NationStates Jolt Archive

Honored Ambassador,

The United Nations Association -- Mikitivity would like to conduct a survey to feel out the NS UN forum’s interest in various UN resolution categories. Previous surveys were conducted and have been analyzed in the UNA White Paper 2005-01. This survey is designed to test to see if the opinion of nations has changed since the past survey and to extend the work of the previous surveys. These results will be archived and shared with UN members and non-members in order to facilitate better proposal writing.

Since national opinions are subject to change, this survey is limited for 30-days and will be conducted again at a future date.

As your schedule permits, please respond to the poll included with this survey. These responses are general, but comments (in the form of a post) are most welcomed and will be reviewed and shared along side the poll results. I think you’ll be pleased with the graphics we plan to share based on these survey results!

Background
(taken from the official UN description of Human Rights and Moral Decency resolutions):


Human Rights
A resolution to improve worldwide human and civil rights.

Moral Decency
A resolution to restrict civil freedoms in the interest of moral decency.

These are exactly opposed types of resolutions and affect Civil Freedoms. "Human Rights" increases these freedoms while "Moral Decency" reduces them. Remember that these freedoms primarily discuss the domestic Civil policies of UN member nations; Shall the UN require its members to exert more or less control over the personal aspects of the lives of their citizens/subjects? If it's an issue about how you choose to live your life (or if you have a choice), then it's Civil Freedoms. Total Personal/Civil Freedoms are one of the components of Anarchy. Zero Civil Freedoms are Totalitarian regimes.

"Mild" versions of either category will push nations in a particular direction, but only as far as the center. Stronger versions will push nations towards a more extreme end of the spectrum.

A printer friendly copy of all 4 UN Moral Decency resolutions (passed and failed) is available at the UNA archive:
http://pweb.netcom.com/~mierzwa10k/una/MD.pdf

Here is a chronological list of the 4 Moral Decency resolutions that have been brought to the UN floor to date:

Outlaw Pedophilia (#22)
No marriage Under Age of 15 (failed)
Good Samaritan Laws (#76)
Epidemic Prevention Protocol (#77)

The question:
How likely are you to support a UN Moral Decency Resolution?

Always (We supported all of them)
Very Likely (We supported 75% to 100% of them)
Likely (We supported 50% to 75% of them)
Unlikely (We supported 25% to 50% of them)
Very Unlikely (We supported 0% to 25% of them)
Never (We supported none of them)
other – please explain

After answering this survey, please consider also answering the Social Justice and Free Trade surveys which is designed to work along side this survey. http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=409257
http://forums.jolt.co.uk/showthread.php?t=409457

Thank you,
Janet Van Dyne
Chairwoman, United Nations Association -- Mikitivity

may we ask, what is with all these surveys? and who is funding them?

Krioval has a love-hate relationship with this category, and our civil rights rating has been everywhere from excellent (where it is now) to average (after a UN repeal plus a right-wing government). Basically, anything that involves an adult or several adults doing things that involve no victims will be considered acceptable to us. So I chose "unlikely" in that I'd have supported "Outlaw Pedophilia" and possibly one of the others.

may we ask, what is with all these surveys? and who is funding them?

Sure. The surveys are an attempt to collect information on the voting preferences of UN members. In the past UN members have been accused of "vote wanking", which is a rude way of saying that many UN members do not read the text of the UN resolutions, but vote based on how a resolution will change their game statistics.

By comparing the level of support shown by voting records with the level of support vocalized for general categories, we've been able in the past to illustrate that UN members show that while their are categories they favor, that they will in fact base their support for resolutions more so on the text of the resolutions (see UNA White Paper 2005-01 (http://pweb.netcom.com/~mierzwa10k/una/una-200501.pdf)).

However, the previous survey was limited to only a few resolution categories. Furthermore, while the sample sizes were between 40 and 70 nations, it is difficult to tell if 40 nations are enough to represent the voting trends exhibited by 10,000 to 15,000 nations (a rough guess of the number of voting nations).

Please answer the polls. The UNA will not be arguing for or against a nation's vote. We've already invited several centralist and one conservative and one liberal regions to participate. Your help in getting more nations to fill out the surveys will mean we can bump that number from 40 to perhaps 140! :)

The funding for this project is coming from the UNA-Mikitivity. The UNA-Mikitivity does in fact recieve grant money from private citizens in the International Democratic Union in addition to some government grants from Mikitivity and a few other International Democratic Union nations. However, that pro-democracy region is a strong supporter of transparency, and has stressed to the UNA-Mikitivity chapter the need to be accomidating to the opinions of UN members. (Bottom line, your tax dollars are not paying for these surveys.)

