ThePrincess Speaks

[cleopatraxigalia]

ThePrincess Speaks

THANK YOU
First of all I want to thank everyone who has supported our great emerging democracy. We got through another election, not without turmoil, but we made it and we survive. These struggles are difficult and sometimes painful but they have and will continue to make us stronger.

DEAREST RA MEMBERS
In the next RA term I appeal to my fellow RA members to join me in taking the time to take an unbiased study of every word and potential consequence of everything that comes before us and make the decision on whether or not to support it based on one thing. And one thing only. Not who wrote it. Not for political gain. And not for glory. But only for the benefit or protection of CDS and its citizens.

I am proud of my faction, no doubt. But as a seated member of the RA my faction is only a part of the CDS and only thrives when the community at large is at its best. I am not seated in order to benefit my faction but the community as a whole.

A CALL TO UNITY
Having an educated society is a crucial element of democracy and I am very proud of my faction's members for making the effort, and it is an effort, to educate itself about the society in which it lives and the systems that are in place.

As a community, I hope you will appeal to your faction representatives take the time to inform you as thoroughly as possible on the bills and acts presented and give them your feedback. Attend meetings and read as much as you can. A choice is only a choice when it is an informed choice.

WARNING
I have been threatened by members of other factions for the fact that we as a party educated voters fully on their choices as citizens when they went to the voting booths. Even told that no bill I or my party present this term will be supported by other factions. This personal retaliation, if it comes to fruition, represents not an attack of me,ThePrincess Parisi, or even on NuCARE or its past, but a breach of our oath as well as an attack on CDS and its citizens.

APPEAL TO THE CITIZENS
That said, as a community, I hope everyone will appeal to your faction representatives to take the time to inform you as thoroughly as possible on the bills and acts presented to and by them, read and scrutinize them yourself and give them your feedback and your ideas. Attend meetings and read as much as you can and participate in any way you are able. CDS belongs to you.

I love chatting with you one on one and hope you will communicate with me whenever you like about any issue.

ThePrincess Parisi

[Beathan]

Princess --

Please practice your own suggestion and undertake un biased study of every word of my posts before responding to them.

I never indicated that I would undertake any kind of "retaliation" in the RA. In the RA, I represent my party and the CDS. It would be inappropriate for me to take any action based on my personal reaction to what I consider misleading campaigning for my personal vote in the last election or to what I consider to be an autocratic voting practice of NuCARE.

What I said was that, in the next election, when casting my personal vote, I will do so with distrust for NuCARE. I sincerely hope that a majority of CDS voters will feel as I do and will respond, in the next election, to this threat to our democracy in an appropriate, democratic way -- by voting against such tactics. However, such reactions must wait until the next election. It is surely inappropriate for them to color RA debate or representative policy.

Beathan

[cleopatraxigalia]

Beathan,
Thank you for clairfying your position. But you are mistaken that I was responding to you I was not talking about you. Thank you very much, ThePrincess Parisi

[Beathan]

Princess --

If I misunderstood that you were referring to my posts, I'm apologize. I was not aware that anyone else had used the rhetoric of retaliation with regard to this last election. I hope that no member of the RA is considering using the RA as a forum for partisan tit-for-tat squabbling. I'm all for squabbling in elections -- but, once the voting is done, there is real work to be done.

Beathan

[cleopatraxigalia]

Beathan,
Gosh, sorry for the quick response. I did miss something, you're right. Sheesh, where do you get your facts? I am sure lawyers take statistics classes and know how to analyze data too but can they read minds? You haven't even talked to me or anyone in NuCARE about what you are worried about. Please consider the source of your facts and dig a little deeper. Things are not as they have been presented to you. And did not happen as you were told they did. You are quite misinformed.
The P

[Beathan]

Princess --

Fair enough. I will keep an eye out for both you and Cindy inworld so that we can talk about what happened.

I was working from the charts Jon posted (and not from any other source -- I was not in on any IM or email loop during the election in which voting trends were (apparently) discussed and analyzed as they were happening). Also, I am not sure that I understand Jon's charts, and I have not seen any raw data on the actual votes.

