Number of Regions/Regional Governments (DEBATE CLOSED)

[Leinad]

Even with the clarification, nay - I feel there are still discussions to be had here.

I'm voting Nay until the President sheds light on the discussions yet to be had. If there's more work to be done, I suggest we not leave the subject without doing it.

[Leinad]

NAY

Basically this:

States should be allowed to make their own names, but not be forced to be acknowledged by the Federal Government.

[Leinad]

Yes, I agree, a principle vote is most definitely in order.

I trust that regions will be able to reflect on mistakes in the past and adjust the size of their legislature independently to meet the needs of the region.

Thirded.

Why is the federal government able to decide what's best for the regional governments, but the regional governments don't have that ability? Are they inherently less capable of solving their own problems than the federal government? Surely, if anything, they would be better!

I recommend a self-adjusting system, like I proposed earlier for the House but was rejected, for regional legislatures. One that automatically contracts if the activity just isn't there, and expands if there's an abundance of candidates. Of course, it should be the job of each legislature to decide what is best for them.

With all due respect, Mr. President, you're acting as if giving the regions this power will cause the earth to fly out of it's orbit, or cats and dogs to rain sideways. "The problems of the past" were not caused, in any way, by letting regional governments define their own basic properties.

[Leinad]

WAIT...and this may sound stupid...but...what is "nay" and what is "aye?"

Because NeverAgain and VPH sounded like they agree with me (that the clause should be struck, that regional governments should be allowed to increase the number of seats in their own legislature) but they said "nay," and if we're voting "to strike" it, wouldn't an "aye" be to support striking it, and giving regions the ability to increase their legislature size?

Or maybe I've misunderstood things.

Anyway, aye to strike it and let regions control their own legislature seat number, nay to include the part restricting region's this ability.

I'll edit this to make my vote bold and colorful when Truman clarifies.

The Regions most definitely do not possess nor will possess the foresight or ability to properly "reflect upon the mistakes of the past", because I've been screaming about the need to reduce the proliferation of offices for over two years and not a single Region properly moved to ameliorate this problem when it was a problem of both the past and the present. Regions are rather selfish entities in terms of how they operate; they don't often regulate themselves based on the broader framework of how all of their individual actions impact the game, and more often than not, they don't even regulate themselves based on the very same problems when confined within their own boundaries.

But is that the fault of the system, or failings on individual members of regional governments?

You're acting as if this is the equivalent of eating just one potato chip; that it is literally impossible for a regional government to make responsible decisions, or decrease their legislature size (even though I believe the South did that at some point--it used to be 5, now it's 3).

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Fair enough, although experience doesn't always define truth. I'd like to hear the opinion of veteran Atlasians who are generally in favor of regional control on this.

You know me, I don't think that the federal governments need to micromanage the regions, or should dictate their basic properties. I think it's a good thing if different regions do things differently--maybe one region has an auto-adjusting legislature like I've proposed, another has 3 members elected at once, another has 5 elected in two classes. And this works with the names, too--one region has a "Legislature," another has an "Assembly," another has a "Council." You get the idea.

If some people (not naming names, and I wouldn't even put you in this category, Adam) made the rules, we'd have 3 completely identical regions. And at what cost? Well, in addition to boredom, we'll have the cost of never seeing what works best. Who knows, maybe we decide some great mechanism for an auto-adjusting legislature, and it ends up being adopted by the house after great success in one of the regions.

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False, unless the regions up the legislatures to larger than the Senate itself.

We cut out two regions. That eliminates a lot of offices right there. Of course some of those were added back by bicameralism, but I believe there's still wiggle room to increase the number if the rightfully elected legislatures of a region (or even the people itself) decide more seats are appropriate.

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One of us will be around to tell them how it was done back in the day, surely.

Back in the 1700s (and no, I'm not doing a filibuster, although I wish that was possible in text-form--I'd be great at it), after the original Constitutional Convention, a citizen asked Benjamin Franklin what form of government they had decided upon. "A republic," he responded. "If you can keep it."

Bare with me. It'll make sense.

