Why we need a National Dialogue

[Inxheneu Crova]

In our manifesto, the FreeDems listed the need for a National Dialogue as the first priority.What do we mean by this?

We want to facilitate a National Dialogue in order to break the mold of party bickering and giving ordinary Talossans a voice. And not just to rehash the old reliables of the Wittenberg bubble...the constitution, the struggles of the past. We want to know what the average Talossan wants from his or her country in 2016, in all its aspects: how our citizens relate to the government, to our culture, and to our national identity.

We will start by inviting all Talossans, politically-minded or not, to contribute their own thoughts on the state of the Kingdom. This will take the form of a survey, which will commence in March, to last one month. This of course won’t be a scientific exercise-just a snapshot of opinion of those Talossans who choose to participate. It will however be unfiltered by the dogmas of the political process, progressive and conservative alike.

Once the survey is complete, we will invite the King, the political parties, senior public servants, and non-governmental organisations to comment on the results, and to submit their own collective ideas on the future direction of the country.

The government will then work with the other participants to produce a representative synthesis of the views expressed in advance of the 51st Cosa election.

The results of the survey will act as a basis for the Dialogue, but will not be determinate in its conclusions. Instead we are aiming to build a new consensus in the country, and we believe it is necessary to have some sense of how Talossans relate to their country if we are to have a productive discussion among our decision-makers.

We call on the other parties in this election to join us in this endeavour-whatever the past (or present) quarrels, our country needs a new direction, and we have to work together to find it.

[Glüc da Dhi]

Sounds like a good idea.

Just one question. Are the FreeDems planning on blocking meaningful reforms untill this dialogue has been completed?

[Inxheneu Crova]

If I'd asked you to provide an example of the sort of thinking the Dialogue is meant to get around, you couldn't have done better ;-)

My answer, and I stress its mine, would be that I don't think that reform *in general* can be reduced to changing the Org Law, and if an incremental change takes up too much time when other things need to be dealt with, I'd at the very least ask for discussion to be delayed until a quieter time. Certainly not in the first half of the term, unless there was an emergency-it's the Org Law, let's make sure we're thorough about it.

I hope though that if we make a good job of the consultations in March then we will all have a lot to talk about in thethe second half of the term. This would obviously include the performance of our institutions, and how to get them working better.

[Glüc da Dhi]

Nov 24, 2016 9:02:32 GMT -6 Inxheneu Crova said:

If I'd asked you to provide an example of the sort of thinking the Dialogue is meant to get around, you couldn't have done better ;-)

Yeah, asking a party that aims to get a lot of seats in the Cosa how it will vote using these seats is really the kind of thinking we don't need in Talosa. *condescending smiley face*


What if, god-forbid, surveying the citizens, discussing among all parties various aspects of Talossa, writing a synthesis and building a consensus takes the government more than three months? Does that mean youd be against supporting org-law reforms (yes, I know Talossa is not just the orglaw, but some of the changes we'd like, and up untill now, the FreeDems supported as well would include changes to the orglaw)?

Just two examples: There is a bill in the hopper authored by an MRPT-MC that would make it possible for a large popular and parliamentary majority to remove and replace an unruly king. It probably still needs some tweaking (I'm surprised the FreeDems haven't commented on it so far), but it's not unlikely that some variant of it will be proposed this term. The Monarchy has been a hot issue lately. Very recently, one of the FreeDems most prominent members accused us of cynicism for daring to work with the "anti-democratic" RUMP. She is calling the RUMP anti-democratic because of their legal dispute over the royal veto, and because according to her they would do anything to protect the King (not our experience during this term, but that's not really my point.) Now we have a real chance to make the King accountable and making clear that -sure, you are our head of state, but not by some divine right, but by the consent of the people.- You may find this irrelevant, because it's not directly related to stimulating activity (though I would argue that discussing these issues has been a source of activity in Talossa), but you can't deny that for a lot of people the reason they vote FreeDem or MRPT or RUMP is because of their position on this issue. (Ironically its particularly the FreeDems and the RUMP that have a lot of base voters because of their position on the monarchy.)

