56th Cosă -- August Clark Discussion Thread

[Marcel Eðo Pairescu Tafial, UrGP]

Dear colleagues, please come to order.

I hereby open this month's session of the Cosă. The timetable is as follows:

[table style="width:70%" border=1]
[tr][td]Date Däts[/td] [td]Topic Topic[/td] [td]Speakers Parleirs[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]01 - 11[/td] [td]56RZ1: The Talossa Shall Choose Its King Amendment
56RZ1: L'Amendamaintsch "Talossa Çoiçarha Ça Regeu"[/td] [td]Miestră Schivă, FREEDEMS
HRM John I[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]12 - 21[/td] [td]56RZ2: The Talossan Criminal Law Reform Bill #1
56RZ2: El Proxhet dal Reformaziun del Drept Penal Talossan n:reu 1[/td] [td]Miestră Schivă, FREEDEMS[/td][/tr]
[tr][td]22 - 31[/td] [td]Recess
Spaßetxadă[/td] [td]--[/td][/tr]
[/table]

The first subject on the agenda is RZ1. Once everyone on the Speakers list had had their turn, the remaining MCs will be able to speak about RZ1 in any order they like. You still have the chance to register your speech in this thread, mind you, and I encourage everyone who wishes to speak this month to do so.

Note that this is not a voting thread. The actual voting will take place as usual in the SoS's Voting Thread which is not yet available at the time that I write this, but that shouldn't be an issue.

[Marcel Eðo Pairescu Tafial, UrGP]

First up is the Right Honourable @Miestră Schivă, UrN for the Free Democrats of Talossa.

[Miestră Schivă, UrN]

Estimat Túischac'h, és ocså v'amici Membreux dal Cosa:

The argument over this bill, the Talossa Shall Choose Its King Act, has been done to death. There is very little to update you with from the statement that the Free Democrats of Talossa recently made outside the Chamber. In summary: if everyone votes as they say they were going to vote, I do not have much hope that this bill will pass with the requisite 2/3 of this Chamber.

However, let me take another tack. My Cabinet colleague, the Senator from Maritiimi-Maxhestic, has been heard to comment many times that many current critiques of the Talossan Monarchy are not directed at that entity itself, but at the behaviour of the current King. A King who was well-behaved, active, sensitive to public opinion and not blatantly politically partisan would face far less opposition. His Majesty has rightly said, in refusing assent to this Bill the first time it passed, that it is an instrument of abdication - although my other Cabinet colleague, the Senator from Fiova, has rightly said that it would not prevent His Majesty from reassuming the throne, if given a popular mandate.

I want to put it to my monarchist colleagues in this Chamber. The current King of Talossa has brought not only his own reign, but the institution of the monarchy itself, to the brink, through his own behaviour - in particular, his scandalous "absence without leave" in which he handed over the powers of the monarchy to one of the most divisive people in the country, someone who stinks in the nostrils of the political majority.

Now I just want to harp on this point for a moment. How do you, personally, know that the King ever came back?

This isn't as crazy as it seems. The former Regent let slip more than he intended when he stated that he's responsible for translating the King's proclamations into the national language. Why would that be necessary? His Majesty has long been one of the prominent Ladintschen of his Kingdom. Perusing the glheþ board on Old Wittenberg will show you that his Talossan is pretty good. Maybe better than mine. Definitely better, in fact, than the former Regent's.

Don't be silly, Miestra! you might say. Of course the King's back, he's posting on Wittenberg, isn't he? Funny thing, there. When the Government was taking control over talossa.com and the national domain names, the King handed his logins to the domain name registrar over to me to carry out the changeover. This was of course very convenient and everything got done quicker. But I remembered feeling at the time that something wasn't quite right with that. That it was extremely problematic from a security point of view.

I put it to you, members of the Cosa! If King John had simply handed his Wittenberg login to the former Regent, how would you know?

Of course, if His Majesty finds it within himself to appear on video delivering the Speech from the Throne, then these speculations will seem silly and paranoid. But the way that His Majesty has operated has - in my own opinion - made these speculations all too plausible. The way the current King operates shows how dangerous the Talossan monarchy is, if it falls into the hands of someone who only cares about preserving his own status and power - or if he passes it over, either openly or covertly, to an eminençă grischun, to do what he wants with it? Without any public accountability?

I can't honestly fathom how anyone thinks a Monarchy without public accountability for its decisions is a good thing. Dominance/submission lifestyles are cool between consenting adults, but I don't consent to this one.

Anyway, this bill is the best chance we have had for a long time to put the Talossan Monarchy under any kind of public accountability. A vote against this bill is saying - not that you have confidence in the current Talossan monarchy - but that you support the way the current King, to quote from the classics, fäts qet o volt, contra ben és contra tradiziun. I don't expect to get through to the romantic monarchists of the Balançéu party with this line of thought - but I implore all the rest of you to think. What would you do if you had good reason to think that the King is not actually acting as King, but has "handed over the keys" to someone else, in a manner which can't even be proven to be true or not, let alone held up to political accountability?

If this bill fails, you have at least six months more of never being able to be sure who is actually "driving" the Talossan monarchy. Think about that.

Grült meirçi për ascultar.

[Marcel Eðo Pairescu Tafial, UrGP]

Thank you, D:nă Schivă.

Members are now free until August 11th to give their speech on RZ1 in any order they like, though I would prefer it if a member of the Opposition spoke next.

[King John]

The Distain said it.  "Silly and paranoid."  If she had any *actual* doubts about my existence (instead of this silliness she's trying to foist off on wavering MCs), she would have sent me a text message (as she has done a number of times -- she has my phone number) to ask what's going on.  Instead, we're treated to a patently ridiculous conspiracy theory.

