49th Cosa, Fifth Clark Voting and Discussion Thread

[Munditenens Tresplet]

Senators, please use this thread to post your votes and discuss the current Clark, if you wish. The threads are merged again this Clark.

[Munditenens Tresplet]

I suppose I'll get us going.

On 49RZ20, I vote Contrâ, though since I recognize that it will likely pass, I do note that it is much better than previous iterations proposed.

On 49RZ21, I vote Contrâ. The complete removal of Lex.E.10, which removes provisions that allow family members to reside in the same Talossan province, is baffling. I do not support it, and I would encourage Senators to rethink their vote on this bill.

On 49RZ22, given that there isn't anything objectionable contained within, I vote Për. I hope that the "standing committee" eventually gets around to looking at simplifying election law, which is almost universally contained within OrgLaw.

On 49RZ23, I adamantly vote Contrâ:

Parties should be free to operate as they see fit, and this includes assigning votes. As a voter myself, I do not need the government's handholding to help me understand who I vote for when I vote for a party. If the party freely discloses such information prior to the election, that's fine. But if I go into the virtual voting booth and choose a party that chooses not to publish a Cosa list prior to an election, that's my choice, whether one disagrees with it or not. Furthermore, voters who choose parties should not have their votes trashed simply because a regulation requires seats over a certain amount be forfeited if the seat assignments do not conform to rigid guidelines. I still fail to see how this bill would align with the Third Covenant of Rights and Freedoms, the preamble of which states that the rights are "subject only to such reasonable limits prescribed by law as can be demonstrably justified in a free and democratic society." This bill unreasonably abridges the right of parties to make internal decisions as they see fit, and the proponents of the bill have never given any reason as to why such a bill is necessary or who might be harmed should our current system remain in place.

Finally, this practice of reintroducing the same bill, from the same Hopper thread, over and over again simply because it failed is wrong, especially when it spans multiple Cosa sessions. If a bill fails, it fails. While it is appropriate to reintroduce a bill, especially in a new Cosa term, discussion isn't likely to be spurred by one sentence that states the authors intent to Clark the bill again. (If anyone is interested, see here for my brief comments on this exact same bill, then numbered as 48RZ23, from ten months ago.) I further find it disappointing that the bill was revived for another go 'round during a time where activity is nearly at a standstill. Given the circumstances it was introduced in yet again, it looks like the bill is headed for a smooth passage, and barring some surprising result in the election, it will be enshrined in our law soon enough. Although my party is in support of this bill, I plan to speak out against it during the election as a private citizen to the extent possible, and I may weigh litigation options upon its inevitable passage.

[Ián B. Anglatzarâ]

Sept 19, 2016 15:59:49 GMT -6 Munditenens Tresplet said:

On 49RZ21, I vote Contrâ. The complete removal of Lex.E.10, which removes provisions that allow family members to reside in the same Talossan province, is baffling. I do not support it, and I would encourage Senators to rethink their vote on this bill.

Assuming they physically reside in the same location, they will be assigned to the same province. If they live far apart, why should they be asisgned to the same province? I have a cousin in Vancouver. That doesn't make me Canadian. My father lives in a different part of Sweden than me. I don't pay taxes where he lives and he doesn't pay taxes where I live. I don't understand your objection, to be honest.

[Lüc da Schir]

RZ20: Për
RZ21: Për. Senator Anglatzara's example is fairly straightforward - this bill is another successful step towards provinces that actually make sense instead of being relegated to voting clubs.
RZ22: Për
RZ23: Për! We (as Moderate Radicals) welcome the choice of other parties to release (albeit non-binding in many cases) candidates lists, which by the time of the next GE we will have been doing for more than five years. Enshrining this in law only makes parties more accountable to the electorate.

Sept 19, 2016 15:59:49 GMT -6 Munditenens Tresplet said:

Parties should be free to operate as they see fit [...] Finally, this practice of reintroducing the same bill, from the same Hopper thread, over and over again simply because it failed is wrong

Oh well. But I reckon that you do have a point with:

While it is appropriate to reintroduce a bill, especially in a new Cosa term, discussion isn't likely to be spurred by one sentence that states the authors intent to Clark the bill again.

A new period of Hoppering however does typically encourage further discussion.

I further find it disappointing that the bill was revived for another go 'round during a time where activity is nearly at a standstill. Given the circumstances it was introduced in yet again, it looks like the bill is headed for a smooth passage, and barring some surprising result in the election, it will be enshrined in our law soon enough.

Certainly not the original sponsor's intention. This was merely one of the last MRPT planks from the Manifesto that still needed to be implemented. The timing is unfortunate but entirely coincidental - still, anyone who is against a bill is free to lobby MZs against voting for it irrespective of whether the activity is high or low at the moment.

