Cosa candidacy

[Glüc da Dhi]

To be clear, I am not available to sit in the Cosa for any party. I did not consent to being placed on the RUMP candidate list and will ask to be removed from their list.

-Glüc

Edit: I am no longer on the list.

[Sir Alexandreu Davinescu]

By way of explanation, the RUMP list includes everyone I could think of who I might want to give seats, and I included Gluc in case he resigned. If anyone else wants to be added, please let me know and I will add you. Absolutely anyone! I included all current MCs. If you want to be removed, you can also let me know, although hopefully people who are eligible will accept this gesture in the spirit with which I mean it. It's time for us all to come together and start doing Talossa!

[Sevastáin Pinátsch]

I don't think anyone should be placed on a candidate list without their consent. It suggests a two-way relationship which may not exist, and is seriously misleading to undecided voters, suggesting that support for a party is larger than it actually is.

[Sir Alexandreu Davinescu]

The law restricts me from giving seats to anyone not on a list unless everyone on the list has seats. I don't like the mandatory list law, but I will abide by it. The only way to have a policy where I can give seats to everyone who supports the RUMP proposals is if they are already on the list.

[Sir Alexandreu Davinescu]

I do see how it could be misleading, actually. It looks like all of those people support the RUMP. I thought it would be obvious, since so many people are on the other lists, but folks who don't follow Witt might not get it. I'm open to other suggestions about how to achieve this.

Just to be clear: I want to be able to give seats to pretty much any active Talossan. I think we're in a dangerous place for Talossa, and partisanship is almost getting silly. But I don't want to offend anyone or mislead anyone. If there is a better way, please help me figure it out. And of course if you want off, I will immediately oblige!

[Sevastáin Pinátsch]

How difficult is it to contact people to secure their permission? More time consuming than placing their rights second to political interests, clearly.

"The law" is supposed to deter and circumvent unethical shortcuts like this, not encourage them.

[Sir Alexandreu Davinescu]

I wonder if I could just put the whole citizens' roster as my party list? There's nothing prohibiting it, as far as I can see. Hmm. No, probably would just be disruptive, even if it's technically legal. And the ballot would be absurd.

Sev, you think the best thing to do would be to get individual permission? The answer to how hard that would be is, "Pretty hard!" A lot of people would want to chat about it, would suspect some skullduggery or trick, etc. And a lot of people just wouldn't respond, because a majority of MCs do not check Witt very often.

[Sir Alexandreu Davinescu]

In the interests of not giving a false impression, I guess the best thing to do would be to have the SoS remove everyone but the current RUMPers from the list. But please, everyone, be aware: if you want to support activity and prioritize doing fun stuff, then just say so and I will put you on our list!

EDIT: Done. I have bugged the much-harassed SoS again to have him remove everyone else.

[Miestrâ Schivâ, UrN]

partisanship is almost getting silly.

Translation: "I lose every argument, so I want to morally shame people into no longer arguing with me."

Talossa is not or should it be a one-party state. This election is the opportunity between a choice of visions for Talossa. My vision is precisely opposite to that of a one-party state.

[Miestrâ Schivâ, UrN]

I also foreshadow an amendment to electoral law requiring Party leaders to provide evidence of affirmative consent for every candidate placed on a party list. This will also prevent - for example - a regrettable previous incident where the RUMP put someone on their party list who can't have consented because he was in jail.

[Sir Alexandreu Davinescu]

Mar 13, 2019 14:09:57 GMT -6 Miestrâ Schivâ, UrN said:

partisanship is almost getting silly.

Translation: "I lose every argument, so I want to morally shame people into no longer arguing with me."

What? Look, I actually mean what I am saying. I think Talossa is slowly dying. I am not interested in spending hours on yet another rearranging of the deckchairs on this sinking ship, arguing over things like a proportional Cosa or Real Cosa. We're not abandoning our ideals, mind you, but we are focusing 100% and exclusively on the only thing I can think might actually help the country.

Mar 13, 2019 14:09:57 GMT -6 Miestrâ Schivâ, UrN said:

Talossa is not or should it be a one-party state. This election is the opportunity between a choice of visions for Talossa. My vision is precisely opposite to that of a one-party state.

And that's fine. You guys do your thing. Best of luck to you.

[Ián Tamorán S.H.]

This. Is. Appalling.

Under NO circumstances will I consent to being placed publicly upon any party list.

Under NO CIRCUMSTANCES WHATSOEVER will I consent to being placed upon any political list without my explicit permission.

Under NO CIRCUMSTANCES WHATSOEVER should any other person be so insulted, in the attempted removal of their dignity of choice.

And under NO respectable moral conviction can you, or anyone else, undertake to usurp the will of others "in their own good" or "in the good of the nation" - unless and until you have been given specific, explicit and legal permission so to do (and I doubt it even then).

