The Fleecing Act

[Baron Alexandreu Davinescu]

Oh no, I activated your trap card!

[C. M. Siervicül]

This is why we can't have nice things.

[King Txec]

Nope I'm not outraged at all. I'm merely pointing out an observation based on lots of posts made by yourself to which I've not responded or gotten angry at or anything. I don't expect anything better from you really and whether your intent was partisan or "simply pointing things out" I could care less about you or your veiled attempts at smarminess.

[Eðo Grischun]

Mm hmm.  No outrage.  Just some eye rolling.  Your nonsense is really not worth the energy it would take to get angry.

[Sir Ian Plätschisch]

Basic stuff is falling behind almost everywhere.

It is so easy to criticize and point things out when you don't do anything or volunteer your efforts.

We should actually give him credit where it's due on this one.

Some basic stuff did fall behind last term. Particularly, the usage of the Kingdom's social media which was woefully underused by the previous Minister, who actually happens to now be the leader of the party that Sir Davinescu now supports.

OK, while I am delighted to see the interim Government posting a ton to social media, I will not let my record as MinSTUFF be impugned like this. While my social media usage wasn't anything to write home about, it was a heck of a lot better than all other Ministers of STUFF I can remember. Since I became STUFF Minister last fall, I have made 16 posts to the Talossa Facebook page. Before that, no one had posted anything there for the past two years! The story is similar with our Twitter account.

[Sir Ian Plätschisch]

Also, so long as we're memeing, I can't resist this one

[Miestră Schivă, UrN-GC]

 ;D I was a Liz Warren stan myself, but I've got no real problem with Bernie (as opposed to some of his asshole fanclub).

But seriously, a point has been raised as to whether election registration fees are a good thing in themselves, or just "necessary evil" revenue gathering. I.e., if we were getting enough louise and bence from other sources, should we abolish those fees? Personally, I think setting a small bar to Kingdom electoral participation is a good thing, which redirects people away from politics to other facets of Talossanity.

[Eðo Grischun]

Agreed.  Revenue raising is only one advantage of electoral fees.

Arguably, the small fee also limits the ballot to containing only parties that are actually serious about getting elected.  It stops the ballot being spammed with pointless, frivolous and novelty parties.

[Sir Ian Plätschisch]

I don't have a strong opinion on that question, but in my experience every non-serious party has collapsed well before it came time to pay up.

[Baron Alexandreu Davinescu]

If people cannot do the interesting things they want to do, they will lose interest.  They will probably not become interested in the things we'd prefer they do, instead.

If a boy's father desperately wants him to like camping out in the woods, but the boy only wants to read comic books, the father can't make the boy like camping by banning comic books from the house.  The boy will still not be interested in camping -- and worse, he might not be interested in doing anything at all with his father.

Obviously, the father should invite the boy to bring his comics out on the trail with them.  The boy gets to do the thing he really likes, but he also gets a chance to be exposed to the interesting aspects of a new activity.

If we tax holding office, then we discourage people from holding office.  The tax isn't much, of course (right now), and the people who will be discouraged are mostly the young or poorer people or people who speak English as a second language.  But why are we taxing people for doing the fun things they want to do at all, if we can help it?  Isn't that kind of the opposite of what we're here to do?

We shouldn't be adding a tax on holding a seat in the Senats.  We should be eliminating the fee for holding a seat in the Cosa.

[Eðo Grischun]

Is there absolutely any evidence of any political movement, in the past, being snuffed out by the fee?

Has there ever been anybody that you remember walking away from Talossa because the party fee prevented them from forming a party and as a result made them throw in the towel?

Or are you indeed just trying to score the easy political points and low hanging fruit of "we will lower your taxes"?

[Miestră Schivă, UrN-GC]

You missed the implication that the fee disproportionately impacts young, poor and non-English speaking people, which is not only completely without evidence but a nasty little attempt to make those of Leftish disposition in the government feel guilty. Notice how it's phrased as an aside, or a throw-away, as if it were something obvious that his opponents just don't care about.

If only AD could make a suggestion or a political argument without somehow attempting to shame, anger or emotionally manipulate his collocutors. But it's been 14 years and nothing changes. Whenever AD says something particularly nasty like that in future, I think I'll just post this image.

[Miestră Schivă, UrN-GC]

This is why we can't have nice things.

With respect, Cresti, lo these many years ago I wrote to you asking whether you could do anything about AD's nasty, provocative way of arguing, and your response was, paraphrasing only slightly, "you [Miestra] are just as bad". That's why we can't have nice things.

"Both sides do it" has ruined US politics and it ruins Talossa.

[Baron Alexandreu Davinescu]

Is there absolutely any evidence of any political movement, in the past, being snuffed out by the fee?

Has there ever been anybody that you remember walking away from Talossa because the party fee prevented them from forming a party and as a result made them throw in the towel?

Or are you indeed just trying to score the easy political points and low hanging fruit of "we will lower your taxes"?

No, I don't have any direct evidence that any "political movement" was unable to pay the Cosa fee, and I have no direct knowledge of anyone walking away from Talossa because they couldn't pay.  I'm not sure how likely it is that such a thing would happen.  It's a small amount of money, and the people who are unable or unwilling to pay are almost certainly not going to say that it's standing in their way.  But it's common sense that if you ask people to pay money for a thing, that's going to discourage some people from doing that thing.  I mean, are you seriously saying that no one's ever been discouraged from starting their own party based on the fee?  If you're 14, finding a way to send a stranger money over the Internet can be disheartening, I would imagine.  If you're living in Sikkim, maybe it's not easy, either.  And so on.  Purely as a matter of basic reason, we have to admit that this probably plays a role in decisions some folks have made over time, right?

