Cjara B
Citizen since 5-3-2007
Citizen of Talossa, and now Florencia
Posts: 368
|
Post by Cjara B on Jul 18, 2008 12:32:18 GMT -6
This is I think unneeded. For the most part I am happy with what Tim comes up with, But I think that any thoughts a long this line is over bearing. I think if you want any sort of legislation on this then what you need to go for is something along the line of;
Cosa seats are distributed by election to parties registered by and with government. The party after being awarded seats is then responsible for the distribution of the seats and that the only legislation needed is that the party is autonomous with in the party of who they appoint to the seats they have won.
If a party chooses to let seats go with an MC I see no reason to stop that. And I will fight in opposition to anything with in governmental legislation that has to do with how people vote. When the government says you have to vote one way then that’s when I put aside my Talossan citizenship.
I understand that the thought is to back parties up and make them stronger, but if we have to make some sort of a governmental legislation in order to strengthen our parties. Then Talossa is no longer strong, and if Her people are not strong enough to hold a parties together by them selves, In which case we have bigger problems then independent MC.
Really what I’m hearing here is that some people are saying; “Humm… Seems that the Talossans are to stupid to protect their parties and are making bad choices, let’s make a rule So we take away the bad choice”
Um? thats the theory behind communism I think
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on Jul 19, 2008 7:22:25 GMT -6
I think people are misunderstanding the purpose of this legislation. This does not do anything radical or tear down the system and establish one that sows the seeds of tyranny. This is not the government exerting greater control over anything.
Under the present system, a person leaving a party takes seats with them. That is just how we are set up.
Under the proposed system, a party can write right into its charter that if a person leaves, the seats are surrendered. That is just an OPTION the party MAY elect to include in the charter. Without this legislation, a party doesn't really have a leg to stand on as far as enforcing a rule like that.
That's IT. There is no potential for abuse any more than there is under the present system. If a party imposes too many rules for your comfort DON'T SIGN UP FOR IT. This new system would allow for some BASIC control of seats in the Cosa.
Let's say RUMP says leaving will cause you to surrender your seats AND voting against key legislation will cause the same. The Progressive Party can elect to have people only lose seats when leaving the party and maybe a new party forms called the Independence Party which says your seats go with you no matter what.
So Viteu's corrupt party leader conspiracy objection really has no bearing on this legislation, nor does any concern for the government dictating how parties are run or how MCs vote.
The proposed legislation just gives parties more latitude in managing the seats awarded to it in the General Election.
|
|
Cjara B
Citizen since 5-3-2007
Citizen of Talossa, and now Florencia
Posts: 368
|
Post by Cjara B on Jul 19, 2008 10:54:18 GMT -6
I understand that, and I sort of see your point about the party holding the seats after some one falls away, but I don't want anything in Talossa about the party being able to take away seats if their MC votes counter to the party, short of some clause for a court action that should not be legislation. I would be alright if there was clearer judicial recourse, but I have to say that the current proposition is way to general and open for interpretation
|
|
Flip Molinar
Talossan since 1-1-2008
Proud Talossan
Posts: 1,592
|
Post by Flip Molinar on Jul 19, 2008 12:39:16 GMT -6
I must say that I support direct elections of MC's as well. However, instead of a 20 seat Cosa, keep it at 200 and have voters list their choices of perfered Mc's in declining order. This would make it so that, if MC A gets 10% first choice votes and MC B gets 90 the proportion would be 180 to 20 in terms of Cosa seats awarded.
