The Gaslight

It seems that if the goal of a people is to create a thriving society, it is very sensible for it to have a state with a constitution that has a bill of rights that is very carefully thought out with the goal of perpetuating liberty in mind, since comparatively free societies would seem to tend to be relatively thriving. It is, of course, necessary for a state that guarantees basic rights and liberties in such a way to be fairly prosocial as a whole in order for the society in which it exists to do well, and it seems that it might be possible to build a state that is considerably more prosocial than what have existed so far, and in order for a state to achieve this level of prosociality, it should in my opinion also have the features described below in addition to a number of others:

The state should be a federal elective constitutional monarchy with a dual-executive system and a bicameral parliament. The monarch should be elected directly with a two-round system, and they should be dethronable by electing a replacement. The realm should also have a lieutenant monarch who should be elected alongside the monarch in normal elections, and candidates for lieutenant monarch should be chosen by the candidates for monarch at least one hundred days before monarchical elections. The monarch and the lieutenant monarch should not be allowed to be members of political parties. Monarchical elections should be callable with initiatives signed by some reasonable percentage of the electorate, but it should normally not be possible to call a monarchical election with such an initiative within some sensible length of time from the previous successful initiative to call a monarchical election. The monarch and both chambers of the parliament should also be able to call monarchical elections, but the latter should be able to call them only as frequently as the electorate. Whenever a monarchical election is called, it should be held within a year. As the monarch would be elected and also dethronable with direct elections, it seems fairly reasonable for them to have rather significant powers.
The candidate for head of government should normally be nominated by the lower chamber of the parliament, but it should also be able to delegate nominating the candidate to the monarch. The candidate for head of government should then naturally form a potential cabinet, and it should, of course, need to receive a vote of confidence from the lower chamber in order to become a governing cabinet, and if it doesn’t receive a vote of confidence, the potential cabinet should be dissolved, and the process should naturally start over. The lower chamber should, of course, be able to dismiss the cabinet at any time by passing a motion of no confidence. The head of government should be able to present a motion of confidence to the lower chamber, and if it does not pass, the cabinet should be dismissed. If the cabinet is dismissed, the monarch should be able to appoint a caretaker cabinet composed of independents.
The presiding officer of the lower chamber should be elected by its members, and nominating a candidate for presiding officer should require at least ten members including at least three with a different party affiliation than the candidate. The presiding officer should not be allowed to be a member of any political party. The lieutenant monarch should be the presiding officer of the upper chamber. Neither presiding officer should be able to cast votes in the chambers over which they preside, except to break ties. Both chambers should have to appoint a member as a lieutenant presiding officer who would naturally be the acting presiding officer whenever their presiding officer is absent. Only the actual presiding officers should be able to cast tie-breaking votes, but acting presiding officers should, of course, be able to vote normally.
Members of both chambers of the parliament should be able to introduce bills, and both chambers should be able to amend bills passed by the other chamber. The electoral term of the lower chamber should be five years, and the electoral term of the upper chamber should be ten years.
The electorate should be able to call early elections to both chambers of the parliament with initiatives, but it should not be possible to call early elections to both chambers with a single initiative. The head of government should be able to call an early election to the lower chamber of the parliament at any time, and an early election to the upper chamber should be held if a simple majority of it votes in favour of calling one.
Changing the constitution should require two successive lower chambers of the parliament, the upper chamber of the parliament, and the electorate voting in favour of the proposed change with two-thirds majorities, in that order.

There should be multiple independent election commissions, and they should perhaps be considered to be a separate branch of government. Ten seems like a suitable amount of commissioners per commission, and the commissioners should be appointed for ten year terms, and they should continue serving after the ends of their terms until they are replaced. They should not be allowed to be members of parties nor otherwise clearly affiliated with parties.
Commissioner candidates should normally be nominated by the monarch, and they should be approved by two thirds of the upper chamber of the parliament in order to be appointed. It should be possible to appoint only a single commissioner to each commission per year, except when a commissioner resigns or dies, in which case it should also be possible to also appoint a replacement for the remainder of the term of the commissioner who resigned or died.
The commissions should be initially composed of acting commissioners, and these acting commissioners should be chosen by lottery from a public pool of volunteers approved by the monarch and the parliament. The acting commissioners should then be replaced by commissioners appointed with the normal procedure, and each time a commissioner is appointed to a commission, the acting commissioner to be replaced in it should be chosen by lottery if there are at least two acting commissioners in the commission in question, naturally.

Depending on the type of election, each partaking party/electoral alliance or candidate should be allowed to appoint scrutineers, but there should naturally also be a cap on the number of scrutineers appointed by each partaking party/alliance or candidate, perhaps up to two per polling booth, and they should be appointed, for example, at least ten days before elections.
Election officials should be paid fairly for their work, and the amounts they would be paid should also be tied to the cost-of-living index.

