[NPW CONVENTION]: When Life Gives You Limes, have a Margarita Party

[esbornatfiglheu]

Estimats Peculiarists,

As the 54th Cosa wraps up, the time comes to look toward crafting our manifesto for the 55th.  There is some business that needs attending to as well, like the choosing of a new party leader. So here is my suggestion for a course of action:

• 6/24-6/27: Nominations for the leader
• 6/28:  Vote on nominations
• <New leader takes over chairing convention>
• 6/29-7/10: Work on the new manifesto

Does this work for everyone?  We can make changes if not.

Also, just to get people's ideas bubbling for when we set to work on the manifesto, I've copied the 4 points of the last one below.

1.) TOO @#$%& MANY PROVINCES- Any is too many. The provinces are a largely dead system that don't reflect anythng in particular. They should be abolished. Or, failing that, be distributed in order of seniority on a percentile system.

2.) NO @#$%& LAND!- You know what claim land they dont control? Bug nations. Land claims to Milwaukee deny reality and are holding Talossa back. It is behavior that is unbecoming of the greatest experimental polity known to humanity.

3.) NO @#$%& THRONE!- Nobody has the corner on Talossanity. Down with the Monarchy.

4.) FAILING THAT... @#$%& IT AND RENAME TALOSSA BENLAND- If Talossa is so moribund and tied to its past that it can no longer move, we'll just face facts and rename the nation Benland.

[Ián S.G. Txaglh]

esteemed co-peculiarists,

the suggested course of action works fine with me.

although i wasn't here when the old manifesto was prepared, i am all ten for it. concept of provinces requires larger active and diverse population, which we do not have. claiming real land which we do not own should be either strictly specified as symbolic or abandoned at all. i am neutral to monarchy in general, i am against absolutist and hereditary monarchy, but constitutional elective monarchy is fine with me, i do not really mind calling this political power president or king, but i have to admit, kings have a special flavour (not speaking in my power of vampire, but as a citizen of one sad republic). proclaiming benland would be an honest act of admitting, if valid, that talossa was not able to transpose from the old times to the new ones. i would do anything to have talossa instead of benland.

[esbornatfiglheu]

Alrighty!  Do we have any nominations for party leader?

[Ián S.G. Txaglh]

Alrighty!  Do we have any nominations for party leader?

hereby, i nominate eiric s. bornatfiglheu for a position of NPW leader.

[Iason Taiwos]

I second that nomination

[esbornatfiglheu]

I accept said nomination.

Are there any other nominations?

[esbornatfiglheu]

Alright.  Since there is but one nomination, we can handle this by consensus.  Is there any opposition to Eiric S. Bornatfiglheu continuing as head of the NPW party?

[esbornatfiglheu]

Seeing none, let it carry that Eiric S. Bornatfiglheu will continue as head of the NPW.  He will retain the title of "Chisleu Bruno" for the next term as well.

Excellent!  Thank you for placing your trust in me for another term.

Let's now look at refining our manifesto.  There seems to be pretty widespread support for continuing with these four points (or something like them).  But let's see if we cannot maybe expand it a little bit.  So, I'd like to place point one on the floor for discussion:

1.) TOO @#$%& MANY PROVINCES- Any is too many. The provinces are a largely dead system that don't reflect anything in particular. They should be abolished. Or, failing that, be distributed in order of seniority on a percentile system.

What discussion is there on this point?

[Ián S.G. Txaglh]

Seeing none, let it carry that Eiric S. Bornatfiglheu will continue as head of the NPW.  He will retain the title of "Chisleu Bruno" for the next term as well.

Excellent!  Thank you for placing your trust in me for another term.

Let's now look at refining our manifesto.  There seems to be pretty widespread support for continuing with these four points (or something like them).  But let's see if we cannot maybe expand it a little bit.  So, I'd like to place point one on the floor for discussion:

1.) TOO @#$%& MANY PROVINCES- Any is too many. The provinces are a largely dead system that don't reflect anything in particular. They should be abolished. Or, failing that, be distributed in order of seniority on a percentile system.

What discussion is there on this point?

congratz, chisleu bruno :)

existence of province should be limited by number of active citizens (not those formally assigned), otherwise we create ephemeral entities inhabited by gogolian dead souls. and once i am radical, why not to create provinces ad hoc, when there are people who want to talossan together. these provinces may take traditional names or new ones, they need not to be located on solid ground, as i also oppose talossa claiming some territory of canon state. talossa is bound to a land of its origin, of the tradition (like pengöpäts or cézembre), of talossan people, but territorial claims (and generally any secessionism, even rhetorical or fun-meant) are childish. lot of place may mean and be talossa, without claims. talossa is mostly place in me.

