TNC Anti-Monarchy Reform Blockade to end???

[Miestră Schivă, UrN-GC]

TNC members have for the past several weeks been engaged in a spirited internal debate on the issue of monarchy reform. Now that the blockade has ended and the danger of creating harmful precedents has passed. Member debate has focused on restoring some form of royal succession procedure, potential changes to the removal threshold, and considering the interesting proposals from Minister Mic'haglh Autofil's PdR.

If this were honest, the end of this Blockade would be cause for us to take a victory lap. But I fear it's not honest. Firstly, there's the question of how the Government parties could trust something coming from the guy who signed a document supporting a monarchy reform, then did a totally unexplained 180 degree heel-turn against that proposal. It's hard to take a party seriously if they will support something, become its most vicious opponents, then re-introduce it, all without explanation, if it seems in their partisan interests - all the while hoping that the public won't notice it or their partisans will "doublethink" away the contradiction.

Secondly, what about the principled Monarchists in the TNC - for example, their member of the Cosa who wrote this particular bit of purple prose and is on the record as supporting the return of hereditary succession? Where do rank and file TNC voters stand? Will the same people (MZs and voters) who chanted GOD SAVE THE KING just accept a real monarchy reform, because their leader and "Chief of Staff" had decided that it's time? I doubt it - which is precisely why this won't go anywhere without FreeDems/PdR support.

Thirdly, the devil will be in the details. I've got a pretty good idea of what "succession procedure" means, and it'll be nothing that democratic-minded Talossans can accept. I would bet it would mean the King simply appointing a successor, just like he appointed a Regent. I think you see where this is going.

If only there were some way to be assured of the good faith of a party which has no compunction about dishonesty when politically advantageous.

[Miestră Schivă, UrN-GC]

That said, let's not be churlish. I might be wrong about all this and it's not just another partisan manoeuvre meant. So it's probably time for an open thread for FreeDems and those friendly (including our PdR colleagues) on: what would you hope to see in a Monarchy Reform proposal that could actually get 3/4 support?

I suppose I'd start by saying that the last bit is the rub. Any Monarchy Reform would need 3/4 support because any Monarchy Reform worth its salt would get the Royal Veto. Or alternatively - is there anything worth passing that could get the Incumbent Absentee monarch's approval? I doubt it.

I'd also add (and this is only my personal opinion, not representative of the party leadership): I still believe that the combination of a life term and actual political powers is a bad combination which automatically leads to corruption, as any observer of the US Supreme Court could tell you. J. Woolley wasn't always an out-of-touch partisan only interested in guarding his own prerogatives. If we just replace him without reforms to the structure, we'll be in the same mess in less than a decade.

[GV]

I will say this right now.  I am completely averse to any return to hereditary monarchial succession.

That being said, I would be receptive to some sort of confirmatory vote for any 'heir' who may succeed Herr Woolley in due course.