King John
King of Talossa
Posts: 2,415
Talossan Since: 5-7-2005
Knight Since: 11-30-2005
Motto: COR UNUM
King Since: 3-14-2007
|
Post by King John on Dec 19, 2005 11:21:57 GMT -6
I submitted this Bill to the November Clark without much previous discussion. It didn't pass (because of a 1-1 tie in the Senäts, but I still think it's a good idea, so here it is again. [Stuff in brackets and italics is not part of the bill, but just my comments.]
The People to Provinces Improvement Act
WHEREAS the People to Provinces Act (34RZ9) has been in effect through the period of the greatest population growth in Talossa’s history, so that we have a pretty good sense of how well it’s working, and
WHEREAS it’s been working pretty well, but could still be improved,
THEREFORE the Ziu hereby enacts the following enhancements and clarifications to the process of assigning citizens to provinces.
DEFINITION: For the purposes of this Act, two people are “closely related” 1) if one of them is the spouse, parent, grandparent, brother, sister, aunt, or uncle of the other, or 2) is married to someone who is closely related to the other in the sense of clause 1).
BE IT ENACTED THAT:
1. If an immigrant is closely related to a Talossan citizen, the immigrant may choose to be assigned to the province to which his Talossan relative belongs, rather than to the province to which he would otherwise be assigned. [My thinking here is that an immigrant who's a family member of a Talossan should have the option of joining his family member rather than his "natural geographic" province — which probably isn't all that geographic, since we put Nepal and California and Portugal all in one province, and Austria and Alabama and Madagascar in another.]
2. If one Talossan citizen is closely related to another, he may move his provincial assignment to the province to which his Talossan relative already belongs. But nobody may make such a move more than once in his lifetime, except by the special permission of the Ziu. [This once-in-a-lifetime provision is to keep people from bouncing back and forth between provinces, if they're related to more than one Talossan.]
AND WHEREAS it only makes sense that natural-born citizens belong to the same province as their parents, and in fact we’ve always done it this way, but it isn’t actually written in the law anywhere, BE IT ENACTED THAT
3. A dandelion, when registered, will be assigned to the province of his Talossan parent. If both his parents are citizens, and they belong to different provinces, the dandelion will be assigned to the province of his mother.
AND WHEREAS a greater degree of identity between the provinces of Talossa and the world geographic regions assigned to them is to be desired, while maintaining a not-too-terribly-unequal distribution of population among the provinces, BE IT ENACTED THAT
4. Whenever any Talossan wants to move his provincial assignment to the province in whose assigned area he actually lives, he may do so, provided that either a) the province to which he is moving has a lower population than the province from which he is moving, or b) both provinces are currently closed to immigration. [So people can move to their "natural geographic" province, but not if the move would tend to create "micro-provinces".]
5. The Secretary of State will be responsible for the various moves and assignments contemplated in this Act, which moves and assignments will take effect on their official announcement by the Secretary of State.
6. This Act supplements the People to Provinces Act, and overrides the second sentence of paragraph 3 and all of paragraph 5 of that Act.
Uréu q'estadra så: John Woolley, Senator (Florenciâ) and MC (CLP)
|
|
Sir Samuhel Tecladeir
Citizen since 8-22-2005; Knight since 10-23-2006
If you don't rock the boat, no one will know it's sinking.
Posts: 436
|
Post by Sir Samuhel Tecladeir on Dec 19, 2005 14:53:38 GMT -6
Ok, I like all of it except the alignment of natural regions. I don't really see much sense in this. Once you're in a province, why not just stay there? Or, and this makes more sense to me and may be what you're trying to say, you can only move to a province if you physically move to that province. For example, I'm in Florenciâ. But, I live in Washington State. Nine other people in my region join up and by law, we create a new province. We should have a clause in that law that would move existing citizens to that province, but this would be a safety net if that weren't included. The other example is what happens if I move from Washington state to Wisconsin (or Antarctica) and am in a different province than Florenciâ? Then I could see this law applying.
|
|
King John
King of Talossa
Posts: 2,415
Talossan Since: 5-7-2005
Knight Since: 11-30-2005
Motto: COR UNUM
King Since: 3-14-2007
|
Post by King John on Dec 19, 2005 15:23:20 GMT -6
There are a few issues mixed up here. I'll do what I can to clarify them.