|
|
Capt. Sir Mick Preston
Capitán of the Zouaves
Posts: 6,511
Talossan Since: 9-21-2006
Knight Since: 10-12-2010
Motto: Cuimhnichibh air na daoine bho'n d'thainig sibh
|
Post by Capt. Sir Mick Preston on Jul 19, 2008 13:21:34 GMT -6
I must say that I support direct elections of MC's as well. However, instead of a 20 seat Cosa, keep it at 200 and have voters list their choices of perfered Mc's in declining order. This would make it so that, if MC A gets 10% first choice votes and MC B gets 90 the proportion would be 180 to 20 in terms of Cosa seats awarded. Here's something to think about- (We'll assume that we have 100 citizens, and every one votes) If we have direct elections of MCs ... What if the most populated Province has 30 citizens. They decide to put up 5 of their citizens for Election. Then, all 30 vote for those 5 people. Now, say they can convince 5 people from each of the other 6 provinces to vote for those 5 candidates. That's another 30 votes for those 5 candidates. And those 5 now have 60% of all votes cast. With the restrictions of 30 seats per member, those 5 now hold 150 seats .... ======================= This may not be am extreme example - but I hope you can see the points I am trying to make. ( Yes, I know we won't ever have 100% turn out. We get about 60% at best. But you can do the math, and see how it could get even worse than the above scenario)
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on Jul 19, 2008 13:56:44 GMT -6
I understand that, and I sort of see your point about the party holding the seats after some one falls away, but I don't want anything in Talossa about the party being able to take away seats if their MC votes counter to the party, short of some clause for a court action that should not be legislation. I would be alright if there was clearer judicial recourse, but I have to say that the current proposition is way to general and open for interpretation If the party leadership are such jerks that they take away your seats for voting your conscience, would you want to be a member of that party anyway? If that happens, you switch to another party and get awarded seats there. Or, you could jump ship before the next election. Our elections are for the parties, not the individuals. We have to keep that in mind.
|
|
Cjara B
Citizen since 5-3-2007
Citizen of Talossa, and now Florencia
Posts: 368
|
Post by Cjara B on Jul 19, 2008 16:27:56 GMT -6
I understand your point, but I dont want a law that lets a party do that at all. Because it could easly end up a real big problem, but also on principle. NO government regulation on voting, end of story. Just don’t do it. bad Idea. No matter what, or why. The only thing would be changes on who can vote, but never on how.
|
|
Brad Holmes
Cunstaval to Maritiimi-Maxhestic
Atatürkey, and flying by the seat of my RUMP
Posts: 1,014
Talossan Since: 3-16-2006
|
Post by Brad Holmes on Jul 19, 2008 19:10:11 GMT -6
I understand your point, but I dont want a law that lets a party do that at all. Because it could easly end up a real big problem, but also on principle. NO government regulation on voting, end of story. Just don’t do it. bad Idea. No matter what, or why. The only thing would be changes on who can vote, but never on how. Cjara, You are missing the point. The government is not telling anyone how to vote. You haven't really said why you don't want parties able to control their own seats. I'll give an example. Perhaps some of you remember our old buddy Ups. Ups asked every single party for seats in the Cosa. He didn't care which party, as long as he was given a seat. I firmly believe that he had no intention of backing any party's platform, even of the party that granted him a seat. Now, let's say that Ups was granted a handful of seats by party ABC, but Ups is going to vote against every bill that ABC Clarks. Ups may not be backing another party, he is just being his turd self. Do you think that ABC should be forced to wallow in their mistake of granting Ups a seat and allow Ups to run wild, or do you think that party ABC should be allowed to take back their seats? Capt Tim is trying to make the point that parties should decide how much dissension against the party line is too much dissension and be allowed to remove an unruly MC. He is not saying that parties should or will hold the threat of seat-stripping against their members in order to coerce their vote. He is also saying that even if a party were to threaten their members, nobody would want to be in that party and forced to vote in a way that they don't agree with. This "problem" of forced voting would fix itself before it happened. Parties would need to publish their policies of voting. Members would know what they're getting into when they joined the party.
|
|
Sir C. M. Siervicül
Posts: 9,636
Talossan Since: 8-13-2005
Knight Since: 7-28-2007
Motto: Nonnisi Deo serviendum
|
Post by Sir C. M. Siervicül on Jul 19, 2008 20:28:36 GMT -6
Perhaps some of you remember our old buddy Ups. Ups asked every single party for seats in the Cosa. He didn't care which party, as long as he was given a seat. I firmly believe that he had no intention of backing any party's platform, even of the party that granted him a seat. Zooks, a party that gave seats to Üps would deserve to spend a little time cleaning egg from its face. I don't think it's too unreasonable to expect parties to bear the responsibility for wisely assigning their seats.
|
|
Brad Holmes
Cunstaval to Maritiimi-Maxhestic
Atatürkey, and flying by the seat of my RUMP
Posts: 1,014
Talossan Since: 3-16-2006
|
Post by Brad Holmes on Jul 19, 2008 21:16:15 GMT -6
Perhaps some of you remember our old buddy Ups. Ups asked every single party for seats in the Cosa. He didn't care which party, as long as he was given a seat. I firmly believe that he had no intention of backing any party's platform, even of the party that granted him a seat. Zooks, a party that gave seats to Üps would deserve to spend a little time cleaning egg from its face. I don't think it's too unreasonable to expect parties to bear the responsibility for wisely assigning their seats. True. Parties should exercise caution and good judgment. But this would at least give them an out. I haven't really seen a party that is selfish in giving people an opportunity to participate in the government. And I don't think that parties should necessarily become selfish at the expense of risking a poor choice in a seat holder. And I believe Üps was asking for seats before he really showed his true colors as the king lord douche bag in the history of the world.
