The "Reform" Plan

[Breneir Tzaracomprada]

I agree that a year long cosa would be to ungainly as half the fun is the elections.

Can you please elaborate on what would make our elections ungainly with them being conducted annually?

@Tierçéu Rôibeardescù

Tierciu, I look forward to your response as I am genuinely curious what is ungainly about a longer term. Feel free to respond in private if that is better for you but I want to understand the opposition beyond "elections are fun for some."

[King Txec]

We often have trouble keeping ministers in place for the length of our current Cosa terms. Making them even longer could prove to be even more difficult. I am not sure we have the personnel to staff ministries for an entire year at a time. I know some will say we will just find someone to finish the term out, etc. I don't see why longer terms are necessary and I'm not sure I support the idea.

-Txec R

[Breneir Tzaracomprada]

We often have trouble keeping ministers in place for the length of our current Cosa terms. Making them even longer could prove to be even more difficult. I am not sure we have the personnel to staff ministries for an entire year at a time. I know some will say we will just find someone to finish the term out, etc. I don't see why longer terms are necessary and I'm not sure I support the idea.

-Txec R

Yeah, I've heard this argument before. This is not an argument against longer terms as much as it is a statement on how poorly we've provisioned responsibilities and workload in our ministries. We have too many ministries and need to downsize government and move some things to the Civil Service. When you have people doing two, three, and four simultaneous roles then they are bound to peter out in short time.

[King Txec]

We often have trouble keeping ministers in place for the length of our current Cosa terms. Making them even longer could prove to be even more difficult. I am not sure we have the personnel to staff ministries for an entire year at a time. I know some will say we will just find someone to finish the term out, etc. I don't see why longer terms are necessary and I'm not sure I support the idea.

-Txec R

Yeah, I've heard this argument before. This is not an argument against longer terms as much as it is a statement on how poorly we've provisioned responsibilities and workload in our ministries. We have too many ministries and need to downsize government and move some things to the Civil Service. When you have people doing two, three, and four simultaneous roles then they are bound to peter out in short time.

Perhaps a revision to the ministries etc. would be a logical first step then.

- Txec R

[Breneir Tzaracomprada]

We often have trouble keeping ministers in place for the length of our current Cosa terms. Making them even longer could prove to be even more difficult. I am not sure we have the personnel to staff ministries for an entire year at a time. I know some will say we will just find someone to finish the term out, etc. I don't see why longer terms are necessary and I'm not sure I support the idea.

-Txec R

Yeah, I've heard this argument before. This is not an argument against longer terms as much as it is a statement on how poorly we've provisioned responsibilities and workload in our ministries. We have too many ministries and need to downsize government and move some things to the Civil Service. When you have people doing two, three, and four simultaneous roles then they are bound to peter out in short time.

Perhaps a revision to the ministries etc. would be a logical first step then.

- Txec R

I'm open to that but it does not lengthen the political cycle in Talossa which is my main interest. I'd love to see a bill that combines the MMP, multi-staged readings to replace the hopper or adapt it, and fixed annual elections.

[Miestră Schivă, UrN]

Perhaps a revision to the ministries etc. would be a logical first step then.

I crave a royal opinion on how we might go about this. Honestly I don't think the current setup of the ministries is the problem with burnout of Ministers. I support a move of many functions to the Civil Service on general principle. The real problem is lack of warm bodies. If there were only two Cabinet Ministries there would be an equal amount of work and an equal number of people willing to do it.

The fundamental problem is not how the work is divvied up, but that there is too much of it in terms of who wants to do it. Talossa's state structures are much bigger and require more upkeep than at any time in history. For example, there was an old comment from KR1, sometime in the 90s, saying that Talossa would be boring if it had to have a budget and financial accounts etc, but that's exactly what we have now. And I think we need it, because the alternative is for Talossa to run on someone's private dime, which is feudalism. But it's work and people don't want to do it.

[Breneir Tzaracomprada]

I'm reading your response and it looks like you agree that Talossa's government is expected to do too much. We need to reduce the amount of work by a combination of eliminating some ministries entirely (Defence, please) and repurposing some toward the Civil Service. The distinction between the Civil Service and Ministries is that some Talossans might be willing to serve if it means not participating in our politics. Three or four ministries focusing on essential government duties but allow the rest to be filled by an apolitical standing Royal Civil Service.  I think Immigration is a good place to start on that note.

[King Txec]

I'll give it some thought. I have some ideas but in the mean time while I formulate a more formal response, I'd like to refer back to my Independence Day Speech.

Therefore, I am declaring 2025 as L'Anneu D'Comunità, or in English, The Year of Community. Throughout this year, beginning with the newest holiday in our calendar, Flip Molinar Day, I urge each and every one of you to spend as much time as possible seeing, hearing, listening, and communicating with other Talossans.

-Txec R

[Miestră Schivă, UrN]

We need to reduce the amount of work by a combination of eliminating some ministries entirely (Defence, please)

I'm old enough to remember when a certain Baron pummeled the FreeDems-led government about not doing more with the Zouaves.

and repurposing some toward the Civil Service.

You miss the point. Whether a Minister or a civil servant, someone has to do the job, and the reason why we haven't parceled out more jobs to the civil service yet is a lack of enthusiastic civil servants, not Ministers wanting to hold on to this stuff.

I think Immigration is a good place to start on that note.

