Re: Election Dates
On Wed, 16 Dec 1998, Darren Benham wrote:
>
> On 16-Dec-98 Mike Goldman wrote:
> > Nothing prevents other prospective candidates from nominating themselves now,
> > or even
> > campaigning in advance of formal nomination. If you and the other present
> > candidates
> > all want to keep quiet between now and the end of the nomination period, that
> > is fine,
> > but if there is less than unanimous agreement to do so, you do not have a
> > unilateral
> > right to prevent others from campaigning.
>
> If the constitution is violating someone's "free speech", submit a proposal to
> have it changed. If you think I'm reading the constitution wrong, tell me...
> but these are two different issues. Saying that "not allowing campaigning
> during the first three weeks violates your free speech rights" is not going to
> change the fact the the constitution that Debian adopted and agreed (in this
> case, lack of a negative vote is assumed to be quiet acceptance) to abide by
> says no campaigning during the the nomination period.
The constitution says no such thing. Point to the clause that restricts
campaigning. The only clause I see says that the vote is delayed for a
period to allow campaigning. It doesn't say that campaigning outside this
time period is not allowed.
I should also point out that, as there are no penalties detailed for such
actions, there was no intent to keep people from talking about their
nomination. In any case, how would you differentiate between non-campaign
speech and campaign speech?
As you can see, I don't agree with your reading of the constitution, as it
draws on inference rather than any actual statement by the document. I
learned early on in school not to read anything into a true/false
question, but only take what was stated.
Simply because some behavior is not specifically allowed in the
constitution does not infer or imply that those behaviors are disallowed.
Breathing, eating, and sex...sorry...sex, breathing, and eating are not
discussed in this document. Are they assumed to be inappropriate behavior
for a Debian developer? If they are, I'm out-of-here ;-)
>
> I can already hear somebody saying "but I didn't accept, I didn't even vote"
> but I don't think that's a valid argument, either, for disregarding what the
> constitution says.
I did vote, so I have a right to complain...right?
In any case, no one is suggesting that we ignore the constitution, only
that it be interpreted in a more reasoned fashion.
Luck,
Dwarf
--
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