The Libertarian Social Democrats on government
LSD Party Centre
Home Affairs
The peaceful merge of eBelgium and eNetherlands made us a stronger nation. Not only did our population grow, our army and our economy got stronger too. We had to start using English as our main language. This is has not been easy for most of us but it is needed to communicate despite our different languages.
The new nation does not have a constitution. Two months ago citizens were asked to join a group to make a new constitution. The resulting draft was published on the UNL forum and every UNL citizen was invited to debate this draft. The government did not make any progress to get this constitution accepted. Now it is time for a referendum on the constitution.
Last month the tensions between several groups in our nation became very high. Some people said the end of the unity was there. But we have to work on the unity, to make our nation a home for all. LSD supports the working group active on our national forum that is looking for improvements and trying to find solutions for problems we have.
Media & Recruitment
We recently had a baby boom when a popular French games site published an article about eRepublik. The UNL also have their own Baby boom website where people can get invites and receive help to get to know the game. The recruiting activities must go on and do not have to be limited to the www. Magazines, youth organisation of political parties etc. may have a lot of potential gamers to offer. Recruitment is not only a task for the government, so please join the recruiting working group.
The government could do with some help. They should take a more active role in recruiting officials, for example by using advertisements.
Health & Information
A lot has been accomplished in this field, like the coaching program and the much referred to article about how to take care of your wellness.
Coaching needs more priority. Many citizens are stuck on low wellness and do not produce a lot. The government will recruit more coaches so more citizens will be helped and our nation will become more viable.
What more can we do? First, more articles ingame and faq's on our forum are needed to make information about the game more easily accessible for new citizens. Second, we want hospitals in all regions. This can be done if we use some of the profit of every hospital we sell to other countries to build our own hospitals. This will take time, but it will be a good investment in our nation.
Defense
Fighting is very important to gain xp, to keep your wellness high and to rank as a soldier. Therefore we need war games when there is no real war.
We must get more citizens active in the fights. It will give them pleasure, commitment and insight in game mechanics. For this LSD propose to have at least every week an event on IRC where soldiers come together for about two hours. Together we will equip the soldiers, get the wellness restored and attack on the same time our enemy.
To protect our country we need MPP's (Mutual Protection Pacts) with at least one of our allies Hungary, France, Russia or Indonesia.
Foreign Affairs
We must focus on good relations with neighbouring countries. Alliances can change, a time when ambassadors are needed more than ever. The LSD encourages citizens take this important task upon themselves and asks the government to assist our ambassadors as best as they can.
Raws
The Ministry of Resources must repeatedly promote its ministry which purchases raw materials not only for the state-owned enterprises but also for private companies.
Finance
LSD wants to have the taxes as low as possible, especially the VAT because this keeps our economy going. The profit of the state companies make it possible to have such low taxes.
Economics
The government needs to work hard that the grain companies will sell their grain at reasonable prices because grain is our only high resource.
To improve our economy we must give more information on how to lead a private company successfully, to search for export possibilities and when private companies needs investments that would strengthen our economy to make loans possible based on a good business plan.
State Companies & Gold Market
We need a stable gold price to have a strong currency. If our currency devaluates, all workers will have less income and the companies will have to pay more for the import of raws. The government needs to actively stabilise the gold market. For this the government needs to have a lot of NLG and gold. WE can issue a lot more NLG without costs if we ask others to pay for NLG outside the market. (Every NLG printed is only 0.005 gold, on the market it is 0.016 gold.)
The UNL have some state owned companies. Some are needed to create jobs for new citizens with low skills. We cannot depend on private companies to do this because this costs money. The UNL training companies needs to train people on the different skills we need on the job market. Although the state companies do not compete with other companies, some of them do make profit. With these profits we can keep the taxes low and still have money for the government to finance their projects. Some other companies we need to build stocks in a case of war (moving tickets, weapons and gifts). Other companies can influence the market prices when companies together make the price to high with a price agreement.
