High Wyvan Liaw of the Tarns addresses the Great Khruath of Avalon:
"They who speak for you rejected the demand, as was their duty until you could be summoned to decide." (p. 560)
"They who speak..." acted correctly.
At a trade union conference in Britain, the delegate from a branch was pressured to change the policy of his branch while addressing the conference. He was not empowered to do this but trade union bureaucrats try to ignore or override the views of members.
We watched the film Conclave about a Papal election. I thought that wanting to be Pope should be a disqualification! The guy that they did elect had not wanted it but accepted it. My daughter's partner, Mike, asked why he accepted it if he did not want it. Because he did accept the outcome of the vote!
In the union, if the vote is against strike, then we do not strike but, if the vote is for strike, then we certainly strike. I had the dubious pleasure of standing outside a Town Hall and telling the Principal and Deputy Principal of the Service in which I worked that we were asking people not to go into work. They replied that they had work that they had to get on with but were donating their day's salary to charity. With anyone else, I would have argued the case further but, in that case, I judged that that was sufficient! Even to keep someone arguing is to delay them going into work and I have seen minds changed on the spur of the moment. In any case, the picketing was all above board and legal. Imagine living in a dictatorship where we could not do that.
We have considered:
9 comments:
Many decisions are time-constrained. Especially with respect to war. The situation changes faster than people can be consulted. That's why we have -representative- democracy, not endless town-meetings.
Kaor, Paul!
And I agree with Stirling and not with those Ythrians. In times of war it simply won't always be possible to make decisions the way Yhtrians prefer.
Ad astra! Sean
I might add that town-meeting style consensus decision-making works best when a) the group is homogenous (in background, beliefs, etc.) and b) when it's not too big.
If it isn't homogenous and it is too large, nothing ever gets down -- and it's quite likely to come to blows, quite literally.
The Wyvans convene a Khruath when there is a pause in the hostilities and therefore time for discussion which takes only six hours to reach a recorded vote. The Khruath asks the Parliament to agree to emergency powers for the remainder of the war.
Kaor, Paul!
At least hypothetically I can barely see myself thinking something like this working for Ythrians. Because I would expect non-human races to think and act differently from humans. But nothing like a giant town meeting consensus decision making process will work for humans. People would argue and wrangle indecisively for hours and days, nothing would get done or decided. It would be like the pre-Partition Polish parliament!
Again, I agree more with Stirling!
Ad astra! Sean
Paul: yeah, humans simply couldn't act that way. Note the way Athens fought the Peloponnesian War, with meetings of the entire citizen body... and lost.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
And Athenian generals were being appointed or dismissed based on nothing but personal or factional pique and passions. With predictably bad results!
Ad astra! Sean
Sean: yup, and weird decisions like attacking Syracuse, which Alcibiades pushed... and then they took him out of command because of the desecration of the Herms.
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
War is too important to be left entirely to the soldiers, but neither should politicians fancy themselves to be generals!
Ad astra! Sean
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