The supreme court should have the power to strike down statutes and parts of statutes it deems unconstitutional. Judges’ appointments to all federal courts should be for indefinite terms, the candidates should be nominated by the monarch, and for a candidate to be appointed, at least two thirds of the upper chamber of the parliament should have to vote in favour of appointing them. Every candidate should be voted on separately. Judges should not have a set retirement age, and the constitution should clearly forbid setting one. The number of positions in the supreme court should be odd and set in the constitution: nine and eleven seem like the most reasonable options. The supreme court should be able to appoint temporary investigative committees, and the members of these committees should be able to investigate whatever the court tells them to investigate much like police officers. The supreme court should also have the right to order election audits and to make rulings on the outcomes of elections based on the results of such audits.

Both chambers of the parliament should also be able to appoint temporary investigative committees, and both chambers should be able to issue subpoenas to compel to produce evidence to be used in parliamentary hearings and to compel witnesses to testify in such hearings. Ignoring a parliamentary subpoena should be a felony for which the punishment should be a fine and one to ten years of imprisonment. Investigative committees appointed by the chambers of the parliament should also be able to issue subpoenas, and subpoenas issued by them should be considered parliamentary subpoenas.

The monarch should have the right to grant respites, reprieves, and pardons and to commute and remit sentences, both conditionally and unconditionally, but they should not be able to use this right pre-emptively. This right should only apply to convictions under federal law. It should also be automatically suspended if a monarchical election has been called and remain suspended until the results of the election have been verified, or until the monarch-elect has been coronated if the incumbent loses the election. The parliament should be able to grant amnesties for violations of federal law.

It might be best for the primary investigative federal police service to also be the federal security intelligence service. Alongside a service of this kind there should be a federal military police service, i.e. a gendarmerie that should also be the border security force, and these services should naturally assist each other whenever necessary. The general idea is, of course, to make federal internal security work fairly efficient, but such services should naturally have ample and well thought out supervision. The rest of the armed forces and the foreign intelligence service should, of course, have such supervision too. Thus, the primary federal investigative police and security intelligence service, the foreign intelligence service, the gendarmerie, and the rest of the federal armed forces should be supervised by the monarch, the lieutenant monarch, both chambers of the parliament (primarily via internal affairs committees), the head of government, people appointed for the purpose by the monarch, directly elected people with no other official duties, and independent supervision commissions (three or more supervising the investigative police and security intelligence service, at least two supervising the foreign intelligence service, two or more supervising the gendarmerie, and at least three supervising the rest of the federal armed forces) in addition to the ministries that they are subordinate to, of course. All of the supervision commissions should have ten commissioners, and the supervision commissioners should be appointed one at a time by the parliament with two-thirds majorities. The commissioners should serve ten year terms, and only one should be appointed to each commission per year, except when a commissioner resigns or dies, in which case it should also be possible to also appoint a replacement for the remainder of the term of the commissioner who resigned or died. The commissions should start with acting commissioners chosen by lottery, and the acting commissioners should then be replaced by commissioners appointed with the normal procedure, and each time a commissioner is appointed to a commission, the acting commissioner to be replaced should be chosen by lottery if there are at least two acting commissioners in the commission.

All law enforcement, intelligence, and military personnel should be forbidden from being members of political parties, except when necessary during intelligence gathering activities and criminal investigations, of course, and the punishments for violating this ban should be fairly severe; quasi-membership, i.e. connections to political parties comparable to those of members should, of course, also be punishable. Simply forbidding everyone in the public sector, except members of legislatures, their assistants, the members of the cabinet/federal executive council and the executive councils of the intrarealm polities’ legislatures, and the assistants of the members of the executive councils from being members and quasi-members of political parties seems like a fairly reasonable solution too.

