Today both towns renamed themselves. Town A is now Little Falls, and Town B is now Peepopia. The towns have already developed wildly different approaches to lawmaking. Little Falls spent their first meeting making rules, and rules about rules. They changed their rules of order in ways that practically guarantee discussion of each proposal. They spent the entire morning, from 9:00 until recess at 11:15, in meeting. They discussed a police force (it didn't pass), a law against throwing things in the creek (passed), assigned peeps the air rights above the land they eventually have, elected a committee to make the scale map that is required as part of the land agreement, and debated how to divide and assign private plots of land. This land division discussion was still going on at recess and had to be suspended. Each proposal had a thorough discussion. Even if the original proposal was vague, the laws the resulted were quite specific in their wording, thanks to the rules that encourage discussion and prevent one impatient citizen from moving to vote before peeps have had their say.
Over in Peepopia, proposals often go quickly to vote with very little (if any) discussion. After the laws are passed, the citizens notice problems or inconsistencies, and they go back and propose amendments. And more amendments. Often these amendments are small wording changes. The end result of one such law, after it went through several amendments, read like this:
A committee of whoever wants to make the map can make the map to make the town map for us and the town will find out how much land to give everyone before the mapmakers make the map. We pay the mappers $100 each. We pay the mappers $100 each if the map is turned in to Simon Tyler by the time that it's supposed to. The private property has to have equal amount of land and there has to be town property. We make the map at recess until it's done. Volunteer now for who makes the map. We will talk to the other town about how much land to get and decide together.
Without any rule to prevent it happening, the meeting in Peepopia was adjourned by 10:00. This left lots of time for the citizens of Peepopia to finish up their peeps, start to plan their houses, and try to stay busy. Without any land assigned yet, they don't have access to money.
These two approaches each have their advantages and disadvantages. The citizens of Little Falls get plenty of opportunity to think carefully and ask questions about each proposal before it is voted on. Their laws are detailed and clear, but the process is slow, and they sit in meetings for a long time. How much longer will they sustain 2+ hour meetings? On the other hand, Peepopia's process moves much more quickly, and the amendment process allows them to go back and correct mistakes (even if it does end up with laws that are quite a puzzle to read). But, their laws still lack the specificity that allows for confident action to be taken. Will this become an impediment as their village tries to put plans into action? CTO
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