Heck, you all have my phone number.  It's not like I've ever concealed it.  303.877.2763.  And my personal email -- JohnWWoolley AT comcast DOT net.

Sure, I've accepted some help preparing various posts.  No, nobody else has posted in my name, or using my account.  Yes, I'm alive and still at least marginally competent.  No, you're right, D:na, I probably shouldn't have trusted you with my GoDaddy logins.

-- John Regeu

[Miestră Schivă, UrN]

Estimat Túischac'h, the King just isn't allowed to bust in here like that, is he?

I will respond to him elsewhere.

[Marcel Eðo Pairescu Tafial, UrGP]

To my knowledge there's nothing in the books that says the King isn't allowed into the Ziu, or what my powers would be if he werent allowed, so I've decided to allow it for now until the legality of the action has been cleared up, but I appreciate the move to discuss the content of your speech and His Majesty's response to it outside of this chamber regardless.

[Miestră Schivă, UrN]

To my knowledge there's nothing in the books that says the King isn't allowed into the Ziu,

Surely no-one is allowed into the Cosa apart from members of the Cosa? And you have moderator power over this forum for this precise purpose?

[Marcel Eðo Pairescu Tafial, UrGP]

Surely no-one is allowed into the Cosa apart from members of the Cosa? And you have moderator power over this forum for this precise purpose?

Firstly, the legislation regarding Living Cosăs, which I am informally basing this procedure on, allows Senators to participate in debates if they so choose. A lot of this is terra incognita, for better or worse.

Secondly, I don't have moderator powers over the Cosă board, though this is an oversight on my part. I will fix that right away.



Let's just say that I'll allow this particular intrusion as a gesture of goodwill on my part. But I will take the appropriate measures should this situation repeat itself in the future. I hope this settles it, and that we can continue with the debate on 56RZ1.

[Marcel Eðo Pairescu Tafial, UrGP]

Esteemed members of the Cosă, please come to order.

I hereby close the debate on RZ1 and open the debate on RZ2, The Talossan Criminal Law Reform Bill #1. The debate is scheduled to end on August 21.

First up is the Right Honourable @Miestră Schivă, UrN for the Free Democrats.

[Miestră Schivă, UrN]

Hello, yes.

Talossan criminal law has been "outsourced" since January 2003, which was in many ways a high point of foolishness in Talossan history. If we are to believe the acts of the 31st Cosa, King Robert woke up one morning and suddenly realised that things like "murder, rape and robbery" were not actually crimes at Talossan law. His solution there to was to adopt "the Civil and Criminal Codes of the State of Wisconsin as national law".

It was not until after the King's abdication-in-a-huff that people who knew anything about law found out that there actually was no such thing as the Civil Code of the State of Wisconsin. The 35th Cosa thereupon actually specified which sections of Wisconsin law would apply to Talossa.

While an improvement on KR1's brainstorm, the "outsourcing" of Talossan criminal and contract law to Wisconsin has had the very negative effect that it has made Talossan law inaccessible. By which I mean:

• You would have to know how and where to look up Wisconsin statutes to be able to know what the law of Talossa is.
• Wisconsin law is far more complex than is necessary for Talossa.
• Because Talossa is a common law system, where judicial precedent is binding in many cases and very important in others, importing Wisconsin statute law meant importing Wisconsin judicial precedent.

For judges, lawyers and ordinary Talossans, for the last 15 years a proper knowledge of Talossan law has meant studying a far more complex set of laws, written by professionals, and looking up judicial precedents. A certain Baron is fond of saying that Talossan legal advocacy, like Talossan legislation, should be open to amateurs. I concur.

The bill before you here takes all the really important bits of Wisconsin criminal law as it applies to Talossa - as identified by legal practitioners - and simplifies it as much as possible, combining it with some other basic principles familiar from Anglo-American common law. I believe that nothing from Wisconsin law that is useful to Talossa has been omitted - and if it has, by accident, it can be replaced later.

It is not only contrary to Talossan dignity to have our law made by a Cestour jurisdiction, it flies in the face of the principle that you shouldn't have to be a "real lawyer" to be a Talossan lawyer. Please vote PER.

[Marcel Eðo Pairescu Tafial, UrGP]

Thank you, D:nă Schivă.

Members are now free until August 21th to give their speech on RZ2 in any order they like, though I would prefer it if a member of the Opposition spoke next.

[Marcel Eðo Pairescu Tafial, UrGP]

Please come to order.

Before we move other to the next and last point on the agenda, I must say that I am deeply disappointed. It is saddening that Members would rather silently cast their votes on the Clark without even trying to explain themselves and share their points of view with the rest of the Chamber, despite having had ample opportunity to do so. I cannot force Members to participate in this exercise, but ask yourself this, if engaging with the legislation or other MCs is not what you are here for, why are you here?

And as a fun side note, given that both the Balançeu / Balance and Independent Monarchist parties voted Üc on the Vote of Confidence, this means they are no longer part of the Opposition. In other words, Muhammed Yasir will be the Leader of the Opposition for the September Clark until further notice.

Be that as it may, the Cosă is now in recess until the 31st of August and is set to reconvene on the First of September. See you then.

[Tierçéu Rôibeardescù]

Point of order mr speaker, as we did not have a leader of the opposition to speak after my honorable friend Miestră Schivă, how could the house have known as to whom was to speak next?

[Marcel Eðo Pairescu Tafial, UrGP]

D:nă Schivă was the only one who ever pre-registered her speeches. As such, after she was done giving them, every Member was free to speak in any order they liked, as I have pointed out multiple times.

This could have been avoided to a great extent if there had been more pre-registrations of speeches in the appropriate thread, but c'e la vidă I suppose.