All directly elected public officials should be removable from their offices by electing replacements for them. All federal public servants, except election commissioners, judges, members of investigative committees appointed by the supreme court, supervision commissioners, and members of investigative committees appointed by the parliament should be accountable to the monarch, and the monarch should be able to subject federal public servants, with the aforementioned exceptions, to a number of disciplinary measures: the monarch should be able to officially reprimand them in a public manner, demote them, reduce their pay by half or less for up to ten years, put them on unpaid leave for a fixed period of time or indefinitely, to dismiss them, and to partially or fully deny them pensions they would normally be entitled to as a result of working as federal public servants, and the monarch should, of course, also be able to reverse and change such punishments. The monarch should also have the right to ban people from being federal public servants for a given term or indefinitely and naturally also the right to remove such bans. The assistants of the members of the parliament and the cabinet should naturally not be considered public servants. These disciplinary powers and the right to ban people from being federal public servants should be automatically suspended if a monarchical election has been called, and stay suspended at least until the election results have been verified, or until the monarch-elect has been coronated if the incumbent loses the election.
Both chambers of the parliament should, of course, also have disciplinary powers, but they should more extensive than those of the monarch: both chambers should be able to subject all federal public servants to the disciplinary measures described above, but doing so to judges, election commissioners, supervision commissioners, and members of investigative commissions appointed by the supreme court should require two-thirds majorities if the monarch does not object to doing so and four fifths majorities if they do. Both chambers of the parliament should naturally also be able to ban people from being federal public servants and to remove such bans.
It seems that disciplinary powers like these would serve as fairly decent incentives for federal public servants to be relatively keen to, well, serve the public and also act appropriately towards other public servants, or in other words, as strong deterrents against non-, mis-, and malfeasance as well as other types of obviously inappropriate behaviour by federal public servants. The use of these disciplinary powers should, of course, be made public without exception via an official newspaper, of which there should naturally also be an online edition.

The monarch should be able to veto bills passed by the parliament, but the parliament should be able to override vetoes with two-thirds majorities. The monarch should also have the right to introduce bills to the parliament in order for them to have at least some ability to sidestep parliamentary deadlocks, or in other words, essentially to ”rule by prestige” in this way as necessary, and they should also have a right to call both advisory and binding referendums about issues and bills as a backup right. If the monarch has these rights, it would seem fairly sensible to have a parliament elected with a system of representation that is as fully proportional as reasonably possible: such a system seems like the most appropriate option, as it would be relatively respectful of the will of the voters, especially in comparison to pure first-past-the-post systems, which are often defended with claims that they typically produce functional cabinets due to only one party or a coalition of two parties usually having the majority of the seats in the parliament, which obviously is at least somewhat true, but equally obviously also very unideal in the sense that a very large proportion of the votes cast in parliamentary elections essentially does not matter in such systems, which is rather clearly quite the deficiency in a democracy.
Having just a single constituency for the federal parliament would also seem to be the most appropriate option: with a single realm-wide constituency the problem of hidden electoral thresholds would be neatly avoided, and if this is combined with an open-list system, elections would, of course, also be less about voting for parties and more about voting for specific candidates, and considering that the primary duty of the parliament of the realm would be to take care of matters concerning the entire realm, having only a single constituency for the federal parliament seems rather sensible indeed.
Independent candidates could, of course, also run in a system like this, but all candidates should, however, naturally be on an electoral list of some kind. If a list gets enough votes for more people to be elected from it than there are people on the list, the surplus seats should simply be left unfilled.

Establishing a system of direct democracy alongside representative democracy should be seriously considered, since it seems that direct democracy can be another fairly effective way of safeguarding the interests of the electorate. It can, of course, be somewhat problematic too if the electorate votes against the public interest due to, for example, good intentions combined with ignorance. If the electorate can elect at least somewhat enlightened and competent monarchs, and if the monarchs have reasonably considerable powers, having a system of direct democracy alongside representative democracy does not seem absolutely necessary from the public interest point of view, but it might be best to have a system of direct democracy too if the average voter is relatively capable of making informed voting decisions.