I would *dearly love* to shove the squalid technical details of the job off to a Civil Servant. If someone were willing to do the thankless job. Which there isn't.

[Baron Alexandreu Davinescu]

We don't have enough active people in Government because we don't have enough active people overall.

Because of that, we don't have enough people interested in serving in Government.  Required tasks are fairly minimal, but finding more than three or four seriously responsible people is a challenge.  Whether or not they are in Government or the Civil Service doesn't change that fact.  And this same problem is the cause of many of our other ills... for example, we have so few interested citizens that there's less reason to make art or literature.  No one will see it.

To the extent that we need to dismantle our institutions to continue to function and free up space for priorities, this makes sense.  Do we need a unicameral legislature?  Do we need to eliminate a bunch of Cabinet positions?  Okay, fine, maybe we need to do that since those things aren't a priority -- but if we're burning the furniture to keep warm, we need to make the most of it.

The next Government should focus overwhelmingly and exclusively on increasing the immigration rate.  Success or failure will be revealed by that single measurement.

[Breneir Tzaracomprada]

To the extent that we need to dismantle our institutions to continue to function and free up space for priorities, this makes sense.  Do we need a unicameral legislature?  Do we need to eliminate a bunch of Cabinet positions?  Okay, fine, maybe we need to do that since those things aren't a priority...

That's exactly it, for me. We should reconsider what are the most vital services for Talossan Government and then make reductions based on that. This is just my personal opinion but I don't think Defence is a vital government service in our particular situation. I am sure there are other areas where we can consider whether they should be public or private entities.

[Miestră Schivă, UrN]

With respect to both y'all, Defence is not the problem here because the Zouaves don't take up time and energy. You know what takes up time and energy? Immigration admin; making sure the websites/Wittenberg/the social media keep running; for the first two Clarks of each Cosa at least, drawing up the Budget. And the Chancery is overwhelmed with the Wittenberg/database stuff as well.

As to recruitment as the solution; we've had a good influx of new citizens recently. None have jumped up to volunteer for this stuff. I mean, perhaps we should have a draft, i.e. "for your first 3 months as a citizen you have to run the Facebook account".

There is a lot of stuff we could get rid of, but this problem de facto solves itself, i.e. stuff doesn't get done and no-one misses it.

[Tric'hard Lenxheir]

I came into Talossa with a lot of enthusiasm, I quickly realized I was in way over my head. Yes it obviously takes enthusiasm for someone to serve in any governmental capacity, whether that is as a minister, senator, cosa member, king or civil servant, but it also requires intelligence. The ability to sift through all of the laws, and understand them. When I was a member of the TNC and we won the majority I immediately contacted party leadership and told them I did NOT want a cabinet position and when I was asked why, I told the truth. I am not intelligent enough to understand the inner workings of the government. I think a lot of the problem with finding willing people who stick out there terms as ministers is in some ways the same. Some people jump into the job and then realize they don't really understand the process. Another issue is the constant hurling of insults back and forth which inevitably lands upon the shoulders of the ministers in the form of Terpelaziuns. Pretty much everyone in Talossa has jobs and family in the real world which take up their time and inhibits their ability to effectively perform the tasks set before them. We simply do not have enough people who are active, have an understanding of how the government works, an understanding of the laws, the time to put into the job to do it properly and honestly the thick skin required to do the job. Hell since I have been here I have seen at least one person leave a post to seek mental health treatment, I think that speaks to the problem with the insults. I ran for senator at the behest of my previous parties leadership despite not understanding the job. I have held a seat in the Vuode provincial government up to and including both Premier and Presiding Officer despite having no knowledge of how to perform the duties of those positions, proving once again that we do not have enough intelligent active citizens. Until this problem is solved we will have a government run by a select few citizens who in my opinion have done fantastic work on both sides but are overwhelmed. Sorry about the longwinded rant but I needed to get it off of my chest...you may continue LOL

[Miestră Schivă, UrN]

I mean, Tric'hard is absolutely right that our systems of government and law have grown so complex that they now require specialist help to navigate correctly. Free Democrats' solution to that is to have Civil Servants whose job is to "hold the hands" of politicians in this regard. Like, for example, a Clerk of the Ziu who would take a badly-written napkin idea from a Senator and turn it into a properly worded and formatted bill.

Talossa has failed if we've created a technocracy, but the problem is that frankly brilliantly intelligent people get into power around here and build high-quality things (legal, judicial, or technical) that only they know how to operate, and then they disappear and the rest of us schmoes don't know which end's up.

[Baron Alexandreu Davinescu]

To the extent that we need to dismantle our institutions to continue to function and free up space for priorities, this makes sense.  Do we need a unicameral legislature?  Do we need to eliminate a bunch of Cabinet positions?  Okay, fine, maybe we need to do that since those things aren't a priority...

That's exactly it, for me. We should reconsider what are the most vital services for Talossan Government and then make reductions based on that. This is just my personal opinion but I don't think Defence is a vital government service in our particular situation. I am sure there are other areas where we can consider whether they should be public or private entities.

We should do that to free up personnel resources, with a plan for how to use them.  Gradual decay is not a plan.  A plan is something like "make it known, in a way that preserves the dignity of the prize, that anyone who recruits five new citizens will be granted a knighthood."

This stuff about Cabinet ministries is silly.  Eliminating Defence isn't going to free Braneu up to do other things -- there's no regular duties in that position.  It's a proactive role, like almost all of them.