[Munditenens Tresplet]

Sept 20, 2016 1:00:03 GMT -6 Ián B. Anglatzarâ said:

Sept 19, 2016 15:59:49 GMT -6 Munditenens Tresplet said:

On 49RZ21, I vote Contrâ. The complete removal of Lex.E.10, which removes provisions that allow family members to reside in the same Talossan province, is baffling. I do not support it, and I would encourage Senators to rethink their vote on this bill.

Assuming they physically reside in the same location, they will be assigned to the same province. If they live far apart, why should they be asisgned to the same province? I have a cousin in Vancouver. That doesn't make me Canadian. My father lives in a different part of Sweden than me. I don't pay taxes where he lives and he doesn't pay taxes where I live. I don't understand your objection, to be honest.

The difference is, this is a country based almost entirely online. I live in North Carolina, the catchment area for M-M, but was assigned Maricopa when I joined presumably because M-M was closed. In Maricopa, I'm citizens with individuals residing in Washington, DC, Texas, and even India. I don't reside in any of those places, and I don't pay taxes in any of those places, yet those are the other citizens of the virtual province in which I reside. Ignoring the fact that we change catchment areas as often as we change underwear, why can't immediate family members who happen to live different catchment areas be assigned to the same province?

Or, take a better example. If I got married and convinced my wife to join Talossa, under the provisions of E.10 she would be a citizen of Maricopa province, the greatest province in the Kingdom. But without E.10, she would be assigned to M-M, because the catchment area for M-M includes North Carolina. My choices then would be to either change provinces to be "with" her, and lose a large portion of my Talossan identity in the process, move us to a state or country that is within the Maricopan catchment area, which is ridiculous, or give up and have my wife be a citizen of a completely different province which makes no sense. The same scenario might also apply if I had a dandelion come of age but I resided in a different province than my catchment area, the dandelion, assuming they wanted to join, would be assigned a different province despite living in the same house I was in.

Speaking of dandelions, since they are citizens of Talossa upon registration by their Talossan parents, currently, they are assigned to the province of their parents. Removing E.10 would remove that provision, as well as the provision that allows the dandelion to move provinces with their parents if their parents do. Therefore, because a Talossan must explicitly consent to being reassigned, a family that does move to a different catchment area that does wish to change provinces would leave their dandelion behind in the old province, because the dandelion would presumably lack the ability to communicate their explicit consent to being reassigned to the new province.

Sept 20, 2016 7:42:52 GMT -6 Lüc da Schir said:

Sept 19, 2016 15:59:49 GMT -6 Munditenens Tresplet said:

Parties should be free to operate as they see fit [...] Finally, this practice of reintroducing the same bill, from the same Hopper thread, over and over again simply because it failed is wrong

Oh well. 

This is certainly true, and at no time was my intention to say that the sponsor did not have the freedom to do what he did. Just because someone is free to do something doesn't mean that the action can't be judged from an ethical perspective, as I was doing.

[Ián B. Anglatzarâ]

Sept 20, 2016 8:50:06 GMT -6 Munditenens Tresplet said:

Sept 20, 2016 1:00:03 GMT -6 Ián B. Anglatzarâ said:

Assuming they physically reside in the same location, they will be assigned to the same province. If they live far apart, why should they be assigned to the same province? I have a cousin in Vancouver. That doesn't make me Canadian. My father lives in a different part of Sweden than me. I don't pay taxes where he lives and he doesn't pay taxes where I live. I don't understand your objection, to be honest.

The difference is, this is a country based almost entirely online. I live in North Carolina, the catchment area for M-M, but was assigned Maricopa when I joined presumably because M-M was closed. In Maricopa, I'm citizens with individuals residing in Washington, DC, Texas, and even India. I don't reside in any of those places, and I don't pay taxes in any of those places, yet those are the other citizens of the virtual province in which I reside. Ignoring the fact that we change catchment areas as often as we change underwear, why can't immediate family members who happen to live different catchment areas be assigned to the same province?

Or, take a better example. If I got married and convinced my wife to join Talossa, under the provisions of E.10 she would be a citizen of Maricopa province, the greatest province in the Kingdom. But without E.10, she would be assigned to M-M, because the catchment area for M-M includes North Carolina. My choices then would be to either change provinces to be "with" her, and lose a large portion of my Talossan identity in the process, move us to a state or country that is within the Maricopan catchment area, which is ridiculous, or give up and have my wife be a citizen of a completely different province which makes no sense. The same scenario might also apply if I had a dandelion come of age but I resided in a different province than my catchment area, the dandelion, assuming they wanted to join, would be assigned a different province despite living in the same house I was in.