The points I'm trying to make are that:

A. It is wrong-headed on a basic principle to try to discourage people from doing a fun thing, out of the hope that they will do something else that you prefer.  You can't block people from the Cosa to try to force them to do provincial politics.  You can't block people from politics to try to force them to write poems.  It doesn't work.

B. It is wrong-headed as a basic principle to tax people for doing one of the main things people like actively doing in Talossa, because clearly that's a big draw and we should be encouraging that.  If we need to do it, okay, but if we don't -- then it makes no sense!

You missed the implication that the fee disproportionately impacts young, poor and non-English speaking people, which is not only completely without evidence but a nasty little attempt to make those of Leftish disposition in the government feel guilty.

You offered to pay out of your pocket for anyone who said they couldn't pay, which is great.  And for a lot of people, it's not a lot of money and they'd be happy to give it for a good cause (ahem, such as a GoFundMe).

But for a lot of people -- people who are not in the fluent English and globally affluent majority of Talossan citizenry -- it's not nothing.  Those people deserve a mention and that problem deserves to be acknowledged.  If the inequity makes you feel bad about the situation, great!  That's what's supposed to happen with inequity!  Let's be bold and eliminate the fees, instead!  We don't need them!

You know how you send money to someone in China?  You send it on your phone or through Alipay or something else like that.  It's the same in a lot of places!  Can we accept Alipay?  Are we going to ask people to do wire transfers instead?  No, that never happens.  People send checks from American or European banks, or they use a western-friendly service like PayPal.  And teenagers usually don't have the ability to do that in most households, even in affluent areas, unless they're from lucky families!

[Baron Alexandreu Davinescu]

Look, I don't want to exaggerate or make this out to be the end of the world in terms of inequity -- that was an aside, elaborated upon only on demand.  Not a lot of Chinese teenagers are Talossans, and so we're not talking about a huge injustice being perpetrated on an oppressed underclass.  Our niche appeal, Internet base, and English language gives us specific demographics.  But we're just talking about a lot of teenaged Talossans and Talossans with less means over the years in aggregate.  There have been people affected by this.  I'm not going to pretend it's a pressing social justice issue, but neither should we pretend it doesn't matter in terms of who has access to Talossan fun.

The more central issue remains the main one I have been discussing: we shouldn't charge people to do the fun stuff unless we need to.  Because if you do, they'll tend to do less of that stuff in the long run.

[Eðo Grischun]

The registration fee doesn't block anybody from getting involved in politics, though.  I mean, you are providing the perfect example of how open our legislative system is to all citizens.  Anybody can come to the Hopper and debate just about any Bill whether they are in a party or not, whether they are officially a politician or not.

The fee doesn't even stop people from being in a party nor does it stop them from sitting in the Cosa for a party.

It was also said earlier that with parties, the cost can be spread over multiple people.  The FreeDem fee, for example, is rarely paid by the same person twice.  The most recent fee wasn't even paid by the party leader as someone else volunteered.

So, really, for the party registration fee doesn't really prohibit anybody from anything.

[Miestră Schivă, UrN-GC]

For years and years, people have told me that the problem with Talossa is "too much politics". AD, on the other hand, thinks running in elections is "the fun stuff" to which there should be no impediment. They can't both be right.

[Baron Alexandreu Davinescu]

The registration fee doesn't block anybody from getting involved in politics, though.  I mean, you are providing the perfect example of how open our legislative system is to all citizens.  Anybody can come to the Hopper and debate just about any Bill whether they are in a party or not, whether they are officially a politician or not.

The fee doesn't even stop people from being in a party nor does it stop them from sitting in the Cosa for a party.

It was also said earlier that with parties, the cost can be spread over multiple people.  The FreeDem fee, for example, is rarely paid by the same person twice.  The most recent fee wasn't even paid by the party leader as someone else volunteered.

So, really, for the party registration fee doesn't really prohibit anybody from anything.

Yes, much of our system is open.  For free -- by right of your citizenship -- you can talk about things, support an existing party and hold its seats, or even run for office as a senator.  We're now proposing to eliminate the third one.  That's bad.  But you should also be able to start a new party for free, if we can manage that.  Looking at the budget, we can manage it easily.

I have thought of a couple of examples, as it happens.  As I recall, Nicola Casalmac'h wanted to form a Pirate Party with her brother, but opted not to do so because of the party fee (or maybe simply opted not to continue it because of the fee -- this was ten years ago or so).  And didn't Tariq Zubair also complain about paying a party fee, and instead joined an existing party?

The party registration fee isn't some huge barrier, but it is a barrier.  We should get rid of it, if we can afford to do so.  We definitely shouldn't start taxing other things unless we need to.

For years and years, people have told me that the problem with Talossa is "too much politics". AD, on the other hand, thinks running in elections is "the fun stuff" to which there should be no impediment. They can't both be right.

Imagine you you're a farmer growing crops and you've been having successful year after year with your wheat, but your corn isn't growing well.  Will it help your corn grow if you plow under your wheat fields?  No, of course not!  If you want corn, the solution is to a better job of growing that, not to harm the thing you're growing well.  You might still be sick of wheat, but you gotta eat.

I mean, honestly, can't we learn the lesson by now that you can't force people to be interested in stuff by banning them from the things they want to do?  When has that ever worked?  When we barred new citizens from the Cosa, did provincial government take off?  No.  Instead it's so anemic that some provinces have talked of merging to try to get together enough people who are interested.

[Eðo Grischun]

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ZomwVcGt0LE

[Eðo Grischun]

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=U8Mlm_XE-lk