1. Talossa consists of six provinces on the East side of Milwaukee, one (Cézembre) off the coast of France, and the Antarctic territory. By law, any citizen actually resident in one of the seven provinces is assigned to that province — no exceptions.
2. The rest of the world, the non-Talossan part, is divided into seven regions, and each region assigned to one of our provinces. In general, new citizens who are resident in the region associated with province A get assigned to province A.
3. But there are exceptions. In particular, if province A is "closed" (which means it has a population at least twice that of the smallest of the seven provinces), the new citizen will be assigned to the next "open" province after A on the circular list. This means that we have a lot of people who are assigned to a province different from the one in whose associated area they actually live.
4. None of this has anything to do with new provinces. The OrgLaw says that there can't be a new province without at least ten citizens, but it remains rather mysterious how a new province could be set up. If ten Talossans, resident in Washington, want to form a new province, what happens? Does Talossa first annex Washington state, or part of it? Does one of the existing provinces split into two, and people in Washington get assigned to the "new" province thus created? I don't know, and we probably ought to discuss the point and clarify it.
The situations I'm trying to fix are like these:
S1. Bob is a Coloradoan, and becomes a Talossan. He'd normally be assigned to Florenciâ, because Colorado is in the Florencian area. But Florenciâ is closed, so he gets assigned to Atatürk instead. A year later, Atatürk is now bigger than Florenciâ, and Bob would still like to be a Florencian. My law makes it possible for him to switch.
S2. Bill lives in the Atatürk area, but gets assigned to Cézembre. He's happy there. A while later, his wife and son both become Talossans, but they get assigned to Atatürk, or maybe somewhere else. My law would make it possible for them to be assigned to Cézembre instead, or for Bill to "switch" to the province his family is assigned to.
S3. Jill lives in the area associated with Vuode, but moves to the area associated with Maricopa. She could, if she wanted to, change provincial assignment to Maricopa, but only if Vuode had more citizens than Maricopa (so that her move would "even out" the populations), or if Vuode and Maricopa were both "closed" (that is, twice the size of the smallest province).
— John Woolley, UrN
|
|
Hooligan
Squirrel King of Arms; Cunstaval to Maricopa
Posts: 7,325
Talossan Since: 7-12-2005
Motto: PRIMA CAPIAM POCULA
Baron Since: 11-20-2005
Count Since: 9-8-2012
|
Post by Hooligan on Dec 19, 2005 22:09:18 GMT -6
The reason why my Cosâ single seat was reluctantly voted no on this act in the November Clark is because the act would allow the following situation:
S4. Mortimer lives in Colorado and is a Florenciân. Mortimer convinces his sister Gertrude, who lives in Delaware, to become a Talossan. Gertrude does so and she is assigned (per the P2P) to Vuode. However, because she is closely related to a Florenciân, Trudy requests that she be reassigned to Florenciâ so she can be like Morty.
In this situation, Gertrude, who lives a thousand miles away from the (let's call it) natural habitat of Florenciâns, can become one, simply because her brother, who lives a thousand miles west of her, is a Florenciân. I believe that this is counter to the (apparent) intent of the P2P act, which is to associate residents of specific portions of the world with specific provinces of the Kingdom. My thinking is that this extremely small loophole could be easily fixed in the proposed act, by mandating in clauses 1 and 2 that the family member who wishes to switch provinces to that of another family member must not only be closely related to that family member, but must share with that person the same "natural" province (even if neither of them is actually a citizen of that province).
Morty and Trudy's case is, admittedly, a rare one, and I realize that the intention is to cover brothers and sisters who do NOT live a thousand miles away from each other. As I say, though, I think adding the limitation that the two persons in question WOULD be assigned to the same province (closed province reassignments aside) would work well to close this small loophole.
Personally, I am not a big fan of the whole P2P, given that it is extremely unreliable to predict to which province a new immigrant will be assigned, due to closed province reassignments. It seems to me that the intent of the P2P is countermanded by its own provisions, so that it becomes almost pointless to associate each province with any list of locations in the world. It is so bad, in fact, that a plain-and-simple round-robin-in-alphabetical-order scheme would work equally well to distribute Talossans around the world in the same general proportions. For example: living in Colorado, there are three Florenciâns, an Atatürkey, a Vuodean, and a Cézembrean. Although any new citizen living in Colorado should naturally be a Florenciân, judging by the numbers, they have had only a 50% chance of becoming one. So, as I say, the whole P2P idea doesn't seem (to me) to fulfill its charter very well. For this reason, I would definitely support clause 4 of the proposed reform, which would allow people to join their friends in their "natural" province of citizenship. If I had my druthers, the whole "but this could be closed so you'll be shunted elsewhere" clause of the P2P would be dropped, and if some provinces are bigger than others in population, so be it. I mean, it is not like all the new immigrants into our neighboring nation are assigned to Wyoming. (And thank God for that, says the Wyomingite.)
