Date: Sat, 10 Aug 1996 22:13:29 -0500 From: Doug Chatham To: frc@nvg.unit.no Subject: Final Summary of Round 62 Round 62: The theme was "FRC Politics" Doug Chatham was the Judge. Jeremy Selengut was the Wizard. Kurt Adam got +2 Style Points and was eligible until Thu, 8 Aug 1996 16:19:14. Stephen Turner got +1.5 Style Points and was eligible until Thu, 8 Aug 1996 20:51:59. Luke Vaughn got +2.5 Style Points and was eligible until Fri, 9 Aug 1996 07:28:06 Anton Cox got +2.75 Style Points and was eligible until Sat, 10 Aug 1996 19:42:26. He is a Wizard in the next round. Ed Graham has +2.75 Style Points and is both Judge and Wizard in the next round. No other members are eligible or have Style Points. (The first week ended Thu, 8 Aug 1996 06:00:00.) (All times are GMT + 1 hr.) ________ 62:1 Judged VALID: +1 Style Points awarded Submitted by Stephen Turner at Thu, 1 Aug 1996 10:39:21 There are exactly three political parties in the Federal Republic of Comlanda. They are called the Futurists, the Radicals and the Conservatives, and their party colours are Fawn, Red and Cyan respectively. All inhabitants of Comlanda are members of at least one of the parties, as are all members of the Fantasy Rules Committee. Each member must identify all the parties to which e belongs in eir first valid rule; I, for example, am a Futurist. Furthermore, each valid rule will give at least one new piece of information about each of the three parties. _________ Judge's Comments: A nice start for the round. Stephen has apparently chosen the theme "FRC Politics," which I shall now declare the official theme. Stephen is eligible until Thu, 8 Aug 1996 10:39:21. All other members, except myself, are eligible until Thu, 8 Aug 1996 06:00:00. (All times given are sabre-wulf time, which is one hour ahead of Greenwich Mean Time.) _________ 62:2 Judged VALID: +1 Style Points awarded Submitted by Kurt Adam at Thu, 1 Aug 1996 16:19:14 The Radicals distinguish themselves by requiring that members not be members of either of the other two parties. I am a Radical. As a Radical, I am a member of the Minority in the Comlanda Parliament. _______ Judge's Comments: Yes, it's a close call, but I judge that this rule does (implicitly) give us a new piece of information on each of the parties. Until a rule states or implies otherwise, the Judge is a Conservative Futurist. :-) _______ 62:3 Judged VALID; +0.75 Style Points awarded Submitted by Anton Cox at Thu, 1 Aug 1996 18:38:26 As in all good legislatures, rules do not act retrospectively. A conservative rule however - since they obviously respect tradition - will always be such that it would have been obeyed by the last valid rule. A radical rule will always be such that it would have been disobeyed by the last valid rule. Futurist rules of course do not care what effect they would have had in the past. Members of the Conservative and Radical parties must only submit the corresponding types of rule. The Futurist party is not so prescriptive. I am (naturally) a radical. ________ Judge's Comments: It's OK, but I was hoping for more info on the parties' politics, not restrictions on which people can post what kinds of rules. _______ 62:4 Judged VALID; +0.50 Style Points awarded Submitted by Stephen Turner at Thu, 1 Aug 1996 20:51:59 Each rule except the first rule of a round is of exactly one of the types conservative, radical or futurist. If the next valid rule before a futurist rule is radical, then the next valid rule after it must be so too. Likewise, if the next valid rule before a futurist rule is conservative, then the next valid rule after it must be so too. This rule is futurist. In the parliament of the Federal Republic of Comlanda, all conservatives always vote no on each proposed piece of legislation, and all radicals always vote yes. Futurists are not so predictable. The next valid rule will give more information about the Comlanda parliament. _______ Judge's Comments: Hmmmm.... we now have a Minority Party that votes yes on all proposed legislation and the posssibility of a Majority Party that votes no on all proposed legislation. Something strange may be going on here... Now we have restrictions on when certain kinds of people can post certain kinds of rules. We also have a restriction of the form "The next rule shall do X." This is not good. More info on Comlanda's politics would be good. Oh, in case you're wondering, I do not interpret this rule to "act retrospectively." _______ 62:5 Judged