Republicans of Terra

Organisations involving national governments as members.

Republicans of Terra

Postby Polites » Sun Jul 22, 2018 1:16 pm

REPUBLICANS OF TERRA

http://classic.particracy.net/vieworgan ... ionid=4999

The Republicans of Terra is an international party organization founded in May 4415 with the goal of providing international representation and institutional coordination between the various Republican parties across Terra. The organization is dedicated to civil rights and political equality for all citizens, while avoiding more substantial ideological positioning in order to accommodate different views and the distinct circumstances of each nation. The Republicans of Terra was founded by the People's Communist Coalition of Mordusia, which now chairs the organization together with the Republican Party of Selucia. The main governing body of the Republicans of Terra is the biennial conference, organized every other year since 4418. Six conferences have taken place so far, focused on building the organizational infrastructure of the Republicans of Terra, expanding its membership, and electing its leadership. This year (4428) the conference takes place in the city of Assedo in Selucia, an ancient city that once served as the meeting place of the Selucian League, an association of independent city-states and the center of the ancient Selucian fight for independence, and now serving as the capital of Selucia's naval power. During the previous conferences the participating parties agreed to organize a more thorough investigation of the goals and views of the Republicans of Terra during the Assedo conference, and the organization now invites attendees to provide their views on these topics. Senator Hiroto Yukimura of the Republican Party of Selucia, who previously served as Consul of Selucia and later as Foreign Minister, chairs this meeting on behalf of the Republican Party. The topics to be discussed are the following:

I. What is Republicanism and how does it differ from other ideologies?

II. Is Republican thought still relevant in the modern age?

III. How does the Republicans of Terra differ from other republican organizations?

IV. What are the strategies that will increase the organization's visibility and coordination among member parties?
Polites
 
Posts: 3198
Joined: Tue May 11, 2010 3:48 pm

Re: Republicans of Terra

Postby Polites » Sun Jul 22, 2018 2:49 pm

The first to take the word and address the Assedo conference is Hiroto Yukimura, representing Selucia's Republican Party:

Honored delegates and guests, it is with great pleasure that I welcome you to this ancient city, the birthplace of Selucian Republicanism and a beacon for the struggle for self-governance under Republican principles everywhere. It is fitting then that this sixth conference takes place in this symbolic city, where the light of Republicanism can once again shine.

For the past few centuries, and especially during the last half century, we have seen a resurgence of Republican thought and values. Although this resurgence has mostly been academic, several political movements and parties have explicitly adopted Republican views in their platforms. So our first task as self-proclaimed Republicans is to determine what we actually mean by that word. Unfortunately, during the long global dominance of liberalism since the 19th century, the word "Republican" stopped referring to a comprehensive set of beliefs and became a synonym for mere anti-monarchism. We think this is a mistake. If the Republicans of Terra don't move away from simple anti-monarchism, we risk becoming both redundant and irrelevant at the same time. We would become redundant because there already is a large international organization founded on anti-monarchism, the Alliance of Terran Republics, which in centuries past was one of the two Terran power-blocs aimed explicitly against the International Monarchist League. If we don't differentiate ourselves from the ATR then there is no reason for us to spend valuable time and resources in building this separate organization. And by focusing on narrow anti-monarchism we also become irrelevant. There is no global resurgence of monarchies across Terra, no distinct threat from monarchist regimes to world peace, and, as we have learned, it is usually far easier to dethrone than to establish a monarchy. There are of course monarchies in Terra, and some of those are genuinely dangerous. But they are dangerous not because their head of state is called "King" or "Emperor" or "Khan", they are dangerous because they are expansionist and militarily powerful, a feature they share with numerous nations that instead have a "President" as head of state. We thus need to move beyond knee-jerk anti-monarchism towards a more substantive understanding of what sets us apart from rival ideologies like liberalism in all its forms, including conservatism.

Thankfully we have millennia of literature and experience that could help us articulate a distinct ideology that, while respecting different goals and political doctrines, has the advantage of being both relevant and distinctive. Republicanism has its roots in the political thought and historic experience of the Kalopian and Selucian city-states and the Cildanian Hegemony, and Republican thought flourished and matured during the Renascentia. Republicanism was influential in the founding of independent Hulstria and was rediscovered in Selucia during its modern refounding. Republican thought was one of the first ideological perspectives adopted by organized labor during the early 19th century, until it was overshadowed by Metzism, which however derived much of its language from Republican themes. And now Republicanism is experiencing a revival in Selucia, Mordusia, Likatonia, Kalistan, Dundorf, and many other nations across the globe.