The monarch should be able to make the lieutenant monarch regent for an indefinite length of time by notifying the parliament about the matter via the presiding officer of the lower chamber of the parliament and the lieutenant presiding officer of the upper chamber of the parliament, and if they have done so, they should be able to resume reigning at any time in the same way.
If the position of lieutenant monarch becomes vacant, the monarch should be obligated to appoint an acting replacement within ten days of the position becoming vacant, and the person in question should also automatically become a candidate for lieutenant monarch, and them becoming lieutenant monarch should be subject to approval by the electorate. This replacement process should take place within a hundred days from the position becoming vacant, and if the electorate rejects the nominee, the process should start over.
If the monarch does not appoint an acting lieutenant monarch within ten days of the of start of the replacement process, the person who would normally be second in the line of succession should become acting lieutenant monarch, and a monarchical election should be automatically called. The presiding officer of the lower chamber of the parliament should be second in the line of succession, and they should be followed in it by the lieutenant presiding officer of the upper chamber, the head of government, the second most senior cabinet member, and so forth. The line of succession should also include at least all members of the parliament in order of seniority (determined by how long they have been members of the parliament), and there should also be a designated-survivor system.
If the monarch or regent is clearly unable to reign and communicate, i.e. obviously incapacitated or if they are missing and they have not made the lieutenant monarch or acting lieutenant monarch regent before becoming incapacitated or going missing, the lieutenant monarch or acting lieutenant monarch should become regent automatically, and the monarch or previous regent should be able to resume reigning in the normal manner described above. If the monarch or regent is incapacitated or missing and there is no lieutenant monarch nor acting lieutenant monarch, or if both the monarch/regent and the lieutenant monarch/acting lieutenant monarch are incapacitated or missing, the first person in the line of succession who is capable of reigning and willing to reign should become regent, but the monarch or previous regent should be able to resume reigning in the normal manner, and if they resume reigning, the person who was regent before that should naturally become acting lieutenant monarch and allowed to remain in the position until the monarch appoints one, but if the monarch does not appoint an acting lieutenant monarch within ten days of the the position of lieutenant monarch becoming vacant, a monarchical election should be called, and if the monarch has not resumed reigning, the regent should be allowed remain regent until a monarch-elect is coronated.
Only the lieutenant monarch should be able to become monarch upon the throne becoming vacant, and if there is no lieutenant monarch when the throne becomes vacant, a monarchical election should be held within a year, and the throne and the position of lieutenant monarch should naturally be filled with acting occupants until the monarch-elect is coronated.
If a monarch-elect declines to be coronated or dies before they are coronated, the lieutenant monarch-elect should be coronated as monarch, and if the lieutenant monarch-elect cannot be coronated either, a new monarchical election should be held within a year, and the throne and the position of lieutenant monarch should, of course, be filled with acting occupants until the coronation.
If a majority of the cabinet and the lieutenant monarch/acting lieutenant monarch declare to both chambers of the parliament in writing via the presiding officer of the lower chamber of the parliament and the lieutenant presiding officer of the upper chamber of the parliament that the monarch is unable to reign, the lieutenant monarch/acting lieutenant monarch should become regent. If the monarch thereafter declares to both chambers of the parliament that they are not unable to reign, they should be able to resume reigning in ten days if the lieutenant monarch/acting lieutenant monarch and a majority of the cabinet do not declare to both chambers of the parliament that the monarch is unable to reign within the ten days following the monarch declaring that they are not unable to reign, but if the lieutenant monarch/acting lieutenant monarch and a majority of the cabinet make such a declaration, the parliament should vote on the matter, and if two thirds of both chambers of the parliament vote in favour of declaring the monarch unable to reign, the lieutenant monarch/acting lieutenant monarch should remain regent, and a monarchical election should be held within a year.
The monarch should be able to swap positions with the lieutenant monarch by giving a formal notification about the matter to both chambers of the parliament, both in writing and in person and then making an official televised announcement about it. Both abdicating and resigning from the position of lieutenant monarch should require a similar procedure.
If the lieutenant monarch becomes the monarch, both chambers of the parliament and the electorate should be able to call a monarchical election right away.

Duchy, county, and barony seem like suitable terms for the first-, second-, and third-level intrarealm polities, and their heads and lieutenant heads should have corresponding titles. Counties bordering other sovereign states should perhaps be called marches.
Baronies should be the municipal level of administration. Coextensive intrarealm polities should naturally be combined, but it seems best to avoid cities being first level intrarealm polities so that they would be more in touch and better integrated with the areas surrounding them, and vice versa.
It should be possible for counties and baronies to be parts of the federation directly, and it seems that special county and special barony would be at least sufficiently suitable terms for such intrarealm polities, and that special intrarealm polities would be an at least somewhat reasonable term for them collectively.
If an intrarealm polity has had less than 250 000 inhabitants for ten years in a row, it should not be able to be a duchy, and if a county has less than 50 000 inhabitants for ten years in a row, it should automatically become a barony. Baronies should have at least 10 000 inhabitants, and if a barony has less than 10 000 inhabitants for ten years in a row, it should have to merge with another barony. If the population of a duchy is less than 250 000 inhabitants for ten years in a row, it should automatically become a special county, and if a special county has less than 50 000 inhabitants for ten years in a row, it should automatically become a special barony. If a special county has more than 250 000 inhabitants for ten years in a row, it should automatically become a duchy, and if a special barony has more than 50 000 inhabitants for ten years in a row, it should automatically become a special county.
Islands and island groups of the realm that are not parts of duchies, counties, nor baronies should be called separate island territories, for example, and they should be administered directly by the federal government, and if a separate island territory has had more than 10 000 inhabitants for ten years in a row, the parliament should be able to establish a special barony to govern it.