|
|
Cjara B
Citizen since 5-3-2007
Citizen of Talossa, and now Florencia
Posts: 368
|
Post by Cjara B on Jul 19, 2008 21:41:50 GMT -6
Perhaps some of you remember our old buddy Ups. Ups asked every single party for seats in the Cosa. He didn't care which party, as long as he was given a seat. I firmly believe that he had no intention of backing any party's platform, even of the party that granted him a seat. Zooks, a party that gave seats to Üps would deserve to spend a little time cleaning egg from its face. I don't think it's too unreasonable to expect parties to bear the responsibility for wisely assigning their seats. I think this is a good point, and mostly what I’m getting at as well. I, like I said, do understand where this is coming from. But I think that it’s too unclear. And that if any sort of law along this line needs to be a lot tighter. I do think it’s the responsibility of the party to be careful of who they choose as MC in the first place. And that if we have a check, like is being suggested, then the parties would then potentially take less care when assigning MCs. But really come on Brad, you of all people should get that you don’t make rules to keep people from doing dumb stuff that isn’t highly harmful to the people around them. If it’s a law trying to prevent murder then yeah. But we are talking about making it so a political party can kick someone out if they don’t vote along with something that is borderline ambiguous.
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on Jul 20, 2008 7:30:08 GMT -6
Zooks, a party that gave seats to Üps would deserve to spend a little time cleaning egg from its face. I don't think it's too unreasonable to expect parties to bear the responsibility for wisely assigning their seats. I think this is a good point, and mostly what I’m getting at as well. I, like I said, do understand where this is coming from. But I think that it’s too unclear. And that if any sort of law along this line needs to be a lot tighter. I do think it’s the responsibility of the party to be careful of who they choose as MC in the first place. And that if we have a check, like is being suggested, then the parties would then potentially take less care when assigning MCs. But really come on Brad, you of all people should get that you don’t make rules to keep people from doing dumb stuff that isn’t highly harmful to the people around them. If it’s a law trying to prevent murder then yeah. But we are talking about making it so a political party can kick someone out if they don’t vote along with something that is borderline ambiguous. What is borderline ambiguous? If I have a party that sets out to make Fruity Pebbles the National Cereal and when it finally comes to a vote, an MC votes for Coco Puffs instead, why should I be able to keep my seats? No one is saying you can't vote your conscience, but you certainly cannot take your seats and use them to help the Coco Puff party. Again, if one party doesn't do it for you, or worse, if one party abuses their power or influence, you leave and join another party, the offending party will suffer during the next election. We have conditions under which a person can be removed from the Cosa, why are we denying political parties the right to remove a person from the party?
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on Jul 20, 2008 17:01:21 GMT -6
I think this is a good point, and mostly what I’m getting at as well. I, like I said, do understand where this is coming from. But I think that it’s too unclear. And that if any sort of law along this line needs to be a lot tighter. I do think it’s the responsibility of the party to be careful of who they choose as MC in the first place. And that if we have a check, like is being suggested, then the parties would then potentially take less care when assigning MCs. But really come on Brad, you of all people should get that you don’t make rules to keep people from doing dumb stuff that isn’t highly harmful to the people around them. If it’s a law trying to prevent murder then yeah. But we are talking about making it so a political party can kick someone out if they don’t vote along with something that is borderline ambiguous. What is borderline ambiguous? If I have a party that sets out to make Fruity Pebbles the National Cereal and when it finally comes to a vote, an MC votes for Coco Puffs instead, why should I be able to keep my seats? No one is saying you can't vote your conscience, but you certainly cannot take your seats and use them to help the Coco Puff party. Again, if one party doesn't do it for you, or worse, if one party abuses their power or influence, you leave and join another party, the offending party will suffer during the next election. We have conditions under which a person can be removed from the Cosa, why are we denying political parties the right to remove a person from the party? Let's use a better example, what if someone proposes legislation to make Ham the national meat of talossa, and Party A endorses this and makes it mandatory for everyone to vote. But, there is an orthodox Jew who keeps kosher is in that party, they have to vote to make something a national food that is otherwise viewed as sinful to eat... so they would be penalized for going against their religion... You accuse Cjara of denying political parties the right to defend their seats, why are you denying the free thought of MCs and the right to vote their conscience?