INVALID; +0.75 Style Points awarded Submitted by Ed Graham at Fri, 2 Aug 1996 04:30:03 Radicals will always vote against legislation sponsored by Conservatives. Futurists are the majority party. I am a member of the Futurist party. _______ Judge's Comments: By 62:3 and 62:4, to be valid 62:5 must be radical. Thus, some provision of this rule must be violated by 62:4. The last two sentences are clearly not violated by 62:4. Is the first sentence violated by 62:4? No. The apparent contradiction is that 62:4 says that radicals always vote "yes" while 62:5 says they'll vote against Conservative-sponsored legislation. However, there are many logical ways for both provisions to be true; for example, maybe Conservatives don't ever sponsor legislation or maybe a "yes" vote is a vote to kill a proposal. Furthermore, if these two provisions did contradict, we'd have 62:5 inconsistent with 62:4, and 62:5 would therefore be INVALID. What's needed here is a rule, consistent with prior rules, that makes a restriction that 62:4 would not satisfy. ________ 62:6 Judged VALID; +2.5 Style Points Submitted by Luke Vaughn at Fri, 2 Aug 1996 07:28:06 Taking up the party banner from my fellow partyist Anton, I feel compelled to tell you all a few things. Priding mental abilities and deductive reasoning, Comlanda Parlimentarians disdain explicitly telling people what type of rule they are presenting, prefering implict reference, contextual logic, and other subtlities. Also, I was recently reading my Parlimentary history books and came across a most amusing anecdote. It seems that until the year 42 there were only two parties, the Conservatives and the Radicals. That year, in the reign of Judge Gregory, a Conservative who at that time chose to be identified only as Doug, voted yes on a proposal. Outraged, the rest of the Conservatives ejected him from their party. Unable to join the Radicals, who were unwilling to take what they saw as an unreformed Conservative, he created the Futurist Party. It is rumored that he still has some Conservative leanings and chooses to identify himself as a Conservative Futurist. ____ Judge's Comments: As you can see, I really like this rule. It's valid, it presents some interesting info, and it ratifies my desired affiliation as a "Conservative Futurist." Also, if you'll look at the record of Round 42, you'll see that the Judge actually was "Gregory" and I really did vote for a proposal in that round.....:) [I did not award +3 because this rule has quite a few typos.] As to the question I posed earlier ("Is Stephen Turner in Parliament?"), _62:4_ implies that all FRC members are in the Parliament. Why? The rule says that, on every proposal in Parliament, "all conservatives" vote no, "all radicals" vote yes, and that "Futurists are not so predictable." All conservatives and radicals couldn't vote unless they were all able to vote, i.e. _all_ conservatives and radicals must be able to vote. Also, if there were a Futurist who wasn't a member, it'd be easy to predict how e would vote: e would _not_ vote. Therefore 62:4 is a rule made by a Parliamentarian that didn't disdain explicit divulgence of rule type, so 62:6 is radical. _______ 62:7 Judged VALID; +2 Style Points awarded Submitted by Anton Cox at Sat, 3 Aug 1996 19:42:26 As election season draws near, the parties of the FRC are beginning to prepare their manifestos. Of course, as all members of all parties are always parliamentarians, these elections may seem a bit redundant - but it is a matter of some pride to be seem to have the best campaign. First off the mark were the Conservatives, with the (unsuprising) theme of conservation - particularly of the old folk customs of Comlanda like the famous but dying art of underwater yodelling. Hence their slogan: SAVE THE WAILS Not to be outdone, the Futurists are campaining to undo a program of privatisation introduced by an earlier administration. Their slogan: WAIVE THE SALES Finally, the Radicals (in a blatant attempt to increase their power as Minority Party) wish to change the very constitution, by introducing the Transferable Single Vote (TSV) - only one vote would exist, but would be tradable between parties. It is also rumoured that they wish to reduce the size of parliament. Their slogan: ONE MEMBER, ONE VOTE. Unfortunately, I feel unable to support the Radical Manifesto, so I have just defected to another party. Rest assured however, I will never submit a futurist rule! ______ Judge's