[esbornatfiglheu]

Though if we simply reduce provinces to affinity groups, how do they then differ from, say, political parties?  I'm actually somewhat fascinated with the idea of sorting everybody by seniority, and then apportioning provinces based on percentile of the system.  That way, there's at least some form of "connected interest" in them.  But they certainly don't need to be geographical.

[Ián S.G. Txaglh]

Though if we simply reduce provinces to affinity groups, how do they then differ from, say, political parties?  I'm actually somewhat fascinated with the idea of sorting everybody by seniority, and then apportioning provinces based on percentile of the system.  That way, there's at least some form of "connected interest" in them.  But they certainly don't need to be geographical.

you may remember i am not 100% fan of polit.parties, so some kind of civil society, in which people aggregate according to not only their political views is more appealing to me. but i get your point. i do not want implement stuff from penguinea, but some kind of that time admin division (were it wapentakes?) representing civil power (not purely political), sound still good to me.

the seniority sorting has one slight problem - there is a plenty to divide people of the same age into non-coherent groups. imho, age is not good connected interest. me thinks, people of different age with a strong affinity of some kind would make better provinces/socio-political units. as there are in reality passive voters and active politicians, province may have a roof organisation made of these active people representing the province. we are so few, that direct democracy may work here too, so provinces may just hold conventions of a sort to decide stuff. more people will ask for representative democracy, but particularly in provinces we are far from it.

[esbornatfiglheu]

2.) NO @#$%& LAND!- You know what claim land they dont control? Bug nations. Land claims to Milwaukee deny reality and are holding Talossa back. It is behavior that is unbecoming of the greatest experimental polity known to humanity.

Let's look at this one, now.  I have no real problem with the concept.  Does anyone have an alternative to suggest?  Or even a positive alternative?

[Iason Taiwos]

We have a shared culture, a language (even if few of us speak it fluently, many of us attempt to use it), a history...we somehow think of ourselves as Talossan. We identify ourselves as Talossan. We are a diaspora of people's with a common identity. In that sense, we are indeed a nation. We don't really need to claim any land. In fact, the land claims are absurd, and as Ian said, that's the kind of things bug nations do. You see all these micronational people wearing medals and sashes and claiming eight square feet as an independent country...good for them, I guess. If Talossa wants to be more than that, we should forget the land claims. Right now, my mobile home in Ohio is (probably) more Talossan than anything in Milwaukee. (Well, I have Talossan coins, a Talossan flag, and my copy of the Guizua is never far from reach...)
As for provinces, I think they're pretty useless at this time. Our population of active citizens is too small to make provinces mean anything. That may someday change, if we ever get enough new people coming in.
As for Peculiarism versus derivatism, why would anyone want to emulate real countries? We can do better than that.

[Ián S.G. Txaglh]

We have a shared culture, a language (even if few of us speak it fluently, many of us attempt to use it), a history...we somehow think of ourselves as Talossan. We identify ourselves as Talossan. We are a diaspora of people's with a common identity. In that sense, we are indeed a nation. We don't really need to claim any land. In fact, the land claims are absurd, and as Ian said, that's the kind of things bug nations do. You see all these micronational people wearing medals and sashes and claiming eight square feet as an independent country...good for them, I guess. If Talossa wants to be more than that, we should forget the land claims. Right now, my mobile home in Ohio is (probably) more Talossan than anything in Milwaukee. (Well, I have Talossan coins, a Talossan flag, and my copy of the Guizua is never far from reach...)
As for provinces, I think they're pretty useless at this time. Our population of active citizens is too small to make provinces mean anything. That may someday change, if we ever get enough new people coming in.
As for Peculiarism versus derivatism, why would anyone want to emulate real countries? We can do better than that.

where may i sign this?

NPW - we can do better than that is a catchy and teasingly ambiguous slogan

[esbornatfiglheu]

3.) NO @#$%& THRONE!- Nobody has the corner on Talossanity. Down with the Monarchy.

How about this one?  I'm beginning to come around to the old Peculiar idea of a diarchy.  We have the king, but we also have an elected head of state (I've been calling the schac'h in my thinking).  Their powers alternate, with the King on odd Clarks, and the schac'h on even (or something like that).  Maybe with some sort of cross-check.  If the monarchy is so much fun, let's double the pleasure, double the fun!