|
|
Brad Holmes
Cunstaval to Maritiimi-Maxhestic
Atatürkey, and flying by the seat of my RUMP
Posts: 1,014
Talossan Since: 3-16-2006
|
Post by Brad Holmes on Jul 20, 2008 18:38:17 GMT -6
Let's use a better example, what if someone proposes legislation to make Ham the national meat of talossa, and Party A endorses this and makes it mandatory for everyone to vote. But, there is an orthodox Jew who keeps kosher is in that party, they have to vote to make something a national food that is otherwise viewed as sinful to eat... so they would be penalized for going against their religion... You accuse Cjara of denying political parties the right to defend their seats, why are you denying the free thought of MCs and the right to vote their conscience? That is a better example. In no way ridiculous. But let's say that this situation happens. Let's say the Jew votes against the legislation, and let's say that the brain-dead party strips said MC of their seats. I could make a pretty convincing argument that said party leadership should be charged with violating the third covenant. And I haven't been to law school either. One more time, the goal is NOT to restrict MCs from free thought and voting their conscience. The goal is to prevent those free thinking, conscientious MCs from redistributing the percentage of seats within the Cosa by leaving the party that they claimed to support when asking for seats and then decide that they don't really like that party. Right now, if an MC feels betrayed by their party and that their party no longer represents them, the MC is the only one right now that can decide to keep or surrender the seats. This law would let the party, who owns those seats as of the most recent election, weigh in on the matter. Now before we again go over the possibility of party corruption, abuse of power, whatever phrase of the day we want to use, parties would have to publish their policy of leaving with seats, or voting the party line, etc. If a prospective MC doesn't like the policy, DON'T JOIN THE PARTY! One of two things will happen to a party that has an extreme voting policy: 1. The party shrivels and die, as no MC that was concerned with their conscience joined that party in the first place. That party probably also doesn't do so hot in the election. 2. The party realizes that they're dying and relaxes their policy. Those with a conscience agree with the party and its policies and joins. The party flourishes, and the peasants rejoice.
|
|
|
Post by Deleted on Jul 20, 2008 18:42:07 GMT -6
What is borderline ambiguous? If I have a party that sets out to make Fruity Pebbles the National Cereal and when it finally comes to a vote, an MC votes for Coco Puffs instead, why should I be able to keep my seats? No one is saying you can't vote your conscience, but you certainly cannot take your seats and use them to help the Coco Puff party. Again, if one party doesn't do it for you, or worse, if one party abuses their power or influence, you leave and join another party, the offending party will suffer during the next election. We have conditions under which a person can be removed from the Cosa, why are we denying political parties the right to remove a person from the party? Let's use a better example, what if someone proposes legislation to make Ham the national meat of talossa, and Party A endorses this and makes it mandatory for everyone to vote. But, there is an orthodox Jew who keeps kosher is in that party, they have to vote to make something a national food that is otherwise viewed as sinful to eat... so they would be penalized for going against their religion... You accuse Cjara of denying political parties the right to defend their seats, why are you denying the free thought of MCs and the right to vote their conscience? Because the MC would also have the right to abstain. Also, as a Jew who is shomer kashrut, I am not prohibited from making ham the national meat. But I see where you are going. Let me throw this out at you. Let's say the issue were abortion (just because). If I am against abortion and the party is in favor of it, and it comes down to a vote where I am being asked to vote against my conscience, why am I a member of the pro-abortion party? So I will vote my conscience. I vote against abortion. The party takes away my seats after the election. Who cares? I voted my conscience and now having already cast my ballot I can go and join another party that more closely matches my own political leanings. The alternative is this.... Party A supports (abortion, ham, legalizing weed whatever) and I oppose (insert cause here). I remain a member, voting against the party line every chance I get and next GE, I am not assigned any seats. The party already has a way of controlling your vote. This simply clarifies the language. If I irritate my party enough by voting against key legislation, next term I just won't have any seats and I need to go shopping for a new party anyway. Why can't we just let the party get rid of a person mid-term.
|
|