Speaking of dandelions, since they are citizens of Talossa upon registration by their Talossan parents, currently, they are assigned to the province of their parents. Removing E.10 would remove that provision, as well as the provision that allows the dandelion to move provinces with their parents if their parents do. Therefore, because a Talossan must explicitly consent to being reassigned, a family that does move to a different catchment area that does wish to change provinces would leave their dandelion behind in the old province, because the dandelion would presumably lack the ability to communicate their explicit consent to being reassigned to the new province.

So let's end this "virtual provinces" thing once and for all and assign everyone back to their geographical province. I didn't join an Internet club, I joined a small country located in Milwaukee. I am already a member of several Facebook groups that satisfy my need for online clubs.

Or to be slightly less categorical: Yes, this is primarily an online community these days, but the more we can tie it to actual geography, the better. That's actually good for us, not bad.

[Munditenens Tresplet]

Sept 20, 2016 9:47:54 GMT -6 Ián B. Anglatzarâ said:

So let's end this "virtual provinces" thing once and for all and assign everyone back to their geographical province. I didn't join an Internet club, I joined a small country located in Milwaukee. I am already a member of several Facebook groups that satisfy my need for online clubs.

Or to be slightly less categorical: Yes, this is primarily an online community these days, but the more we can tie it to actual geography, the better. That's actually good for us, not bad.

I, too, joined a small country. I didn't ask to be assigned to Maricopa, but I was. I like to think I've done something good in Maricopa, given that I was elected Senator twice and was awarded the Order of the Sovereign Province of Maricopa. But since I'm not geographically located in Maricopa's catchment area, I should be assigned to M-M. Then, if the Ziu came along and changed provincial catchment areas again, I would be automatically reassigned to, let's say, Florencia.

Sure, it'd be nice to tie things to actual geography, but we don't tie anything down, we just change things as we go along. I supported the end of closed provinces to help make our catchment areas actually mean something again, but I never supported this step by step progression into removing myself from the province I've made my home for the last four years. Ending virtual provinces would have an opposite effect, I think; it would make Talossa more like an internet club, in that we would simply uproot ourselves all of the sudden and move to a different province without even moving a mile down the road.

[Ián B. Anglatzarâ]

Sept 20, 2016 10:05:58 GMT -6 Munditenens Tresplet said:

Sept 20, 2016 9:47:54 GMT -6 Ián B. Anglatzarâ said:

So let's end this "virtual provinces" thing once and for all and assign everyone back to their geographical province. I didn't join an Internet club, I joined a small country located in Milwaukee. I am already a member of several Facebook groups that satisfy my need for online clubs.

Or to be slightly less categorical: Yes, this is primarily an online community these days, but the more we can tie it to actual geography, the better. That's actually good for us, not bad.

I, too, joined a small country. I didn't ask to be assigned to Maricopa, but I was. I like to think I've done something good in Maricopa, given that I was elected Senator twice and was awarded the Order of the Sovereign Province of Maricopa. But since I'm not geographically located in Maricopa's catchment area, I should be assigned to M-M. Then, if the Ziu came along and changed provincial catchment areas again, I would be automatically reassigned to, let's say, Florencia.

Sure, it'd be nice to tie things to actual geography, but we don't tie anything down, we just change things as we go along. I supported the end of closed provinces to help make our catchment areas actually mean something again, but I never supported this step by step progression into removing myself from the province I've made my home for the last four years. Ending virtual provinces would have an opposite effect, I think; it would make Talossa more like an internet club, in that we would simply uproot ourselves all of the sudden and move to a different province without even moving a mile down the road.

Which is why nobody can be moved against their will. It doesn't make me happy, but I think it is a fair compromise. But we should aim at gradually getting away from this abolished quasi-geographical system. Repealing this part of the law does that.

And we should stop changing the catchment areas as soon as statistical fluctuations mean that a province gets few new citizens for a couple of years, or loses more than other provinces do.

[Hooligan]

Azul,

Vas votas sint:

• RZ20: Per, mas non sanc 'n po da saudað.
• RZ21: Per, mas esperéu qe non c'estradra la reviziun final à'cest legeu — non...¿pensás't?
• RZ22: Per
• RZ23: Contra (trei); els regleux es las practicas dels partis non fossent estarh zecidats par l'estat. Els voteirs — es non els legeux — povent zirarh àls partis qet os fossent façarh per earnarh lors votas. El lexhislatarh el veþaviör dels partis c'e el nið del control del estat över els partis, es non c'e ben da thoct.

C'e éu,
Hooligan