There should be five classes of duchies and corresponding classes of citizenship, and special intrarealm polities, separate island territories, and their citizens should naturally be classified similarly and be subject to similar rules:
Duchies of classes one and two should start with standardized constitutions and other laws largely similar to those of the federation. The roles of the executives and the legislatures of the duchies of these classes within said duchies would thus naturally be roughly comparable to what the roles of the executives and the parliament are at the federal level, and the roles of the executives and the legislatures of the counties of the duchies of these classes within said counties should be roughly similar to what the roles of the executives and the legislatures are at the duchy level, and this same general principle should also apply to their baronies.
Class one duchies should naturally comprise a free-travel area, and their citizens should also be class one citizens of the federation. Only class one citizens should be allowed to vote in federal elections, hold elected federal office, become members of the federal civil service, and serve in the federal armed forces. Class one citizens should be free to move into any duchy in the federation, and they should automatically become permanent residents of the duchies into which they move. Class one citizens who move into class one duchies should, of course, automatically also become citizens of the class one duchies they become residents of. Citizens of other classes should normally need visas for interduchy travel, and all non-class one citizens should be able to apply for both temporary and permanent residency in all duchies of the federation. A permanent resident should be eligible for citizenship if they have been a permanent resident for at least five years and have been physically residing in the duchy in question for at least four of the preceding five years. If a citizen is a permanent resident in a duchy, they should be able to vote in the intraduchy elections of the duchy in which they reside, and they should not be able to vote in the intraduchy elections of any other duchy. Citizens should naturally not be able to be citizens of multiple duchies simultaneously.
Class two duchies should have reasonably well-guarded interduchy borders, and they should be able to allow visa-free entry for citizens of other class two duchies.
The interduchy borders of class three duchies should naturally be more heavily guarded than those of class two duchies. Class three duchies should also be able to control some or all of their intercounty borders indefinitely. Their heads and lieutenant heads should be appointed by the monarch for indefinite terms, and the other members of their duchy-level administrations should be appointed by their heads, and the heads should be considered to be federal public servants. The heads of these duchies should also be able to officially reprimand the duchy-level public servants of their duchies in a public manner, demote them, reduce their pay by half or less for up to a year at a time, put them on unpaid leave for up to a year at a time, and to dismiss them; these disciplinary measures should, of course, be fully reversible and the punishments should naturally be also modifiable. Their counties and baronies should function in a similar way as the counties and the baronies of class one and class two duchies.
Class four duchies should have better-guarded interduchy borders than class three duchies, and traveling within them should be indefinitely controllable even between baronies. Their heads and lieutenant heads should, of course, also be appointed by the monarch for indefinite terms and considered to be federal public servants, and in addition to appointing the other members of the duchy-level administrations, these executives should be responsible for appointing the heads and lieutenant heads of the counties, and these county-level executives should naturally be considered duchy-level public servants and appoint the other members of the county-level administrations. Their heads should have the same disciplinary powers as the heads of class three duchies, and the heads of their counties should be able to subject the county-level public servants of their counties to equivalent disciplinary measures. Their baronies should function in a similar way as the baronies of class one and class two duchies.
Class five duchies should have no elections, their interduchy borders should be very heavily guarded, and traveling within them should be very controlled. Their heads should, of course, be appointed by the monarch and considered federal public servants, and their duchy-level administrations and the heads of their counties should be appointed by their heads. The appointed heads of their counties should naturally be considered to be duchy-level public servants and appoint the other members of the county-level administrations and the heads of their baronies, and the heads of their baronies should be considered to be county-level public servants and appoint the barony-level administrations. Their heads should, of course, have the same disciplinary powers as the heads of class three and class four duchies, and the heads of their counties and baronies should naturally have equivalent disciplinary powers within their counties and baronies, respectively.

States should be able to join the federation if the proposals for how they would be incorporated into the federation are approved by both chambers of the parliament. Proposals for incorporating more than one state should not be allowed, and the proposals should naturally be voted on one at a time. Approving such proposals should normally require two-thirds majorities, but approving proposals opposed by the monarch should require four-fifths majorities. If the incorporation of a state into the federation would result in the creation of a class one duchy, a number of class one duchies, at least one class one special intrarealm polity, a class one separate island territory, or multiple class one separate island territories, the incorporation proposal should also require the approval of a two-thirds majority of the federal electorate as the last step.
The parliament should normally be able to change the classifications of non-class one duchies, non-class one special intrarealm polities, and non-class one separate island territories permanently with two-thirds majorities, but if the monarch opposes such a change, it should require four-fifths majorities. It should not be possible for the parliament to change a permanent classification by more than one class at once, and each change should be voted on separately. Changing the classification of a duchy, a special intrarealm polity, or a separate island territory to class one should also require the approval of a two-thirds majority of the federal electorate. The parliament should be able to expel class five duchies, equivalent special intrarealm polities, and equivalent separate island territories from the federation in the same way as it should be able to change the permanent classifications of duchies, special intrarealm polities, and separate island territories.
The parliament should also be able to change the classifications of non-class one duchies, special intrarealm polities, and separate island territories temporarily by one for a year at a time up to five consecutive years with simple majorities, but if the monarch is opposed to a temporary change of classification or an extension of such a change, it should require two-thirds majorities. If a change of classification is not made permanent nor extended, the parliament should not be able to change it temporarily for as many years as the classification was consecutively different from the permanent classification.
The classifications of class one duchies, class one special intrarealm polities, and class one separate island territories should be unchangeable.
Duchies and special intrarealm polities should be allowed to merge with other duchies and special intrarealm polities of the same classes, and they should also be able to transfer territory to other duchies and special intrarealm polities, but such mergers and transfers should require approvals from both chambers of the parliament with two-thirds majorities.
Duchies should also be able to divide into two or more duchies or special intrarealm polities of the same class, and special intrarealm polities should be able to divide into two or more special intrarealm polities of the same class, and a change of this kind should require the approval of both chambers of the parliament with simple majorities.
Duchies and special intrarealm polities should be able to become independent of the federation if two thirds of both chambers of the parliament vote in favour of granting the intrarealm polity in question independence and the monarch assents to granting it independence.