Mhà
|
|
King John
King of Talossa
Posts: 2,415
Talossan Since: 5-7-2005
Knight Since: 11-30-2005
Motto: COR UNUM
King Since: 3-14-2007
|
Post by King John on Dec 19, 2005 23:10:54 GMT -6
I think Trudy should be able to join Mort in Florenciâ. I think our province-associated-areas are far too big — one-seventh of the world! — to act like geographic communities. That being so, if we want them to act like communities at all, there's nothing wrong with someone in Delaware being in Florenciâ.
Think about it. What province is Trudy "naturally" closest to? Florenciâ, where her brother — the only Talossan, most likely, whom she knows — is assigned? Or Vuode, where she'll be lumped together ("geographically"!) with people from Connecticut, Japan, Morocco, and Indonesia?
— John Woolley, UrN
|
|
Sir Samuhel Tecladeir
Citizen since 8-22-2005; Knight since 10-23-2006
If you don't rock the boat, no one will know it's sinking.
Posts: 436
|
Post by Sir Samuhel Tecladeir on Dec 20, 2005 17:25:55 GMT -6
My own thought is that it should address initial assignments simply because unless people actually live in the area, why should they switch? Unless citizens at large choose to move within Talossa, what is the gain or the interest in changing a virtual address?
Like I said, I like the part about relatives being in the same region. If my kids joined and my wife, then it would make perfect sense for them to join me Florenciâ or for me to move in with them somewhere else.
Changing addresses just because you want to when it's only a virtual address seems like overkill. Like I said, it makes sense if I physically move to Talossa. But I don't physically reside there so what's the point?
|
|
King John
King of Talossa
Posts: 2,415
Talossan Since: 5-7-2005
Knight Since: 11-30-2005
Motto: COR UNUM
King Since: 3-14-2007
|
Post by King John on Dec 21, 2005 12:13:36 GMT -6
Under current law, we have one case where someone has to change provincial assignment:
1. When someone moves, and ends up inside Talossa itself, he has to be assigned to the province he's moving into, regardless of what province he was assigned to before.
Then we have another case, where the law seems very strange and confusing to me, and I can't figure out what's intended:
2. When someone moves, and ends up outside Talossa in an area associated with a different province than he's assigned to, maybe he can (and maybe he can't, and maybe he has to) get reassigned to the province whose associated-area he now lives in.
This confusion is the reason I'm advocating repealing part of section 3 and all of section 5 of the P2P Act.
Now if my proposed law passes, there would be three cases where a citizen's provincial assignment might change:
1. Same as #1 above.
2. Voluntary family reunification. Members of a family who have, for one reason or another, ended up in different provinces, and would like to be in the same province, may change assignment so that they're together.
3. Voluntary geographic realignment. If someone has been assigned (one way or another) to "the wrong province" (not the one in whose associated area he lives) he can switch provincial assignments so that he's assigned to the "right" province (the one whose area he lives in). This is strictly voluntary, and (to avoid the "microprovince" problem) can be done only if the to-province is smaller than the from-province, or if they're both big enough to be "closed" for immigration purposes.
So I'm trying to leave most things unchanged, allow families to be assigned together if they want to, and clarify what happens when someone moves.
— John Woolley, UrN
|
|
Sir Samuhel Tecladeir
Citizen since 8-22-2005; Knight since 10-23-2006
If you don't rock the boat, no one will know it's sinking.
Posts: 436
|
Post by Sir Samuhel Tecladeir on Dec 22, 2005 0:10:43 GMT -6
And I agree with Points #1 and #2. Point #3 is the one I have a problem with. Actually, it's not so much a problem as it is a confusion over why it should be necessary. Under what conditions would a person voluntarily move a virtual address? I mean, it's like if I lived in Canada, but had a post office box in the U.S. Why would I move the PO Box?
I don't see it as wrong or right; I just don't understand why anyone would do it in the first place. Also, I think I would support this is as is. Baron Hooligan's remarks about family dominance is pretty hypothetical and probabilistically remote.
|
|