However, it appears from the data that NuCARE, as an electoral tactic, used the "no vote" option en masse (or, at least in a mass of about 1/3 of the NuCARE supporters, who I assume are the coordinated group of NuCARE insiders). Cindy and I have discussed this a bit -- and it seems that we just disagree about the propriety of such a tactic.

I think we all agree that it is not illegal (it is allowed). However, I believe that, even though it is allowed and even though it should be allowed, I consider it improper and I further consider such tactics a sufficient reason for me personally to oppose the party that uses them. There are at least four categories into which an action fits: 1. prohibited; 2. allowed but unethical; 3. allowed and ethically neutral; and 4. allowed and ethically obligatory. (There may be a fifth -- prohibited but ethically obligatory -- the realm of civil disobedience.) I think that it is fair to say that I place this tactic in the second of my categories, while NuCARE places it in the third (or even in the fourth -- on the argument that such a tactic was necessary and proper to expose the way the new electoral system works).

I think this just might be a matter of fundamental disagreement. Sometimes there are such issues in politics. I am a member of the Simplicity Party because the Simplicity Party places individual empowerment above collective action and because the Simplicity Party is the party farthest away from the kind of "machine politics" I dislike iRL and in SL. On this issue, we may not be able to build a bridge. However, I know that we can bridge most other issues -- and I look forward to working with you to build such bridges.

Beathan

[Cindy Ecksol]

However, it appears from the data that NuCARE, as an electoral tactic, used the "no vote" option en masse (or, at least in a mass of about 1/3 of the NuCARE supporters, who I assume are the coordinated group of NuCARE insiders). Cindy and I have discussed this a bit -- and it seems that we just disagree about the propriety of such a tactic.

Yes, "it appears." But you are absolutely guessing when identify those who voted nuCARE first as members of the nuCARE faction and imply that they were somehow induced to vote in some robotic way. As I've pointed out before, no one can say with any certainty from the data how many individuals who rank a faction first are actually members of that faction. We do not know whether perhaps another 6 or 7 "nuCARE insiders" might have had their own personal reasons to have ranked another party first and nuCARE second. It is similarly possible that several who do not identify themselves as nuCARE supporters were among those who ranked nuCARE first and eliminated other parties. If in fact something like this happened (and I have reason to believe that at least one of those scenarios is entirely reasonable for reasons related to another "feature" of the system) your fury at the supposedly coordinated and robotic behavior of the nuCARE faction would certainly be completely misplaced. So unless someone is planning to ask everyone in the CDS to reveal their votes and prove that Jon's analysis of the data is the only possible interpretation, perhaps it would be better to allow your fury to dissipate and move on to identify real problems and resolve them.

I think we all agree that it is not illegal (it is allowed). However, I believe that, even though it is allowed and even though it should be allowed, I consider it improper and I further consider such tactics a sufficient reason for me personally to oppose the party that uses them. There are at least four categories into which an action fits: 1. prohibited; 2. allowed but unethical; 3. allowed and ethically neutral; and 4. allowed and ethically obligatory. (There may be a fifth -- prohibited but ethically obligatory -- the realm of civil disobedience.) I think that it is fair to say that I place this tactic in the second of my categories, while NuCARE places it in the third (or even in the fourth -- on the argument that such a tactic was necessary and proper to expose the way the new electoral system works).

Sorry, Beathan, but you can't have it both ways. Either a tactic is allowed and should be allowed or it is not. If the community allows it and agrees that it should be allowed, then use of that tactic within the community cannot be called "unethical" by the community at large. That is not to say that an outsider to the community might not consider a particular tactic "unethical" from an outsider's point of view -- there are many examples of that. And of course a member of the community may disagree with the community about the ethics of something that is generally accepted and challenge the community to change. But you as an individual member of the community cannot make the statement that a tactic is allowed and should be allowed (thus showing yourself in agreement with the community norms) and then turn around and accuse another member of the community of being "unethical" for using that tactic. Either you agree with the community that the tactic is permitted and should be permitted (and is thus ethical by the community's standards) or you stand as a dissident, challenge those who use the tactic, and work to change the standards. Anything else is an emotional argument, and definitely not logical.

