This seems properly formatted, and it looks to have the effect it proposes.  Seems fine to me.

This is crazy -- if we know this is a problem we have to solve and we all want to solve it, why are we engineering deliberately terrible alternate outcomes?  Let's just do it now!

To draw a parallel: in the United States, there has been concern about the budget deficit.  It was arguably just used as a partisan club (austerity was a very stupid policy during a recession), but some people held the debt limit hostage as a result, regardless of their motivation.  If the deficit wasn't reduced, they said, they wouldn't authorize the issuance of more public debt.  Eventually, a bargain was struck for an automatic sequester: if the deficit weren't reduced over the next two years, then huge cuts would be automatically imposed.

See, making the actual decision about budget cuts was too hard.  Instead, they planned to make the alternative so horrible that they'd feel like they had to do it.  Not now... later.  Always later.

It didn't work, of course.  The hard choices remained hard, and people tried to just use the threat of sequestration on their opponents to get their way.  Automatic cuts were triggered, and they were stupid and wasteful.  The deficit remains huge.

I see this with students, too, sometimes.  They want to make themselves do something, but it's still too hard to actually address the problem.  So they try to just make the looming threat even worse so that their future selves will feel like they have to do something.

Let's just fix the problem, instead.

Quote from: Miestră Schivă, UrN on April 12, 2024, 12:16:12 AM

Quote from: Miestră Schivă, UrN on April 11, 2024, 11:27:48 PMWell, I am not going to support letting the current, admittedly otiose incumbent choose his own successor, let's put it that way. But I'm open to other suggestions.

I should specify that I and the Free Democrats are perfectly fine with the status quo of succession, i.e. by regular process of Organic Law amendment - in essence an "elective monarchy" as was ancient Germanic tradition, the way of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, and today the Papacy lol.

If people are perfectly fine with the status quo you need to offer them something better to shift, which is a sword which has cut both ways over the years with the monarchy. For several years we have been in a position without enough people to "legislatively decapitate" or to impose a new consensus on succession. But if we're now in a position where the need for LegDecap is clear to almost all, then to tie that to a need to find a concession for change on the latter issue will mean, again, years of inaction.

Well, the status quo means that the monarchy would end with King John's retirement.  Your choices in order of preference, as far as I can see:
1. Presidency.
2. Depose His Majesty, then block further amendments that might fill the throne (unless they move further towards a presidency).  This is a slower version of #1.
3. Fix the succession to some form of election, then depose His Majesty.
4. Fix the succession to direct nomination, reform the office to grant it more power and activity, then depose His Majesty.

Repeated efforts at 1 have failed, so now you're moved to #2.  And that's fine, except that monarchists have the opposite incentive structure.  I guess some might even add a desire to return to hereditary monarchy, although that wouldn't be my preference.

My point is that I'm asking you to accept #3, instead, since that would allow us to actually fix the problem in a way that's not ruinously divisive.  Asking monarchists to accept the likely permanent end of the monarchy in order to solve the temporary preoccupation of a sovereign isn't okay.

Since it is relatively easy to block amendments with a Ziu minority, this would almost certainly be the end of the monarchy.  Supporters of the proposed presidency could simply block all attempts to amend the OrgLaw with a new sovereign.

I do not know how long it usually takes mail to travel from the continental United States to Germany. I always use the cheapest postage, though, so I would imagine it would take a couple of weeks maybe?

They're all updated. For what it's worth, it's unlikely anyone noticed their absence.  Those pages all have very low pageviews.  Still, we should have been putting them up regularly, and it's my fault that I said I would and did not.  I apologize.

Notice that we did not sort out the succession later, and instead that very omission has become a significant obstacle to solving the current dilemma (to put it delicately).  It is glaringly apparent that if we tear down the current building -- and it needs serious repairs at this point! -- without laying the foundation for the next, the monarchy will just become a vacant blight.  Repair can't become an opportunity for permanent destruction.

We need to restore the succession so that we're no longer in this no-win situation.  I would prefer we also restore some royal power to rehabilitate the office into something a sane person might want to do, but in the interests of finding a consensus path forward, we should just set that aside for now.  And after we fix the succession and resolve the current situation, the question of the future of the monarchy can be rejoined.  Does that sound reasonable?

As I have mentioned recently, I am no longer opposed to the need to do something.  I have done everything I can for many years, but there comes a time when we have to accept the world as it is, not as we wish it would be.  So these days, even I agree that we need to make a change.

