la garçâ malpadert
Group: admins
(4379 posts total)
(last post: March 13, 2008 - 16:29)
Citizen #22:
Miestrâ Schivâ |
> With all due respect, there's nothing fun about this election-apparently not even for the candidates.
Dunno about you, but I'm having a great time. :-)
> We need to get people motivated to get invovled in the whole life of the Republic.
I believe you have a wrong assumption - that people's lack of motivation is somehow due to the fact that you have to win an election to be a legislator. Questions for you to answer:
1. Do you think that legislation is where Talossa needs most input right now? I would say no, myself - if I didn't think that our laws were pretty much "good enough" I would have certainly run for another term.
2. Do you think that there is anyone who wants to contribute to legislation but is put off by having to run in elections? I would like some evidence for this belief.
> Elections aren't doing it right now. I personally would have rather had my teeth pulled than participate in another election.
You see, if you *were* contesting this election - even on a Suicide Squid Squad platform - it would be more exciting and unpredictable. But you chose not to. You chose to push your programme outside of the formal democratic process. Why was that?
> I'm not the only one. If you hadn't twisted Txec D's arm there literally would be nothing to contest at all.
An interesting assumption, there. I didn't twist or extort anyone. I asked the three ZRT candidates once each, in each case they thought about it with no pressure from me, and then came back and said "yes".
As Dieter says below, if you're convinced by the virtues of Direct Democracy in and of itself, why aren't you over in Cezembre making things happen right now? (It's not actually true that the provinces have no power - that's another assumption of yours. Read the Constitution - the provinces actually have full power in a couple of areas and full-power-only-limited-by-the-Feds in many, many other areas. The only reason for any province not to be thriving is apathy.)
> Let anybody propose anything-for a while.
What makes you think that anyone wants to propose anything?
> I was the one who said recently that there's a lot of inappropriate anti-authoritarianism in the Republic, and I stand by that. So I'm not saying junk representative democracy altogether. Just scale for our size.
There is a very wrong idea going on. The Republic has not shrunk since 2004 It is pretty much exactly the same size it was when we adopted the Constitution - we grew, then contracted, and are pretty much back where we started. 17 people voted in the first Chamber election - and I don't think I'm breaking the law in saying we're not far off that this time. Why was it the right size then but "top-heavy" now?
My answer: it's not the number of citizens that have dropped, it's the activity levels of existing citizens. As Dieter says, we must interpret that closely. Dermot seems to think it's because of the legal strictures of representative democracy - I consider this unconvincing.
> When we can get in a position to have real parliamentary elections, they can come back.
You see, that's another "red flag" here - the "it's just a temporary measure" excuse. Temporary measures have a habit of becoming permanent in Talossa. One word: Senäts.
> Te only difference is, instead of a boring game of inside baseball played on on-the-sly emails to no great effect that I can see, we get a really open discussion about all aspects of our country.
My argument is essentially that direct democracy would simply mean a dozen Talossans looking at each other blankly and not thinking of anything to say, where there are at present about five of us doing precisely the same thing. Your assumption is that apathy and lack of activity are somehow related to "elections are boring". You have no backing for that, apart from your own subjective boredom with elections.
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Miestrâ Schivâ
Secretary of State of the Talossan Republic
Editor, Qator Itrìns
Chief High Language Geek of the Talossan Republic
Elections and Referendums Feb/March 2008
TALOSSA, C’È ASÚNTS SERIÖSEN!
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