Cindy

[Beathan]

Cindy --

I don't really understand why you call my arguments "emotional." I must admit, even when I was studying analytic philosophy in college and attending lawschool, no one has ever accused me of making "emotional" arguments before.

That said, I also don't understand where you get your standards. They don't come from either modern ethical theory (which I studied) or modern legal theory (which I also studied). There are many, many examples of actions in which what is ethical or unethical does not coincide with what is permitted or banned.

In law, we have two categories of prohibition -- malum in se and malum prohibitum. Malum in se prohibitions (meaning "bad in themselves") are prohibitions in which a clear ethical rule coincides with a clear legal rule ("Thou shalt not murder"). Malum prohibitum ("bad because prohibited") prohibitions don't have such a coincidence, either being prohibitions that precede or anticipate an unresolved ethical issue (such as, perhaps, all drug laws -- and Prohibition itself, which wrongly anticipated an ethical determination that has, at least for now, turned out differently than anticipated) or in which the rule is on a matter that does not present an ethical concern but which requires a clear legal rule for practical reasons (most contract law principles probably fit this category). Thus, it is simply wrong to say that something is either permitted and therefore ethical or prohibited and therefore unethical -- or even that systems of laws governing human behavior should be just those that exactly coincide with resolved ethical judgments or some other ethical standard.

The ethical concerns with your position are even deeper and starker. Your position is best described as "legalistic ethics" -- which both justifies unethical behavior (the Holocaust was OK because, under the applicable laws of the states in which it occurred, mass public murder of Jews was not prohibited) and which prohibits ethical behavior and prevents the process of bringing law into accord with Justice and other ethical concerns (Dr. Martin Luther King was often attacked as a lawbreaker, and the attackers asserted that the law deserved unswerving respect because it was the law and therefore was, a fortiori, ethical).

Personally, I don't find my position illogical at all. Rather, I find yours legalistically autocratic and ethically bankrupt.

Now, it is also true that, from my early days, I have been more a rhetorician than a logician (even though my degree is in logical philosophy with a heavy emphasis in formal logic classes taught in the math department -- so I can make even the most simple and compelling argument boring and arcane by formalizing it.). My philosophy professors were quick to point out that my arguments were most compelling when least formal (in terms of formal logic). These professors were far more ready to write me letters of recommendations to lawschool than to the Princeton Philosophy PhD program. However, rhetoric, while engaging emotions, is not really "emotional argument" on the "emotional" vs. "logical" dichotomy. I could wax poetic (or at least wax tedious) on Humean theories of logic and emotions, and which serves which in an ideal argument about a matter of human concern, but the basic point is, to quote one of my heroes, James Carville, We're right; They're wrong -- there is nothing wrong with spiritedness and progressiveness in politics.

I think I hear a reply coming -- "but we are talking about campaign tactics, not about legal prohibitions." OK -- I'll give you an example of campaign tactics that were unethical but which should not be prohibited: the notorious anti-Goldwater, "blonde child on a swing with a nuclear explosion" commercial. Absolutely allowed; absolutely despicable and misleading. Frankly, most "spin" falls in this category. It is allowed; it is done; it wins elections; and it is completely unethical and disgusting. Sometimes the disgust factor outweighs the effectiveness and it backfires. Does that mean it should be prohibited? No. Does that mean that individual voters should pay attention and vote, in part, based on ethical judgments about how parties and candidates move through the election? Absolutely. I would not want to live in a state that prohibits speech to the extent needed to stop misleading "spin." However, I will not reward such unethical tactics or justify them with the cry of the arch-conservative apologist, "Whatever is, is right."

Beathan Vale

[mtlundquist]

As a relative new comer to both CDS and the RA I have been listening with interest to the debates on the forum. Other than choosing to align myself with NuCARE politically I have no particular axe to grind at this point.

I am however dismayed that the apparent unity of purpose evidenced in the manifestos of the various parties should be undermined by bickering about who’s to blame for the particular electoral system or its use that we have in CDS.