Honored delegates, this history of Republican values encourages us to believe that, far from being a mere historical anecdote in the prehistory of liberalism, Republicanism offers a compelling theoretical and political framework for modern times. Although Republicanism may have similar origins and offer similar solutions as those of its bastard child known as liberalism, including an emphasis on the rule of law, political equality, and checks and balances, there is much that sets us apart. With our more communitarian orientation, explicit focus on the necessity of the state, and a dedication to civic virtue rather than neutrality towards individual behavior and conceptions of the good life, we have the ability to offer a distinct alternative to liberalism while recognizing our common roots.

The main thing that sets us apart from liberalism is our distinct understanding of freedom. Like liberalism we believe liberty is indeed the highest good, but we refuse the dominance of the liberal understanding of liberty which, with its claim of being the only relevant definition, brushes aside our own, older and more powerful, definition of that supreme good. There are two rival and competing theories of negative liberty. The dominant liberal theory sees liberty as "non-interference", while our own Republican theory defines liberty as "non-domination". Whereas liberals only concern themselves with the narrow cases when others actually interfere with our choices, we are concerned with the wider condition in which others can interfere even when they never actually do so. For Republicans the greatest evil is enslavement and subjection to the will of another, and the supreme good is independence. For ancient Selucians, what distinguishes the free man, the liber, from the slave or servus is not that the former is not being interfered with, but rather that he is not subject to a dominus or master, no matter how benevolent that master is. And they believed that the only way to avoid dominatio was to be invested with the power and status of a civis or citizen. We believe that this ancient insight is very much relevant today, as we rediscover that the great evil is dependence on another's will, that the benevolence of that will is irrelevant, that servitudes vary in their form and misery but are servitudes nonetheless.

Honored guests, our political tradition once fought a centuries long struggle against the newer and more impoverished form of freedom, which took the form of the political conflict between republican parliamentarians and liberal monarchists. The latter won the day and over the centuries they have come to convince us that there are only two relevant ways of talking about freedom, one negative and one positive, and that the former is the more acceptable. When we concede that the liberals are right and that this is the only way to talk about freedom we implicitly concede our defeat and we constrain our political imagination. And this is not some minor academic dispute between rival philosophical schools. These unnatural ways of thinking about freedom serve certain interests, those of the same class that first gave this newer conception currency and dominance. This original class of profit-seeking entrepreneurs and professionals is still with us today and still runs the world, which they have conquered not only with money, but with ideas as well. Their self-serving views on liberty blind them to the certain kinds of unfreedom that appear in the private economic domain or in the family. If we are to successfully challenge the narrow and self-serving understanding of liberty we must ourselves transcend the historical origins of our beliefs and acknowledge that our own values once served the interests of a privileged sector of society. Republicanism was founded by slave owners who wanted to be free. Their belief that servitude is the great evil only extended to the tyranny of the magistrates, of the kings, and of parliaments, while they themselves remained petty tyrants over their own domains. The great power of the Republican ideal lies in its ability to adopt the language of the old oppressors and demolish their own oppression. The liber of ancient times did not believe that enslavement and subjection to the will of another are the greatest evil because he hated slavery, but because he believed he did not deserve the servitude that others rightfully deserve. If we are to become free ourselves and apply and adopt the ancient wisdom behind the Republican understanding of freedom to modern times we must also recognize the fact that Republicanism was once an aristocratic, patriarchal, and militaristic ideology. With the growth of Republican movements throughout Terra and the very existence of this organization I have much hope that we can apply ancient lessons to global politics while moving beyond the parochial origins of these lessons. If we do so we will find that there is much in Republican thought that addresses our most immediate and pressing concerns and provides solutions to the most threatening global crises. We will find a way to address the unprecedented accumulation of wealth, the development of rapacious capitalism and the unspeakable environmental damage it causes, and the rise of imperialist power blocs, and we will find ways to address sources of domination and inequality that the ancients did not even dream would be possible. It is my sincere hope that, if the Republicans of Terra adopt a more comprehensive ideology we can successfully challenge liberalism and dethrone it from its undeserved position of dominance.
Polites
 
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Joined: Tue May 11, 2010 3:48 pm


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