The armed forces should be mostly reservist based, but there should be no conscription: the system should be based on people being offered service contracts with good enough terms for there to be sufficient amounts of people signing up for the initial periods of service and the associated reservist commitments. It seems that a system of this kind would work even in wartime if a sufficiently large proportion of the population eligible for service thinks that the state is worth fighting for.

There should be so much military education capacity that every person who is eligible for military service and willing to serve is able to enter service. People who have served honourably should get bonuses when they are transferred to the reserve and when they are discharged from military service, and the sizes of the bonuses should depend on their performance and conduct while in service in addition to their rank. Reservists should, of course, get paid for attending refresher courses and supplementary training, but how much they get paid for doing so should be strongly dependent on how fit they are, and the maximum payments should be so substantial that at least the primary reserve would stay on average in very good or even excellent physical condition.

The sex of a person should not be taken into consideration when determining what duties they should be allowed to serve in. The standardized tests for the measurement of servicemembers’ and potential servicemembers’ physical fitness should be designed to give a reasonably accurate idea of how the people being tested can perform physically when fully equipped, and thus they should wear well-designed and approximately equally heavy weight vests during the tests. In addition, it would seem that grooming standards should be equally rational and thus the same for every servicemember, with the exception of reservists who haven’t been called into full time service, of course.

The monarch should normally be the supreme commander of the armed forces, and if the throne is occupied by a regent, the regent should be the supreme commander. There should be realm-, duchy-, county-, and barony-level forces, and the intrarealm polities’ forces should be as reservist based as reasonably possible and primarily organized and equipped for defence. Both the supreme commander and the parliament should have the right to bring intrarealm polities’ forces under federal command temporarily, and the expenses of intrarealm polities’ forces under federal command should naturally be paid for by the federal government. The system should work in a similar fashion within the duchies and the counties.
The vast majority of the professional servicemembers of the combined land and aerospace forces of the realm should be members of the intrarealm polities’ forces.
The realm-level forces should be mostly composed of full-time professionals and very capable of offensive operations and expeditionary warfare.
The bulk of the realm-level/federal forces should be seamlessly and thoroughly integrated combined arms marines, and their landing craft should belong to the marine corps rather than the navy. The intrarealm polities too could, of course, have amphibious forces.
The federal navy should be a blue-water navy, and the intrarealm polities’ navies should be green- and/or brown-water navies. The aerospace arm of the federal navy should be primarily an air-superiority force, and it should carry out strike missions only as necessary.
All members of the armed forces should naturally be subject to federal military law, and it should be the only military law in the realm.

All servicemembers should receive a substantial amount of education about civics and philosophy and arguably also be taught how to think and act essentially like champions of freedom (compare to, e.g. German Freiheitskämpfer, ”freedom fighters”) rather than, for example, ”mere soldiers” more or less just going through the motions, but this should naturally be done in a very matter-of-fact, absolutely no-nonsense way.
All servicemembers should give secular pledges of fidelity, i.e. all of them should give affirmations. Their highest official duty should be the protection of the constitutional order, and their affirmations should, of course, reflect this very clearly, and thus they should pledge that they will support and defend the constitution and serve the realm and be faithful to both, and the affirmations should never include pledges of fidelity to anything else.

It would seem that there is a clear need for the state to be able to act very decisively in difficult times, and therefore it seems sufficiently reasonable for both the parliament and the electorate to have the right to grant the monarch the right to rule by decree for a year at a time. The decrees of the monarch should, of course, not be able to override the constitution in any way, but they should naturally override all provisions of normal statutes they are in conflict with, except those concerning elections, and they should have the force of law only for as long as the monarch has the right to rule by decree plus one hundred days.
If there have been, for example, three consecutive years during which the monarch has not had the right to rule by decree, the count of how many times the parliament has granted said right should automatically reset. The parliament should be able to grant the right to rule by decree independently perhaps three times without having to wait for a reset of the count, consecutively or non-consecutively. If the electorate grants the right to rule by decree, the count should reset. If the parliament has granted the right to rule by decree the maximum amount of times it can do so without waiting for a reset of the count, it should be able to call a referendum on whether the right to rule by decree should granted again. It should be possible to grant the right to rule by decree only to the individual who is the monarch, and it should naturally be automatically revoked if the monarch changes.
If the parliament grants the right to rule by decree, the electorate should be able to call a monarchical election right away.