If Talossa is slowly dying, it is actions like your, sir (Sir Alexandreu Davinescu ) that are administering its death blows, removing its life-support systems.

This. Is. Appalling.

[Sir Alexandreu Davinescu]

I guess if sanctimony will save Talossa, you got us covered.

I don't think I did put you on the list at any point, unless I am mistaken. I just pasted in every current MC, and I don't think you sit in the Cosa. It also doesn't seem to me like any sort of contract for a party to say, "We would give this person seats." But after Sev pointed out that it could be misleading to voters, I undid it. None of that is unreasonable.

The party list law is unreasonable, and I do not agree with it. But I am bound to obey it. And so I want as many Talossans as possible who might take seats on the list. Being in the Cosa is fun, and we have scant opportunities for anyone to jump in here and get involved with stuff that matters anymore. How many immigrants show up, very enthused, and then don't know what they can do? There was a thread like that only a week ago.

What do we tell them? Well, basically they have to (a) start something new or (b) wait to join something already in progress. That is dumb. They're not going to start something new because they don't know what's been done or what's possible. And it's not fun to wait seven months to join the legislating/voting etc. It is boring.

I am going to be very clear: I am going to try to offer every Talossan possible the chance to meaningfully participate. So if anyone wants to sit in the Cosa, they only need to ask, and I will try to make it happen. But because of the current law, only a third of seats can be offered to people who are not on the list, including new immigrants.

When I joined Talossa thirteen years ago, one of the most fun things was that I was able to jump right in and begin doing stuff that actually was meaningful. New immigrants no longer have that opportunity, and that cannot be permitted UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES WHATSOEVER. They can't join the legislature and there are zero other organizations or things to do that don't have a very sharp learning curve. ZERO. Not a ONE. So of course they lose interest! And we lose people who might contribute and be fun. And things get worse. And worse.

UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES WHATSOEVER will I watch Talossa slowly die without actually trying new things that might save it. Stow the sanctimony and find a way to help.

[Ián Tamorán S.H.]

I trust I am not being sanctimonious, but precise.

Why a given action has been done is not always relevant. The morality of all actions, however, is relevant, and is always relevant.

(The gentle offer is heard more carefully and attentively than the shouted one: screaming a statement does not make it any more true.) 

Talossa is meant, at base, to be fun. If we use anger rather than respect - which must include respect for (but not necessarily agreement with) the opinions of others - then we are being civilised, rather than being confrontational. And angry discord is not fun. I may disagree with your opinions - or what your opinions have been expressed to be - but that does not give me the right to say your mother smelled of elderberries (etc.). And - more importantly - it does not give me the right to say that because I disagree with your (expressed) opinions therefor you personally are repugnant and unworthy of respect. We must always remember - always - that what we see is just appearance, and we cannot (ever) be 100% sure that the appearance is the same as the underlying reality.

Talossa is not, of itself, dying: if anything, Talossa is being killed. It is being killed by its politics and its political fighting. Outsiders who come to see what Talossa offers, see first the discord and dissension of the politics, and the (endless!) arguments about government. What they do not first see (and are partially denied from seeing, by not being privy to Chat) is much of the language, and the music polls, and the jokes (yes, they do exist!), and the games, and the existence of pi drink-mats, and the three-word stories, and... well, you know what I mean.

Talossa is not a community of linguists, nor a community of musicians, nor a community of experts on science-fiction, nor - especially -a community of politicians. It is a community of people - people who can aspire to be, and should be, friends. Within Talossa we have had (and I trust shall continue to have) conversations about our personal mental states, and some of the pressures of and worries in outside life, and so on - conversations between friends.

And despite the negative observations I have made, and that Sir Alexandreu Davinescu may have made, perhaps Talossa is not dying? Perhaps Talossa is moving away from the dictatorial (mono-maniacal?) cabal it once was. Perhaps Talossa is moving out of the 20th century into the 21st century. Perhaps, for each of us, Talossa is not mine or yours, but ours.

And that, friends, would be a good thing.

[Sevastáin Pinátsch]

Mar 14, 2019 5:02:32 GMT -6 Sir Alexandreu Davinescu said:

I guess if sanctimony will save Talossa, you got us covered.

He has a right to be angry. The fact that you consider it self-righteous of him to be upset that you co-opted his name and reputation for your political list is... really disturbing. 

I asked you: How difficult is it to contact people to secure their permission? You responded, "Pretty hard!" Okay, fine, but your freedom ends where another person's freedom begins. Do we really need to legislate more protection for individual rights? Or can we just become more practiced at trying to consider how other people are affected by sweeping decisions we make in isolation for some "greater good"?

I don't think you're a bad person, but you can be guided by expediency rather than empathy. I think we all can, given that participation here is something we have to budget into busy personal lives.

But the more often we short-change each other in the interest of doing the most in the least amount of time, the more we harm each other, and the less community cohesiveness we'll feel to keep us coming back here at all.