Thank you,
Janet Van-Dyne
Chairwoman, UNA-Mikitivity

thank you for clearing it up. for us, it depends on the subject matter. we dont like to dictate what is or isnt moral, and we dont like others morals forced on us. some exceptions, such as pedophilia and such, we will vote on.

Get your Dogma off my leg!

Erg... I supported three of them (I think), but this really isn't my favourite category. Usually I'm in favour of increasing civil rights. Maybe it's just a case of the inherent difficulty of getting a proposal to quorum, leading to most resolutions already being generally agreeable. That said, there hasn't been a Moral Decency one for a while, so I'm not sure how I'd go for a new one. Depends on the proposal in question.

I hope that made sense. I'm tired, and tend to ramble when I'm tired.

I think I'd rather kill myself thats my explanation of my "other" choice. Heh who needs morality any way?

Erg... I supported three of them (I think), but this really isn't my favourite category. Usually I'm in favour of increasing civil rights. Maybe it's just a case of the inherent difficulty of getting a proposal to quorum, leading to most resolutions already being generally agreeable. That said, there hasn't been a Moral Decency one for a while, so I'm not sure how I'd go for a new one. Depends on the proposal in question.

I hope that made sense. I'm tired, and tend to ramble when I'm tired.

It does, because that was the conclusion from the UNA white paper. :) A point that thought confirmed by the statistics then, we are hoping to reaffirm with this series of surveys.

This implies that though nations are less interested in actively discussing issues that decrease civil freedoms, that a well presented argument and carefully worded resolution can in fact achieve more support than a poorly worded resolution. In other words, it appears that there is amble evidence in the number of resolutions that reaches the UN floors and the voting trends and surveyed responses of nations to suggest that while UN members are interested in promoting increases in issues like civil freedoms, that they are also reading the text and arguments behind resolution ideas and voting based on the ideas presented.

That is why it is extremely important to the UNA that regional delegates post the links to the survey's on their regional forums and ask that members participate.

Thank you!

'Moral Decency'. It's the kind of phrase that makes us reconsider the bogeyman status of 'Free Trade'.

That's a 'very unlikely', by the way.

Mathieu Vergniaud
Deputy Speaker to the UN

We fail to see how anyone would not support moral decency.

Because each person, let alone nation, has different moral standards. There are very few universal laws. What one person might think is an abomination might be commonplace somewhere else.

Since when is it the job on the United Nations to regulate Morality?

Exactly.

We fail to see how anyone would not support moral decency.
that is because we have varying degrees on what constitute moral

We have or would have supported 2 of the moral decency resolutions that have made the floor. However, we usually aren't keen on the kinds of legislation that mostly comes up as moral decency, since we generally believe maximising freedom to be the more moral choice - in fact we view those moral decency resolutions that we have supported as increasing the freedom of the individual from other individuals by restricting the freedom of those other individuals.

Unlikely (We supported 25% to 50% of them)

Moral decensy should be left to a country's own rights to decide what is best. Rulers simply have to different idea's on humanity.

that is because we have varying degrees on what constitute moral

Exactly. And I'm wondering why the UN have such sweeping resolutions in its charter. What is moral and acceptable in one country may not be acceptable in another. But what do we get when we want to protect our diverse cultures? We get labeled as "bigots." That's how "tolerant" they are.

Its very difficult to standardize customs which are inherently different from one person to another. I suggest that we avoid resolutions that are too hot to handle and repeal very controversial ones and allow individual UN States to place a local community standard on morality.

Exactly. And I'm wondering why the UN have such sweeping resolutions in its charter. What is moral and acceptable in one country may not be acceptable in another. But what do we get when we want to protect our diverse cultures? We get labeled as "bigots." That's how "tolerant" they are.

Its very difficult to standardize customs which are inherently different from one person to another. I suggest that we avoid resolutions that are too hot to handle and repeal very controversial ones and allow individual UN States to place a local community standard on morality.

We see the UN mostly as a mechanism for us to contribute to the protection of the rights and freedoms of foreign citizens from their governments. What it comes down to is that people have different views of morality, and whilst we are prepared to tolerate other people holding and expressing their own opinions, we aren't prepared to tolerate their infliction of those opinions on other people.