I've read back and the start of this debate seems to stem from decisions made at the RA meeting of 16th September 2007 some five months ago. In that meeting a bill was proposed and it would seem forced through. This bill created the electoral system we are now debating so vociferously. It specifically created the option to eliminate some or all parties other than a single preferred choice. I note the following RA reps voted for this bill Patroklus Murakami CSDF, Jon Seattle CSDF, Beathan Vale Simplicity, Brian Livingston Simplicity, and those against ThePrincess Parisi CARE, Bromo Ivory CARE.

It is interesting to hear the current debate therefore in the context of the origins of this amendment to the election system. With the exception of ThePrincess Parisi, who was pressured to vote before she could read the bill and therefore on principle voted no, see the session transcripts at http://www.aliasi.us/nburgwiki/tiki-ind ... 16%2C+2007 for the detail of this, I assume that those voting fully understood what they were voting in, its purpose and effect. Indeed it would be inconceivable for anyone to vote for an amendment to a voting system if they didn't understand the effects it would have, for that way lays the foundations for many bad laws.

Even as a European I understand the power of quoting Lincoln and the Holocaust both of which by the way link the arguments to murder which is a highly dramatic standpoint. So those making rather dramatic statements at the moment I urge you to re think your positions slightly. Jon and Beathan you have both done this and yet as evidenced by the transcripts of the RA meeting of the 16th September 2007 you both voted for this amendment to be placed into law for CDS and changed the basis of the electoral system in so doing.

You have both argued that this system produces unfair results (or could do so) and that it may be unethical to use the system as designed (although legal to do so) to influence the result of the election. I have a very direct and simple question to put to you both. If this is your view why did you press for this to be made law and personally vote it in?

You yourselves I would argue as political people, like myself and others, are all seeking to influence the results of an election, and quite legitimately so. That’s the nature of politics to seek to win votes and maximise your parties representation in government. And having looked at the system you created I concluded that you yourselves intended to maximise your representation by taking advantage of the systems possibilities. I eliminated all other parties when I voted. However I would argue your exact point about the prisoners dilemma. I was already caught in that dilemma in assuming, perhaps wrongly, that those who voted for a system, and must surely have understood it, were themselves going to use it in that way.

I conclude that those of you who voted in this system on the 16th September created this situation which played out at the next election, the one we've just all participated in. So whether we all agree or not that it was ethical or unethical to vote in a particular way we have all contributed to the turn of events that have brought this to pass, on that I'm very clear.

‘So where do we go from here?’ is perhaps the most important question of all. We can descend further into recriminations, blame and talk of retaliation OR we can recognise a bad bit of legislation and put it right in the current session of the RA. I strongly urge we do the latter.

[Justice Soothsayer]

MT, nicely said. "Where do we go from here", indeed. Beathan has suggested expanding the "no vote" to more than one faction here, we could keep the current system for another round, move to a system that allows us to cast votes for individual candidates (identified by faction or not), or some other variation. My view is that we should strive for inclusivity (giving smaller factions a voice, not a veto) and for electoral systems that inspire campaigns about policy, not personality.

[Beathan]

MT --

I tried to post an elaborate response, but I think it got lost in the ether. I will try to restate my post.

I think you missed the point of my concern (I won't presume to speak for Jon).

I understand that you object to my rhetoric. However, if you look carefully at my post, my reference to the holocaust was not an accusation, but an example in an ethical argument. It happens to be the best example of the problem with conflating the idea of what is permitted with the idea of what is ethical.

I believe that freedom exists in the gaps between government decrees. I further believe that government should not act to enforce ethical judgments on which there is no set consensus. On such matter, individuals should be left to act freely, from their own ethical judgments. However, individuals should be allowed to make, have and express those ethical judgments. The key concept is that each of us should be left free to make and act from our own ethical judgments for so long as there is a real dispute about what is ethical. In other words, ethics should not be imposed on us by force of government. However, we should also be free to judge ourselves and each other, as individuals, based on our individual ethical understandings. That is all I have done.

I know that many people don't share my ethical position on this issue. I expect that such people will act and think differently than I do. However, I also know that others share my ethical position, and I expressed myself, in part, to show them that they are not alone. I also expressed myself to inform others that I see a breach of ethics in what happened in the last election -- and I did so out of a spirit of open communication and to avoid future misunderstandings, misinterpretations, and missteps.

