The Fleecing Act

[Eðo Grischun]

[Miestră Schivă, UrN-GC]

I mean, honestly, can't we learn the lesson by now that

Alex, we're not schoolchildren, we don't have to accept your authority about what "the lesson" is here. You don't speak from any position of success or accomplishment in politics, or even from the historical record of what Talossa was like in your "good old days". For those who came in late: Talossa was not significantly more active in Alex's Good Old Days, nor more fun, than today. It just gave Alex more of a platform.

Anyway, I honestly believe that preventing the fragmentation of the party system and expecting people who want political power to cough up the equivalent of a sandwich every 8 months for it is a good thing. Everything else you're saying is assertion phrased in a condescending voice, I just disagree with your basic premises, so debate is otiose.

To be fair, though, there are other ways of preventing the fragmentation of the party system; and it's not ideal that the difference between a legislator and a common prole is willingness to cough up $10 and nothing else. So, how's about this; I'll support removing the Cosa registration fee once (a) we have reliable sources of revenue to replace it; (b) we establish a Real Cosa-style system so you need more than your own vote to get a seat.

When we barred new citizens from the Cosa, did provincial government take off?  No.  Instead it's so anemic

And here's another example - provincial government has always been anemic, and anyone who says otherwise is lying.

[Baron Alexandreu Davinescu]

To be fair, though, there are other ways of preventing the fragmentation of the party system; and it's not ideal that the difference between a legislator and a common prole is willingness to cough up $10 and nothing else. So, how's about this; I'll support removing the Cosa registration fee once (a) we have reliable sources of revenue to replace it; (b) we establish a Real Cosa-style system so you need more than your own vote to get a seat.

It seems, based on this, that you are in pursuit of two principles: reliable revenue (good, I'm on board with this, and congrats we're already there), and republicanism (ie, only sizable parties should be permitted to be in the Ziu, not small parties of one or two people)?  Why is the latter a good thing?  Isn't one of the best aspects of Talossa that we're small enough so that anyone can get to participate in stuff like legislating, even if they only represent themselves or one or two other people?

When we barred new citizens from the Cosa, did provincial government take off?  No.  Instead it's so anemic

And here's another example - provincial government has always been anemic, and anyone who says otherwise is lying.

...it's always weird when you vigorously support my point, but yes, thank you.  Banning new citizens from the Ziu hasn't helped at all.

[Marcel Eðo Pairescu Tafial, UrGP]

Sorry for chiming in again (not even sure why I do that, I'm completely neutral on this topic), but:

republicanism (ie, only sizable parties should be permitted to be in the Ziu, not small parties of one or two people)

I dont understand how discouraging one-or-two-man bands is related to not having a hereditary monarch. Is this some semantic quirk that I'm too European to understand?


EDIT: Since provincial governments have been mentioned, I have to ask: whats the point of having them in the first place? Like, I get having provinces, I suppose, but what do the provincial governments actually... do? They have leaders and assemblies and all these structures that, in the end, don't do anything for the entire term until the next election rolls around. Am I missing something?

[Miestră Schivă, UrN-GC]

and republicanism (ie, only sizable parties should be permitted to be in the Ziu, not small parties of one or two people)?

I scratched my head about what you meant by "republicanism", but then I realised you probably meant it in that weird US sense (not used anywhere else in the world) when it means "limits on democracy". But New Zealand, not a republic, has a threshold of 5% of the popular vote for a seat in the legislature. Other countries - Germany, Israel, Italy - have seen the issue with promoting party fragmentation and have also imposed thresholds, which encourage broader parties and alliances between parties.

A Real Cosa of 20 MCs would have an effective quota of 4-5 votes, which IMHO is probably slightly too large for Talossa. But the quota for Cosa elections should be at least 2 votes, this I firmly believe.

[Baron Alexandreu Davinescu]

Sorry for chiming in again (not even sure why I do that, I'm completely neutral on this topic), but:

republicanism (ie, only sizable parties should be permitted to be in the Ziu, not small parties of one or two people)

I dont understand how discouraging one-or-two-man bands is related to not having a hereditary monarch. Is this some semantic quirk that I'm too European to understand?

It's probably just my own lack of political acumen at work, sorry!  I'm a teacher and community organizer, and I have no training at all in poli-sci.  I was trying to find a term that wouldn't be inflammatory (like "exclusionary") but which accurately described the stance.  A republic is contrasted with a direct democracy inasmuch as people vote for representatives, and that's what I was getting at.  I'd love a better term, since that one has like twenty meanings and is immediately confusing.  Suggestions?

EDIT: Since provincial governments have been mentioned, I have to ask: whats the point of having them in the first place? Like, I get having provinces, I suppose, but what do the provincial governments actually... do? They have leaders and assemblies and all these structures that, in the end, don't do anything for the entire term until the next election rolls around. Am I missing something?

I can only really speak to one province, but M-M actually did do stuff back in the day, including passing our own laws and coming up with our own traditions.  There's also room for a lot more to develop, if we can get back some momentum.  Provinces represent opportunities for smaller groups to develop their own identities and explore ideas on a smaller level.  IRV was introduced successfully in one province before it was expanded nationally, for example.  It's mostly been a question of potential rather than actual success, but it's still tantalizing for a lot of us as an opportunity.

[Marcel Eðo Pairescu Tafial, UrGP]

I was trying to find a term that wouldn't be inflammatory (like "exclusionary") but which accurately described the stance.  A republic is contrasted with a direct democracy inasmuch as people vote for representatives, and that's what I was getting at.  I'd love a better term, since that one has like twenty meanings and is immediately confusing.  Suggestions?

Ah, so it was a semantic quirk. The mainstream term for a democracy that functions through representatives would be, well, "representative democracy", though I'm not sure if the term has enough oumpf. "Exclusive democracy" means something else entirely (think Apartheid South Africa, which was perfectly democratic... if you were White.)

As Miestră has pointed out, election thresholds are par for the course in any representative democracy out there. Even Switzerland, which would be the closest thing to what an American would call a democracy I guess, has these thresholds on the cantonal level. In a 20-seat Real Cosă, you would need 5% of the non-PRESENT vote to get one guaranteed seat. This equals 5.34 votes based on the average voter turnout of 106.9 non-PRESENT votes since the 45th Cosă election. Thanks to rounding though, you would only need roughly 2.5% of the vote (2.67 votes) to get in in most scenarios.

Now, whether a de facto 2.5% treshold is too high or too low is a different topic entirely (and is only tangentially related to the Fleecing Act). Just wanted to put that out there.

[Baron Alexandreu Davinescu]

Yeah, I'm not sure what the best term would be still. Exclusionary is too inflammatory even if it were accurate, anyway.

I absolutely agree that every single parliamentary democracy in the world has a high threshold for getting into the parliament. Often it's extremely high, on the order of thousands or tens of thousands. But it's not a good thing, it's a necessary evil. One of the best parts about our country is that it's small enough for people to meaningfully participate in all sorts of aspects like that. Why would it be good to make that harder? Just blind imitation of these other countries?