There is difficulty in maintaining any type of freedom. Humans are prone to mess stuff up, and then prone to proposing more government (or, in this case, federal) control to clean up the mess. But that takes away the wonderful qualities freedom provides--the flexibility to improve things, the clarity that a basic understanding of rights and responsibilities provides, etcetera. I'm speaking in general terms so that applies to both my anecdote and now--was it the best idea, back then, to just start out with a dictatorship to avoid the risk that a republic goes wrong?

Of course not, just as it is absurd to eliminate nearly all forms of regional autonomy for fear that the regions misuse it.

I think that made enough sense. I think you all understand the premise of my argument, though, even if Storytime with Leinad didn't work.

[Leinad]

Aye!


I'll try not to clutter this up with another wall of text (I had a long rant typed out, by the way--I thankfully used the nifty "backspace" function on that), but a few things can't go without addressing:

The people in the regions can look out for themselves. We don't need to be treating them like small children.

No, they literally cannot: the proof that such is true is the entire reason why we're having to have this process occur in the first place. You guys were wrong two years ago; I was right. You're wrong today; I'm right. Unfortunately, I'll only get to brag with evidence about being right today after we've implemented yet another ed-up government and it comes to fruition once again.

If you're saying the regions have a complete incapability to get it right, what on earth gives the federal government the power to not fudge everything up just as bad? I mean, it's roughly the same people, unless you're going to say a new level of consciousness is achieved upon election to the federal government.

Secondly, activity can ebb and flow.

Which is why you enact a proactive auto-adjusting system. If a region feels it can increase the number of seats, it's not bound to keep it forever. Hell, it can change it next election--it can even pre-program into law the mechanism to automatically do that!

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Perhaps a couple flaws of mine are a lack of experience in Atlasia, and a tendency to value philosophical arguments over interpreting facts. So I'll try the other route:

Last September, 0 candidates ran for the Southern Legislature, but the most recent Census report at that time (taken by yourself) had 26 citizens in the region. This time, Clyde's most recent census report has 24 people. So, there's been a net decrease in population over the 4 months since

But this time, with slightly less residents, 5 candidates are running.

Your plan seems to rest on the assumption that census data and activity always perfectly correlate. Hopefully I have displayed to my fellow delegates that this is not the case.

[Leinad]

It's interesting that some have brought up the South as an example of how the Regions can handle this themselves, considering that just days ago the Southern Legislature was on the verge of expanding its membership to unsustainable levels (and would have done so had I not spent a good chunk of my weekend explaining to them why this was an utterly horrible idea).

Well...uh...I can't exactly say you're not not incorrect...

There are more opportunities for them to get it wrong. It's four dynamics (3 Regions + Federal) versus one. It's akin to facing a choice where you install four separate parts - each with effective obsolesce - or one part. Considering that even just one Region getting it wrong will impact the entirety of the game (as I explained above with respect to population distribution), there is a vested interest in the game at-large giving this power to a centralized entity that can handle it more efficiently, rapidly and universally. The game's residents as a whole don't have a vessel through which they can unilaterally demand change if a particular Region has too few or too many offices; only the residents of that Region can require action to be taken - unless there is a federal solution.

But with your method there's 1 group that can get it really wrong. And I still don't think the entire universe will blow up if 1 region has a couple more legislative seats than they should.

Should there be some sort of federal rules? Maybe. Perhaps a mechanism to overrule something if a region gets out of hand. But simply banning them from increasing the number of seats goes too far.

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Of course they will not do identical things--that's the point. Some will have more success than others, and if a region is bringing everyone else down I would hope good citizens will point it out to them and they would fix the problem. Unless the region is entirely occupied by people literally trying to destroy Atlasia, I'd wager they'd see the light.

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No, it's an example. I'm not basing my argument on it.

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Of course it's generally true, but I think it's more accurate to measure it to candidates running. However, if you do that you can't really standardize it. And I get why you want to standardize it, sure. I understand the benefits of that. I just disagree--I think that it adds more to the game if the regions can control their own legislature size.

I'm glad that the majority of this Convention (that voted) agrees.

[Leinad]

AYE!