With specific regard to the voting rules -- I voted for them as a member of the RA; I continue to support them; I believe that all parties followed the rules (behaved lawfully). However, just because everyone behaved lawfully, it does not follow that everyone behaved ethically. We are not slaves, whose every move is circumscribed such that we cannot but act ethically. We are free -- and part of being free is being free to act unethically.

For that reason, I have said that I believe there was lawful, but unethical, behavior in the last election. As the behavior was lawful, it is not appropriate for the SC to act (to restrict actions or invalidate some part of the voting or somesuch). However, I also recognize that this ethical point is not a point on which there is universal consensus (it is not like the prohibition of murder), so it is also not a point on which it is appropriate for the RA to act (by changing the law -- restricting voting or somesuch). Rather, it is an area where individual ethical judgments are the appropriate judgments -- and the proper way to express those judgments is politically, through debate (inworld and on these forums) and through voting in the next election.

The voting rules were designed to empower individuals to act with more freedom in their personal judgments. Those rules can be used for their proper purpose -- to empower individual voters. They can also be abused, by having their proper purpose (to enhance individuals) usurped by a party machine and appropriated to enhance factional, rather than individual, power. I believe that this usurpation is unethical -- and is an abuse of the system. However, a useful tool is not bad just because it can be abused. The person or group that abuses the tool may be bad (or at least may act bad) -- but the tool remains a good and useful thing. These voting rules are such a tool; the tactic I lament is such an abuse.

I know that this is a point of disagreement. I further know that this is a matter about which goodhearted people can disagree. However, there are some good bases on which to disagree with me (some belief that collective action enhances, rather than diminishes, individual life and power). There are also bad reasons to disagree with me (an argument that whatever is permitted is ethical by virtue of the fact that it is permitted -- that so as long as someone acts lawfully, it is wrong (or illogical) to characterize their action as unethical.)

I think that I see the root of the ethical disagreement -- and it is a typical American vs. European or a Libertarian and Individualist v. Communitarian ethical conflict. I believe that politics, the state, and all governmental and political action should serve and arise from individuals and individual judgments about things. Thus, individuals should be empowered as much as possible to act from their own judgments. However, in every case in which individuals are empowered, there is the possibility that such individual powers will be pooled and appopriated by some collective action. I consider this a usurpation of the proper role of the individual by the group. I consider this usurpation to be unethical -- and very dangerous. I see in this kind of collective political action a toxin arising from the proper action of the body politic that, like the toxins produced by our living bodies, is a byproduct of proper action that threatens, if not purged, to poison the body that produces it. Thus, I see tactics like NuCAREs as being the political equivalent of a dysfunctional spleen -- but, unlike a dysfunctional spleen, the tactics are intentional actions of intentional agents about which we can and should make ethical judgments.

We are free, which means we are free to do wrong. We should be good, which means that, although free to do wrong, we should not do so. The key point, which is being lost by the proponents of NuCARE's tactics in the last election, is that just because you can do something, it does not follow that you should do that thing. However, it is also the case that just because you should not do something, it does not follow that you should be restrained by some external force (such as a law or some other restrictive imposition of government) from doing it. We should not be treated like infants -- but we should be held to ethical standards as adults.

Beathan

[Jon Seattle]

Even as a European I understand the power of quoting Lincoln and the Holocaust both of which by the way link the arguments to murder which is a highly dramatic standpoint. So those making rather dramatic statements at the moment I urge you to re think your positions slightly. Jon and Beathan you have both done this and yet as evidenced by the transcripts of the RA meeting of the 16th September 2007 you both voted for this amendment to be placed into law for CDS and changed the basis of the electoral system in so doing.

I can only wish you had looked at what Lincoln said, rather than just noting his name, but I think you are doing a fine job in illustrating his point, so I cannot complain. Lets see if I understand your argument:

1. A bunch of you figured out a cool way to organize to devalue the majority of CDS citizen’s votes, thus making your votes count a bit more in the election. This approach worked, but not enough to make a difference in the election outcome.

