The State of Talossa Report Card: D (In Danger)

[Miestră Schivă, UrN-GC]

an electoral address from Seneschal Miestră Schivă, UrN-GC

As many of you know, I have young children. A while ago, the Senator from Fiovă, cxhn. Valcádac'h, commented that I must be enthused for the day that the oldest turns 14 and I can introduce them to Talossan citizenship.

My answer surprised GV, I think; and to some extent, it surprised me. It was: "no. Why would I want them to suffer?"

I wasn't in a great mood that day, so maybe I overstated the case. But sadly, I stand by the general sentiment. Talossa as it exists today is not an environment which I would promote to my kids; or indeed, in a serious way, to anyone else.

Why? Because Talossa has been unpleasant for me, personally, for quite a while.

Part of this is the long, drawn-out, bitter constitutional struggle over the monarchy; I haven't quite recovered from the exhaustion of that process. But more than that, it has been the normalisation of personal attacks and harassment in Talossan politics.

Not more than a couple of years ago, a Seneschal of Talossa was harassed out of office (and temporarily out of the Kingdom) by his own predecessor, by a former member of his party. The Secretary of State has been the target of unsavory behavior, which walks right up to the line of sexual harassment, and in my opinion steps over it.

I do not want my children to be involved in a community like this - and please remember that children of high school ages are our citizens. Of course, you can't stop people being what we call "forăs da ciol" in the national language. You can't criminalise being a jerk, and you shouldn't try. But to the extent that we do not enact social sanctions for bad behaviour, we are giving the message: "the people making others feel yuck are more valuable to us than the targets of their behaviour".

I hasten to say, things are getting better! Having a Head of State who actually cares for the country, for its social health and for the wellbeing of its citizens has helped. It's helped a lot. Så vivadra el Regeu, and you know what a shocker that is coming from me.

But let's put it this way. The King recently organised a meet-and-greet over Zoom. This was an excellent initiative, but I know of some Talossans who didn't take part, precisely because one of the leading bullies in Talossa might have been on the call.

In the past when I have complained about this, the answer has always been: that I, Miestră, am myself an unpleasant person, that I have done exactly this in the past, and therefore I deserve whatever blowback I get. Fine. I annoy people. I am what I am and what I am is pretty poor. But I challenge anyone to make an argument that Bråneu Excelsio deserved it.

The highest morality in many philosophical and faith traditions is that we wish for others what we wish for ourselves. Fine. I wish that everyone in Talossa who acts like a creep, a bully, a nasty scold, a high-handed dog-in-the-manger who feels entitled to run the place, gets sanctioned. And that includes me.

Because this is the only way the culture will ever change. Only if Talossa becomes pleasant to interact in - if you aren't constantly looking over your shoulder to watch out if someone who wishes you ill is going to try to spoil your fun - would I want my little ones to involved. And for that matter; only in that case would I feel great about encouraging anyone to immigrate.

The opposition have attacked the current Government's record in terms of immigration. To their credit, when they were in power, they did try to do "more"; and it simply didn't work, for whatever reason. And - given our culture - there's no reason to expect it'd work any better next time. But sometimes in politics, voters prefer to see tough talk and declarations of intent even if they have zero practical results. We'll see if that's what the voters really want this time.

But "growth for growth's sake" is the ideology of cancer. The cry from our opponents is that the current institutions don't work properly given the number of current active citizens. So therefore, we must desperately increase immigration to... make the institutions work better?

The institutions were made for the Talossan people, not the Talossan people for the institutions. People do not immigrate to Talossa for the joys of a bicameral legislature. Lotsa countries got one of those.

The conservative attitude to Talossa - and let's just say that there's a long tradition in Talossa of conservative parties calling themselves "Progressive" - is that Talossa is the institutions. And if the institutions aren't working for the population, then - as Bertolt Brecht put it - we have to recruit a different population. This attitude led to a decade defending an increasingly out of touch, hostile, apathetic, and bitter King in a political struggle that sapped a lot of life out of this kingdom.

A re-elected ¡Avant! government will continue our work of encouraging immigration of new citizens, but we will also continue to reform the institutions so that they work for the citizens, not the other way around. To do otherwise is stagnation; of turning Talossa into a museum, because one political leader really identifies with the museum pieces.

But much more important that the institutions - conserved or reformed - is cultural change. By which I mean, Talossans just behaving towards each other with courtesy. Or politeness, if courtesy is a problem. ¡Avant! wants to significantly beef up the powers and independence of Wittenberg moderation, to be able to enact social sanction on people who just ruin things for the rest of Talossa.

We've had problems with this in the past because - if it's a politician acting like that, and it usually is - the moderators themselves get targeted for abused, accused of political bias. King Robert I was fond of saying that everyone in Talossa could be a major political figure. Fine; but we know what happens when major political figures start to think they're above the rules (or basic decency), and that any attempt to hold them to account is political bias. It's happening in the Big Neighbour right now.

In this election, we need to draw a hard line against people who behave in a way that causes people to walk away from Talossa; to go inactive; to make people not want to promote Talossa to anyone they care about. I am aware that this may include me! It may include all of us. We need to sanction bad behaviour regardless of whether our political allies commit it, or our political enemies are the victims.

If there's anything I've found out in my decades of Talossanity and my (counts) bloody hell, FOUR terms as Seneschal, it's that the Government is limited to the extent that it can "change" Talossa at a fundamental level. This is probably good, because it means that Talossa is more "real" than any political tendency. But it means that for things to change - for example, the basic culture of what kind of behaviour is acceptable from Talossa - it has to come from the people. The best a Government can do is lead by example; the best a political party can do is name the issue and canvass support for it.

A vote for ¡Avant! is a vote for the interests of Talossa as a population first. Not a defence of institutions as if they were more real than people. Not a defence of individual citizens to be bullies, creeps, and pests, and generally defecate on the national discourse. But building Talossa as a civil society into which we would all want to invite our friends and our loved ones.

Let's make a land fit for kind people to move to; a land I would be overjoyed to introduce my children to.

[Breneir Tzaracomprada]

As someone who played a part in the end of that long, drawn-out, bitter constitutional struggle over the monarchy I am glad you are getting over your exhaustion, Miestra. I remember speaking to your party congress in March of 2024 and, if I recall correctly, that whas when the ball really started rolling. Helping to bring Txec to the throne is one of my proudest moments as a Talossan.

As a Green Party member, who has worked to hold Avant to account, with great success (as is being shown in the Opposition Ministerial Report Cards) I ask for voters to give us the honor of returning for that very privilege. Why? Because its fun and that is what Talossa is all about. Having fun together.