook mee te maken dat er nog maar een aantal zijn?
Yes, the title of honorary citizen was so exceptional, nobody has it anymore.
And pardon me for number of "expatriates", there are not 3, but 2, so I was mistaken.
All while the number of actual honorary citizens (= people, who did something exceptional for Netherlands) is quite high, and the number of "expatriates" (former Dutch citizens in good favor with us) even higher. And none of those people actually needs a fancy title to feel good about its accomplishment - because unlike the past, when you needed a fancy title to be relevant for "Forum elites", we value every single citizen, whether current or former 🙂 .
5 keer expat en 2 keer honorary. dat jij iemand niet telt omdat ze in eNL zijn of op dit moment "dood" veranderd niks aan hun status.
2 expatriates and 0 honorary citizens, that is correct.
Nee dat is het niet. er zijn 5 mensen aangewezen als expat en 2 mensen aangewezen als honorary.
Yes, 2 expatriates, and 0 honorary citizens, I agree.
Blijkbaar is janty een klein kind.
I wish you had actual arguments, instead of just lame "insults", odan 🙂 .
Ik zeg de waarheid. er zijn 5 mensen met de expat status en 2 met de honorary status.
Dat jij dit op een of andere manier wilt verdraaien naar jouw eigen onware versie waar er maar 2 mensen zijn met expat en 0 met honorary kan ik niks aan doen.
I guess your truth is different from the reality then. Wouldn't be the first time...
De realiteit is 5 en 2. Dat jij iets anders denkt maakt het nog niet waar.
If you repeat lie 100 times, odan, it does not become truth. Anyone can check himself on the link provided anyway 🙂 .
There are dozens of former citizens, who have done a lot for this country, and have no "imaginary title" to be given to them. There are dozens of current citizens, who have done the same. Why should 3 citizens be highlighted, and the hundreds of them not?
Besides, as said in the article - those titles are meaningless, their only meaning was for people to keep their access to Forum after leaving Netherlands. Forum no longer exists, and we do not require for former citizens to have fancy titles just to be able to talk to us anymore. The only real advantage of being an "expatriate" these days is your CS pass will get accepted quicker. However, that automatically goes for any former Dutch citizen, who does not have a bad standing with our society. As for the other "title" (honorary citizen), it currently is not even owned by anyone. There are much better ways, how to celebrate one's achievements for betterment of this nation, than giving them a meaningless title. In fact, such an act could even be considered as insult by some.
As stated, those "fancy titles" do not mean anything. Their owners do not need them, and can easily live without them. So why still bothering with them in the first place?
Btw. about the "former members opinion"
https://i.postimg.cc/qRjN4Nvt/50.png
🙂
Fine, alright then.
🙂
Somewhat similar to the ''blacklist'', the value of these titles is gone since we completely moved away from Forum (if even there was any, since I clearly remember political bickering over what political friend was eligible for the 'honor'). It was mostly meant to give people with Dutch CS a Forum mask that allowed them to visit certain sub-forums.
Now that that is a thing of the past and we moved on, it both has become antiquated (as in, no privileges of the title can be utilized, nor was there ANY title given out for half a decade) and strikingly inconsistent with other laws and principles of the game we are playing.