Both chambers of the parliament, the cabinet, the monarch, and regents should be able to declare a state of emergency, and a state of emergency should normally last for a year if the parliament does not extend it. Both chambers of the parliament, the cabinet, the monarch, and regents should naturally be able to also decide that the state of emergency ends at a specified time. During a state of emergency, the cabinet should be able to issue executive orders specifying which provisions of the emergency powers act should be applied and how, and it should not be legal to apply provisions of the act the application of which is not necessary to deal with the situation appropriately. These orders should stay in force for a maximum of a hundred days if at least one chamber of the parliament votes against keeping the order in force for a longer time, and if the state of emergency ends, the order should automatically cease being in force. If the parliament decides to extend the time for which the order stays in force, the duration of the state of emergency should be automatically extended to match, and it should be possible to extend the time for which the order stays in force only by up to a year from the day of such an extension. The parliament should also be able to decide to keep the order in force only partially.
The parliament, the monarch and regents should also be able to declare martial law in the whole realm or a part of the realm, and if martial law is declared, the realm should also automatically enter a state of emergency, and it should naturally not be possible to end a state of emergency if martial law is in force. If martial law is in force, the monarch and regents should be able to issue orders specifying which provisions of the martial law act should be applied and how, and it should not be legal to authorize applying provisions of the martial law act the application of which is not necessary to deal with the situation at hand. Martial law should stay in force for a maximum of a hundred days if at least one chamber of the parliament votes against keeping it in force for a longer time, and the parliament, the monarch, and regents should, of course, be able to decide that martial law will cease being in force at a specific time, and the parliament should be able to extend the time for which martial law remains in force only by up to a year from the day of such an extension. If martial law ceases to be in force, the orders concerning the application of the provisions of the martial law act should naturally automatically cease being in force, and the parliament should also be able to decide to keep such orders in force only partially.
If the parliament or a chamber thereof is unable to vote on whether to keep the realm in a state of emergency within a hundred days of the state of emergency being declared, the realm should remain in a state of emergency until the state of emergency is ended by a chamber of the parliament, the cabinet, the monarch, or a regent if martial law is not in force, of course, and if the parliament or a chamber of the parliament is unable to vote on an order concerning the use of emergency powers within a hundred days of the issuance of the order, the order should remain in force until a chamber of the parliament votes against keeping it in force. If the parliament or a chamber thereof is unable to vote or whether to keep martial law in force within a hundred days of the declaration of martial law, martial law should remain in force until the parliament, the monarch, or a regent decides that martial law will cease being in force at a specific time.
If the monarch or a regent declares a state of emergency or issues an order declaring martial law, both chambers of the parliament and the electorate should be able to call a monarchical election immediately.
Changing the emergency powers act and the martial law act should require two successive lower chambers of the parliament and the upper chamber of the parliament voting in favour of the proposed changes with two-thirds majorities and the approval of the monarch, in that order.

The chambers of the parliament should be able to postpone normally scheduled elections to them only by up to a year at a time, and such postponements should also be subject to approval by the monarch. The monarch should have the right to call early parliamentary elections and also the right to dissolve the parliament or just a single chamber thereof. If the parliament or a chamber of the parliament is dissolved, elections to the parliament or the dissolved chamber should be held within one hundred days of the dissolution. The outgoing cabinet should become a caretaker cabinet by default if the parliament (or the lower chamber) has been dissolved, but the monarch should also have the right to appoint a caretaker cabinet composed of independents.
The electorate should be able to call a monarchical election immediately if the monarch calls an early parliamentary election or dissolves the parliament or a chamber thereof, and the monarch should not be able to dissolve a chamber of the parliament if less than a year has passed since its most recent dissolution. The rights of the monarch to call early parliamentary elections and dissolve the parliament and the chambers of the parliament should be automatically suspended if a monarchical election has been called and remain suspended until the election results have been verified, or until the winner of the election has been coronated if the incumbent loses the election.