Here's another example: This election has shown again the unfairness of our senatorial ballot system. If the FreeDems had decided to endorse a candidate in Fiova with no interest in being a senator, or if the RUMP had done the same in Florencia, that candidate, despite being unaware of running would easily have won. Meanwhile, an actual incumbent running in Vuode has a real disadvantage because many voters are not even aware of his candidacy, since he cannot get on the ballot without an endorsement. And all this while we keep pretending senators represent their province and not their party. I believe this needs to be fixed by 1) a simple addition to the Lexhatx allowing for senatorial candidates to register with the chancery to get on the ballot. 2) an orglaw amendment removing the ability of voting for a candidate simply by filling in a party in the senatorial part. Every term this doesnt get fixed will mean an extra election under the current rules.

Like I said, I think your plan is a good idea. I would hope the MRPT would be willing to steal it from you, should we get more seats. But it's not a good idea if it means outsourcing the job of the MCs and not taking any positions on these issues in the hope the national dialogue committee or whatever will fix it. And this is where how many seats a party have, and what they do with it really matters.
So my question again is, will the FreeDems vote in principle against reforms such as the one I listed as long as your national dialogue plan is ongoing?

I eagerly await the official response of your party.

[Munditenens Tresplet]

Comparing the National Dialogue to the RCOR is like comparing apples to oranges. It's like asking whether the RUMP and MRPT would start their own "Standing National Dialogue" and not participate in our government facilitated National Dialogue out of principle, rendering our National Dialogue useless.

But really, the question is would the MRPT would be interested in discussing their reform ideas with the people as part of a dialogue prior to attempting to pass them in the Ziu?

[Glüc da Dhi]

Are you planning on answering my question?

The RUMP and MRPT did participate in the RCOR btw, despite objections to the way it's set up both Ian Plätschisch and Sir Cresti drafted large documents with suggested changes to the orglaw. I hope this National Dialogue will turn out quite different from the RCOR, but clearly you do understand where this question is coming from, and I really worry we're about to go down the same path.

The MRPT puts its ideas on the issues I mentioned in its platform during the election, so people voting for the MRPT know where we stand. Many of these arent exactly new issues that have never been discussed either. This is a representative democracy, we elect people to represent the voters. I can't speak for the rest of my party, but as a candidate, am I willing to participate in this national dialogue and afterwards willing to consider the outcome in my proposals after that? Sure. Am I going to use that as an excuse for not taking a position now? No. Am I planning on waiting with proposing reforms that I know I support and that I think would be an improvement for Talossa or vote against good bills in the mean time for an indefinite amount of time with no guarantee we will suddenly all agree on what should be done about these specific issues? No. If so, I might as well not run for Cosa seats at all.

[Munditenens Tresplet]

Your question comes from a position of trying to associate the National Dialogue with the RCOR, which is, as I stated earlier, like comparing apples to oranges.

If you really need an answer, it is a quite obvious no. We aren't just going to vote down every single bill out of principle, but we will judge each bill on its merits.

The idea that we are using the national dialogue as a copout for taking a position on issues is also twisting our words. We are the party of liberalism and we have positions on issues too. We aren't planning on voting down bills for an indefinite amount of time nor are we planning on simply not introducing bills either.

In my mind, a national dialogue won't be something that changes people's positions on proposals or reform ideas, but adds to them or contributes to them in new and unthought of ways. Maybe we'll even get completely new reform ideas that haven't been approached yet.

But let's not try to make this completely benign concept of a national dialogue into something that it is not.

[Glüc da Dhi]

Maybe it's obvious now, but it wasn't exactly clear before (though maybe that was because I misunderstood you.) I wasn't trying to make this into anything. I was asking what it was.
Anyway, thank you for your answer.