2. Its not your fault because it was not illegal. In fact, those people who are angry that their votes were did not count as much have themselves to blame for not realizing the system could be manipulated in this way, and perhaps should also blame the people who passed a law that made this action possible.

Sounds great! And guess what, I could not care in the least. I still happen to believe that my vote should have counted as much as any of yours in this election, with these rules. The CDS has a pretty sophisticated electorate, and I strongly suspect you will see the results next time around, without any help from me.

I am busy building statistical models that can be used to test new voting systems. That seems like a much better way to spend my time.

[Patroklus Murakami]

I've read back and the start of this debate seems to stem from decisions made at the RA meeting of 16th September 2007 some five months ago. In that meeting a bill was proposed and it would seem forced through. This bill created the electoral system we are now debating so vociferously. It specifically created the option to eliminate some or all parties other than a single preferred choice. I note the following RA reps voted for this bill Patroklus Murakami CSDF, Jon Seattle CSDF, Beathan Vale Simplicity, Brian Livingston Simplicity, and those against ThePrincess Parisi CARE, Bromo Ivory CARE.

For the record:
1. The CSDF proposed electoral reform here in August 2007. We proposed the use of the Single Transferable Vote (STV) system.
2. Your predecessors in CARE copied the CSDF proposal and added a number of unacceptable riders to the proposal.
3. Your party leader at the time, Michel Manen, emailed me to tell me that CARE would vote down our STV proposal unless we agreed to the unacceptable changes CARE were demanding.
4. Dnate came up with a compromise proposal on 5 Sept which took the electoral system several steps in the right direction while falling short of full-blooded STV. The CSDF decided to support this because it a) gave citizens the right *not* to support a faction they disapproved of by not ranking them and b) gave all citizens and not just faction members the right to rank the candidates in their first choice faction.
5. Dnate's compromise proposal was passed by the RA two weeks later. It was not 'forced through', it had been on the forums for two weeks and had been discussed at the previous weeks meeting. ThePrincess was not 'pressured to vote' before she could read the bill, she'd had two weeks to read it on the forums and consider her position!

[cleopatraxigalia]

JON SEATTLE SAID:

1. A bunch of you figured out a cool way to organize to devalue the majority of CDS citizen’s votes, thus making your votes count a bit more in the election. This approach worked, but not enough to make a difference in the election outcome.

--------------------------------------------------NOOOOOOOOO

Jon Seattle,
THIS IS COMPLETELY FALSE
You are perpetuating a lie AND I DONT KNOW WHY.

NUCARE DID NOT TELL ITS MEMBERS HOW TO VOTE. WE TOLD THEM HOW THE VOTING SYSTEM WORKED AND GAVE THEM A CHOICE.

NuCARE did two things. We educated ourselves and our voters. We took the time to understand what choices were made available by the voting system and then we educated anyone who asked as to the choices they could make. That is what democracy is. FREEDOM

There was no concerted effort and if you tell the truth you know that.

Our voters made what were private choices, supposedly, ... you made very many assumptions about things and stated many untruthes and misrepresentations.. Your statement of a meeting, and then a block of votes coming in all eliminating all but nuCARE ....IS NOT FACT.. HOW LONG IS A SHORT TIME JON? and you are perpetuating this lie.... and you need to admit you do NOT KNOW what happened.

And if you do know who voted for whom then you know what you have been telling the public is false. If you do not know, I must assume you are making false assumptions and spreading them.

fess up mister, which is it?

And SHAME on the other parties for NOT studying and then their educating their members of the complete and total choice they had in the voting booth. Even the PIO admitted she did not fully understand her choices per the system you voted in, Jon.

ThePrincess shakes her head. tsk tsk

[cleopatraxigalia]

Pat,

Perhaps you should re read the minutes.sir,
The amended version was not available when I was forced to vote.

http://www.aliasi.us/nburgwiki/tiki-ind ... 16%2C+2007

And I am sure it was a joke when you said that I only had to vote now if I voted the right way.

Patroklus Murakami: that depends on which way theprincess votes now dnate

ThePrincess smiles