But I am not sure if we need wholesale institutional reform on this scale, and I am very sure we don't need the presidency proposed in this bill -- even if we still call it a king -- but we do need to make a change.  This bill is just not very good, riven deep with conflicts of interest that don't make any sense.

I reject the idea that the entire institution of monarchy is flawed.  This is a tiny country, and the first monarch was incredibly active and the central engine of invention for 90% of our culture.  Our current monarch has personally saved the country and was also a huge force for good for a decade, helping in large part to define the country as we know it today.  The institution has worked, and can work again.

Most probably, we just need a change of personnel.  But before that, we need to settle on a future shape for the office, including succession.  The whole thing needs to be kept away from politics as much as possible -- one of the abiding principles of Talossan honour has long been that it must never be sought, only accepted.  And some power must be restored to the office -- it needs the heft of something meaningful to do.  And then I suspect that once everything is set, it will have become apparent what the future shall be... cometh the hour, cometh the sovereign.

Quick update: out of fourteen applicants, seven have been verified as actual citizens passing the test with at least the minimum 70%.  Others either failed to ever take the test, failed to pass the test, or failed at being citizens (the worst failure of all).

I have also checked all the verified applications at this time, and even though some of these things are "signatures" in only the most technical sense, most people had everything in order.  Those people who were missing things have been individually contacted.  I will wait a maximum of three days before proceeding, unless those involved wish to pay my bribe.  (And I'm a member of the landed nobility, so that's a steep price.)

Probably we'll go to the printer's by the week's end, since I feel guilty for not attending to this earlier.

EDIT: If you want to know if your application is all set, shoot me a PM.  It's illegal to even disclose that you applied (since it's personal information held by the government) but I can confirm to you.

I understand. 😉

Yes, you're good. I probably should have added you to the official list, but I have a note in my file to remind me about you from when we last talked.

The only problem application right now is Txec's, since I'm sure there's some law about me issuing multiple IDs so quickly, especially when his explicit purpose is "to commit crimes and stuff." Also these pictures he sent in are wildly inappropriate.

Quote from: Marcel Eðo Pairescu Tafial, UrGP on April 09, 2024, 03:34:08 PMI had already passed the Civics Test once, but I can't find the link for applying for a card. What should I do?

I will send you the link via PM.

Side note:

If you want an ID card in the next batch, you are almost out of time to apply.

The Civics Test I set up is here.  If you take the Civics Test, you will receive a link at the end directing you to the ID Card form.

Right now, I see six applications since the last time I issued cards.  When I get a chance, I will get started on the process.  I completely understand that people are eager, and it's great!  But please be patient.  I will keep everyone updated on the timeframe, but here's my current plan:

• Validate all tests.  I have to check to make sure everyone got the required score and that they're all current citizens.  This will take very little time, and I will do that tonight.
• Validate info.  I have to make sure that I have all required information.  Technically I could just reject applications that were not following directions, but I usually reach out in private to fix the application, instead.  Last time, a third of all applications needed fixing.
• Process the cards.  Most of this is automated, but the profile and signature images need to be done manually.  This usually only takes me five to ten minutes apiece.
• Printing.  This takes up to two weeks, although it might be less time since it's already been set once.
• Mailing.  Fairly variable, but I'm in the continental United States, so you can do your own reckoning

I'll be getting started tonight -- my apologies to anyone who had to wait.

If I still had a seat, I'd vote against it, too.  An incredibly important election process for a really important office where a single person exclusively is empowered to start it at any time within a six-month period, and then who also decides on the process for voter registration -- and who partially holds the power of that office for however long it takes to fill the office?  It's very strange, and has a lot of bad incentives that would tempt anyone.

And that's completely aside from the Txec stuff.  The text here is really unclear, but it seems as though maybe the Chancery is supposed to conduct the election and count the ballots?  I guess Txec would have to resign his office?

(Unless the chief justice is also supposed to count the votes, although that'd be way worse.)

I think the proposed process has significant flaws, even aside from the fact that it would probably end the monarchy in any real sense.

Think about other aspects of the logistics.  The candidate would be chosen during a meeting, implying an actual time-sensitive event.  How many of the eligible 88 voters (as of this moment) would show up to such an event?  It'd be hugely dependent on chance and the decisions of the chair.  And since the new office of president would be confirmed by a simple majority vote -- there would be little reason to suppose that the president would be a consensus candidate, despite the supermajoritarian nomination process.  There are like ten total people who have ever shown up to a live event of any kind, ever, and who would be eligible to vote in this process.

This is quite aside from the fact that we'd be discarding our oldest tradition, possibly irrevocably.