A nice example of the advantages of having companies run by the government are the cheap Q5 hospitals in Brussels, North and Wallonia, produced by UNL Hospitals. These hospitals would have costed much more gold if we had bought it elsewhere.
We hope that many will support our plans to improve the United Netherlands, to make it more free, stronger and more social.
VOTE FOR LSD
VOTE FOR FREEDOM AND SOLIDARITY!
Comments
Excellent program, the result of strong party leadership and great discussion in the forums. Bravo!
"The new nation does not have a constitution"
We have a constitution, maybe not accurate but we have one. The last months several members of LSD (and other parties ofcourse) used it in articles, comments etc. So saying now we don't have one, is not right.
Deviltje, could you please link me to the current Constitution we are using? It isn't very clearly findable.
The eDutch constitution you can find here:
http://www.enetherlands.nl/viewtopic.php[..]&t=9" target="_blank">http://www.enetherlands.nl/viewtopic.php[..]&t=9
The nation is called in this constitution The Democratic eRepublic of the Netherlands. So either this is a valid constitution but in that case the name of our nation is not the United Netherlands and the current referendum about the constitution cannot work, because as stated in the constitution:
"[Article 19]B. To change the following articles of the eDutch Constitution, ‘Article 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 15B, 19B, 19C, 19D, 26, 35A’, the Congress needs to accept the change twice with at least 90% of the votes, during 2 subsequent governments."
So nothing about a referendum. When Deviltje wants to follow this constitution for getting a new constitution, it is best to bring it twice for the congress and one congress election in between and see if we will get 90% in the congress.
I think it is best to say we have no constitution because of the merge of two nations into one nation. That way we can have a valid constitution far easier and legal.
LSD will not make a problem on this constitutional view.
@cocoamok, maybe just explain then why you have used the constitution in several comments and articles last months. Or did you just suddenly changed your mind and decided we don't have a constitution?
'Although the state companies do not compete with other companies...'
They sure as hell are when it comes to attracting employees. I have had to raise the salaries of my employees several times to stop them from going to work for a state owned company.
@ LobsterTrap, Then you probably are not paying the minimum wage as is set by our Collective Labour Agreement.
U don't have to make a company mate... We just don't want to be exploited xD
@Deviltje: I did not change my mind on the constitution. After the merge I was not thinking the constitution was valid. We merged, it was not an annexation of Belgium. So their laws were as valid as ours. However because many want to follow the eDutch constitution I tell what is in it. So people do know. They can choose what they want. The real debate on this issue is never done. The name change we did is not valid according to the eDutch constitution. I doubt if a merge was according to that constitution. But I never made a conclusion on that. (Maybe my mistake not to start a real debate months ago.) It stated that a merge was not allowed if we would loose our independence. It can be read that when our nation and flag would be the one ingame there is no problem. But on the other hand we are not independent, we are Belgium too. A difficult constitutional situation.
"The government did not make any progress to get this constitution accepted. Now it is time for a referendum on the constitution."
uhm there is a referendum about the constitution..
Indeed there is. When we made our program the minister of Home Affairs stated on the forum that there would not come one from this government. So we could have corrected this. Sorry we did not.
But we all know the new constitution will not get approved because the 75% in it needed to vote in favour will not be reached (and neutrals do not vote and no voters do not vote in favour). So we will need again work on a constitution.
For people who want to vote in this referendum see here:
http://www.enetherlands.nl/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=2867" target="_blank">http://www.enetherlands.nl/viewtopic.php[..]2867
You need to be registered on the national forum and be as citizen of our nation registered to be able to vote.
Cocoamok and others have made several comments about the constitution not being up to date and a need for change.
However, using quotes from the old constitution is logical, as it is the ONLY thing we can work with at the moment.
Bla bla Constitution, bla bla mud throw here mud throw there, do I see a old corpse around here somewhere or did some one just went to visit the graveyard? 🙂
I support Dion here 🙂