Re: CONSENSUS? [ga] DNSO General Assembly call to change seating rule

[Weisberg <weisberg@texoma.net>]

Kent Crispin wrote:

> > > ICANN isn't a government.
> >
> > By what definition?
> >
> > > The entities over which ICANN has direct influence
> >
> > What is that "influence?"
>
> Contractual obligations with ICANN.

I think we are discussing the smell of roses.  The obligations you mention are not
arrived at through negotiation  of the "contracting" parties.  There is a
legislative process which results in uniformly imposed terms.

> > > are registries,
> > > registrars, and standards bodies.  They would constitute the
> > > "governed".
> >
> > Even with that limitation (focusing on the "governed" but not the "affected"),
> > isn't the mechanics of "influencing" the "governed" generally called
> > "government?"
>
> ...Generally, playing stupid word games like that is not
> productive.  We all know what is generally meant by the term "a
> government" -- it is the entity in that controls a sovereign state, and
> most of us believe that some kind of democracy is the best form of "a
> government".

Since I don't share that general understanding, I had to look the term up.  Here is
what I found on the Meriam Webster site:

     1 : the act or process of governing; specifically :
     authoritative direction or control

     2 obsolete : moral conduct or behavior : DISCRETION

     3 a : the office, authority, or function of governing
     b obsolete : the term during which a governing official holds
     office

     4 : the continuous exercise of authority over and the
     performance of functions for a political unit : RULE

     5 a : the organization, machinery, or agency through which
     a political unit exercises authority and performs functions
     and which is usually classified according to the distribution
     of power within it b : the complex of political institutions,
     laws, and customs through which the function of governing
     is carried out

     6 : the body of persons that constitutes the governing
     authority of a political unit or organization: as a : the
     officials comprising the governing body of a political unit
     and constituting the organization as an active agency b
     capitalized : the executive branch of the U.S. federal
     government c capitalized : a small group of persons
     holding simultaneously the principal political executive
     offices of a nation or other political unit and being
     responsible for the direction and supervision of public
     affairs: (1) : such a group in a parliamentary system
     constituted by the cabinet or by the ministry (2) :
     ADMINISTRATION 4b

> ICANN isn't a government;

In the limited sense you posit.

> it isn't a democracy, either.

Isn't that the subject of our discussion, rather than its conclusion?

> Instead it is
> an entity that occupies a niche between numerous other entities, some
> of them very powerful, and provides them a service.

How is that a sequitur (as opposed to a "non sequitur")?

Are you saying that private institutions can not be governed democratically?




--
This message was passed to you via the ga@dnso.org list.
Send mail to majordomo@dnso.org to unsubscribe
("unsubscribe ga" in the body of the message).
Archives at http://www.dnso.org/archives.html