It seems reasonable to call a state of this kind a freerealm, and calques (loan translations) of this term would also seem to convey the general idea fairly well. The second part of the calque of freerealm into German is, of course, somewhat problematic when it is used alone or as the leading word in compounds, at least for now, due to some of the things fairly commonly associated with it, but on the other hand as it simply means “realm”/”state”/”empire”, it has naturally also been used for very long times both in compounds to refer to, for example, France, Austria, and the UK and in some cases also as a separate word following a proper noun, like when referring to, e.g. ancient Rome. Avoiding its use in the official name of the Germans’ own state in German in perpetuity would thus seem a little strange, and obviously especially so if said state is a federation the population of which is composed of multiple European peoples including other major ones.
Calques of freerealm into some European languages are, for example, royaume libre (French), vrijrijk (Netherlandic), reino libre (Castilian), reino livre (Portuguese), reame libero (Italian), saorríocht (Irish), fririge (Danish), fririke (Norwegian and Swedish), fríríki (Icelandic), Fräiräich (Luxembourgish), and naturally Freireich. In my native Finnish the corresponding term is vapaavaltakunta, and the Estonian equivalent is vabariik, which also means “republic”.

There is, of course, also the question of the title of the monarch. It would seem to make sense to derive suitable terms from words derived from the reconstructed proto-Indo-European root of most of the aforementioned terms for realm: the root in question is *h₃rḗǵ- (“to straighten”, “to right oneself”, “right”, “just”), and the words right, rectify, direct, correct, Richter (“a judge”), Recht (“a right”, “a privilege”, “the law”, “a title”, “a claim”), gerecht (“just”, “fair”), Gericht (“a court of law”, “a judgement”), regulate, rule, regent, regal, rēx, rēgīna, royal, reign, rā́jan (“a king”, “a sovereign”, “a monarch”, “a prince”), rā́jñī (“a queen”, “a princess”, “a wife of a monarch”), and rājyá (“a kingdom”, “a country”, “a realm”, “royalty”, “kingship”, “sovereignty”, “empire”, “kingly”, “princely”, “royal”), for example, are also derived from this root.
The reconstructed proto-Indo-European terms for male and female monarchs are *h₃rḗǵs and *h₃rḗǵnih₂, and the reconstructed native proto-Germanic derivatives of the former are *rekô and *rekaz, which were displaced by *rīks, which is a borrowing from proto-Celtic. The reconstructed proto-Celtic term for a male monarch is *rīxs, and the feminine equivalent is *rīganī, and the descendants of these also include, for example, Cymric/West Brittonic/Welsh rhi and rhiain (“king” and “maiden”), Irish rí and ríon (“king” and “queen”), Manx ree and rein (“king” and “queen”), and Scottish Gaelic rìgh and rìghinn (“king” and “queen”).
English terms for the monarchs of a freerealm derived from *rīxs and *rīganī could perhaps be rix (/ɹɪks/) and rigan (/‘ɹɪɡən/, compare to Wigan, /ˈwɪɡən/); using a non-gender-specific term is, of course, also a possibility. These terms should naturally simply mean “ruler” in the sense of something along the lines of “state manager”, which is quite well in line with their etymologies, and “state manager” is also a fairly adequate term for what kind of a person the monarch would in my opinion ideally be: a level-headed individual at the helm who would typically stay relatively detached from and thus most likely be less subject to the “wearing” effects of day-to-day politics, but who would also be able to take a much more hands-on approach when appropriate. Some people might, of course, use traditional monarchical titles in reference to the monarchs anyway, and such titles could naturally be made co-official, but even if they are co-official, the monarchs should be able to decide whether they want traditional titles to be used in official contexts in reference to them or not.

For comparison to the terms for “state manager”, imperātor and imperātrīx and thus also, for example, emperor and empress and empereur and impératrice are derivedfrom the word imperō, which means “I command, I give orders to, I rule, I govern, I demand, I impose”, and the most accurate translations of the aforementioned agent nouns into German would thus seem to be Gebieter and Gebieterin; terms of this kind could perhaps be used to refer to monarchs who have been granted the right to rule by decree for as long as they have said right.
On a related note, the use of terms for rulers and states derived from Caesar seems rather silly, except in historical contexts, of course, and/or if they are used derisively, and letting the ghosts of Gaius Julius Caesar and the Roman Empire sleep more soundly in a way would seem to be quite appropriate, considering that Caesar was rather clearly relatively unwise, i.e. benighted and that the Empire too was obviously quite far from ideal.
It would seem to be a good idea to seek to rise above all kinds of distorted views of the past, or maybe rather to strive to see things of the past for what they actually were, and naturally also to use the most sensible terms that we can come up with.

While understanding the past is obviously of profound importance, and being firmly rooted in it in this sense is thus quite clearly rather rational, a fairly highly future-oriented approach to policymaking seems eminently reasonable: in a state of this freerealm kind, the head of state would usually be able to delegate handling the more day-to-day affairs of the state to the head of government and the cabinet and thus to act primarily as a strategic leader, and they would ideally, of course, also be a calm, rational person with a steadying firm hand.