Joint Statement on Solicitation

[Carlüs Éovart Vilaçafat]

Ad hominems aside, what it sounds like is there are no regulations surrounding this sort of behavior. I'm still learning the Talossan Political process but is there not a way to draft a rule or rules and put them up for a vote?

[Ián S.G. Txaglh]

Ad hominems aside, what it sounds like is there are no regulations surrounding this sort of behavior. I'm still learning the Talossan Political process but is there not a way to draft a rule or rules and put them up for a vote?

sadly, legislation often does not forsee and does not take in account each an every dirty trick played by politicians to get what they want. last 8 yrs in czechia are quite a good example how our idealistic constitution was often used as a toilet paper by the new generation of populistic politicians. this new political "culture" on both sides of the ocean, and as i see, also here, in talossa, unfortunately cannot be solved by rules, cos those can be twisted and surpassed, but only by keeping ethical integrity. otherwise there will be rules to correct rules to correct rules and we'll be in a formalistic legal hell.

can someone remind me why and how the republic of talossa turned into being? [hint, it is a rhetoric question] i do not want it to happen again, although i would gladly leave players like the esteemed senator t. in their sandbox and move somewhere else, where the air is a bit fresher.

[Mic’haglh Autófil, SMC EiP]

Ad hominems aside, what it sounds like is there are no regulations surrounding this sort of behavior. I'm still learning the Talossan Political process but is there not a way to draft a rule or rules and put them up for a vote?

I'm not sure there's a good way to do that without going against your right to organize political parties and organizations under the Third Covenant.

It's something that isn't generally well-received in parliamentary systems, but that doesn't necessarily mean you can illegalize it without opening up a different can of worms. Individual MCs may affiliate how they please, though as S:reu Tafial noted, it would be a massive blow to your credibility to agree to something like this.

[Carlüs Éovart Vilaçafat]

Ad hominems aside, what it sounds like is there are no regulations surrounding this sort of behavior. I'm still learning the Talossan Political process but is there not a way to draft a rule or rules and put them up for a vote?

sadly, legislation often does not forsee and does not take in account each an every dirty trick played by politicians to get what they want. last 8 yrs in czechia are quite a good example how our idealistic constitution was often used as a toilet paper by the new generation of populistic politicians. this new political "culture" on both sides of the ocean, and as i see, also here, in talossa, unfortunately cannot be solved by rules, cos those can be twisted and surpassed, but only by keeping ethical integrity. otherwise there will be rules to correct rules to correct rules and we'll be in a formalistic legal hell.

I completely agree, but only one of those 2 things can be controlled. You can't control a persons ethics but you can at least enforce a minimum ethical standard. (I also find it interesting that apparently how severe this offense is viewed is at least mildly correlated to your macro-national political culture.)

[Miestră Schivă, UrN]

I'm pretty sure that there's no way to make "being a jerk" or "acting in bad faith" or "accusing people of being bullies for calling you out for being a jerk" illegal, nor should it be in a free society. I don't want to live in a society where everything that's legal is considered socially acceptable, though.

However, such behaviour should attract a political cost. If parties do things like this and it's universally condemned, and perhaps even their own voters tell their leaders they went too far trying to get political advantage, then maybe it won't happen again.

Which is why this shouldn't be a pile-on of FreeDems/PdR supporters. It would be great to see at least one person who voted TNC saying that this isn't acceptable behaviour from the person they voted for as Seneschal.

[owenedwards]

Having known Senator Tzaracomprada for 15 years - and been, I hope, a friend of his for that time - I can only say that, *as to ethical intentions only* (no legal comment here), I cannot believe there was any malice in this. If we want to avoid the sort of atmosphere "of the KR1 era", or of the period that drove me from the Kingdom for a few years, then I'd counsel some degree of caution in ascribing malice, corruption, etc. I think this is very unwise.

[Breneir Tzaracomprada]

Having known Senator Tzaracomprada for 15 years - and been, I hope, a friend of his for that time - I can only say that, *as to ethical intentions only* (no legal comment here), I cannot believe there was any malice in this. If we want to avoid the sort of atmosphere "of the KR1 era", or of the period that drove me from the Kingdom for a few years, then I'd counsel some degree of caution in ascribing malice, corruption, etc. I think this is very unwise.

Thank you friend for your support and for this wise counsel.

[Glüc da Dhi S.H.]

sadly, legislation often does not forsee and does not take in account each an every dirty trick played by politicians to get what they want. last 8 yrs in czechia are quite a good example how our idealistic constitution was often used as a toilet paper by the new generation of populistic politicians.

You do get to have pirates in government though, so maybe its not all bad :P

[Antonio Montagnha, Ed. D.]

Or calling someone stupid, or going after their mental health therapy...

I'm pretty sure that there's no way to make "being a jerk" or "acting in bad faith" or "accusing people of being bullies for calling you out for being a jerk" illegal, nor should it be in a free society. I don't want to live in a society where everything that's legal is considered socially acceptable, though.

However, such behaviour should attract a political cost. If parties do things like this and it's universally condemned, and perhaps even their own voters tell their leaders they went too far trying to get political advantage, then maybe it won't happen again.

Which is why this shouldn't be a pile-on of FreeDems/PdR supporters. It would be great to see at least one person who voted TNC saying that this isn't acceptable behaviour from the person they voted for as Seneschal.

[Baron Alexandreu Davinescu]

My goodness!  Quite an excited pile-up in my absence!  Not sure where to start!  Maybe it's better to just note that the better graces of @owenedwards , @Antonio Montagnha, Ed. D. , @Eiric S. Bornatfiglheu , and others are probably right to note that the insults seem... "disproportionate," maybe?

I don't think that it's wrong to try to convince a Member of Cosa to defect from a coalition or government, and it happens in other countries from time to time -- a couple of weeks ago, in fact, the coalition whip of the Israeli governing majority, Idit Silman, defected to Likud and thereby ended the coalition's majority in the Knesset, and a few years ago in the UK the Tories lost their majority when Philip Lee defected to the Liberal Democrats.  Now, I'm not such a scholar of political science as many here, so maybe there's some differences I'm missing, but this process doesn't seem all that unusual, much less shocking.  In South Africa, it was actually regulated officially for a decade -- you were allowed two defections a year, no more!

Some countries have laws against this practice, like India, but it's commonplace in America.  In 2001, Jim Jeffords of Vermont actually shifted control of that chamber when he joined the Democrats.

If we'd like to establish a new norm in Talossa that we don't want to allow this practice, then that's fine with me.  Let's be specific, and see if we can put it into law.  But maybe lower the invective a little bit, either way?

[Ian Plätschisch]

Reposting because people seem to be missing the main point.

Voters vote for a party, not for individuals. It is thus clear that the TNC was encouraging an MC to betray their own voters, which seems pretty bad.

[Miestră Schivă, UrN]

deleted because of cluelessness on my part

[Glüc da Dhi S.H.]

The OrgLaw doesnt allow parties to just reassign seats though. Parties assign seats, but "MCs may not be removed from office except by a two-thirds vote by the Cosa and approval by the King. An MC vacates his seats if he fails to vote on two consecutive Clarks, or if he resigns from office or dies."

Nowhere in the OrgLaw is it mentioned that parties can remove their MCs.

Note: not supposed to be a comment on the ethical (or personal) matters being discussed here. Kinda want to stay out that.

[Miestră Schivă, UrN]

I'm informed by my colleagues that Glüc is right and I was wrong about the constitutional situation.  :-[