Comments: I especially like the slogans :) I would give more style points, but there are typos and this rule only seems to restrict Anton's actions... ______ 62:8 Judged VALID: +2 Style Points awarded Submitted by Ed Graham at Tue, 6 Aug 1996 06:21:15 The results of the election are in! Once again no one got a clear majority, and therefore no party claims a total victory. The Radicals did get a plurality of votes, but their hidebound policy of separation from the other parties prevents them from putting together a coalition parliament. However, Judge Luke, through his leadership and forceful personality (and unique membership in both the Conservative and Futurist parties) has finally triumphed. The Coalition, driven primarily by Conservative values with a touch of conciliation to the Radicals (possibly to prevent an attempt at a coup) has adopted the platform of letting each party elect a single spokesman to present an oratorical address to the parliament extolling the virtues of each party's manifesto, then tabling the issue for a future election. This became the ONE MEMBER, ONE WAIL;SAVE THE VOTES platform. As a member of the conservative Party, I was naturally pleased with compromise legislation. _____ Judge's Comments: No problems as far as I can tell. There is one mystery here that really should be solved: How can the Conservatives pass anything if they have to vote "no" on everything? I look forward to seeing the solution you all pick. And who is this Judge _Luke_ supposed to be? :) ______ 62:9 Judged INVALID; +1 Style Point awarded Submitted by Kurt Adam at Thu, 8 Aug 1996 20:25:49 A proviso of the Comlanda Parliament rules states that a member of the party with the most votes in a coalition must announce the formation of the coalition. As such, I am stating the formation of the ruling coalition between the Radical and Conservative parties. As a result of the nature of the two parties, it is especially difficult to put together any kind of legislation that can be passed. However, the party leaders have put together a plan in which any Conservative legislation that is desired is submitted by the Radicals and the Conservatives abstain. If the Radicals try to gerrymander their legislation through the Conservatives swing into action with their no votes and bring it down. Rumors have it that the Futurists have decided that they aren't represented by this kind of logrolling and so will bring up a point of order to the Speaker of the Parliament later this evening that threatens to break the political process wide open. ______ Judge's Comments: This rule was submitted (according to my records) a couple of hours after Kurt Adam's eligibility expired. (His deadline was Thu, 8 Aug 1996 16:19:14) Remember that all times are sabre-wulf times, which are GMT + 1 hour. I also believe this violates 62:4, which declares that all conservatives always vote no on each proposal and all radicals always vote yes. Stephen Turner and Luke Vaughn have also run out of time, so the contest is between two players: Anton Cox and Ed Graham. _____ _________________________________________________ Doug Chatham Email: dchatham@utk.edu Web page: http://funnelweb.utcc.utk.edu/~chatham/ Nomic Board: http://funnelweb.utcc.utk.edu/ ~chatham/cgi-bin/msgs.html Date: Sat, 10 Aug 1996 17:13:05 EDT From: edg@juno.com To: frc@nvg.unit.no Subject: frc 62:10 Proposal:62:10 One of the interesting aspects of Comlandian Law can be expressed as;: "Whatever is not Mandatory is Prohibited " This means that any legislation that is passed is Law, subject to loopholes. And whatever legislation is defeated must be explicitly disobeyed; without loopholes. Therefore, Conservatives propose legislation with the opposite effect they wish for. And of course vote against it. This fools nobody. Sometimes, the legislation's wording is so odorous, that Radicals will defect from their party to defeat the legislation, thereby achieving the Conservative agenda. Because the Futurists do not force block voting among themselves, they have always prided themselves on being the swing-vote party, the ones that ultimately have the power to decide an issue. They are naturally upset at the defecting Radicals for switching parties in mid stream. Especially since many of them switch right back to the Radical Party after the voting has concluded. This practice has become known Waivling {similar to Waffling but concerning votes, not campaign promises}. Even though the Radical Party leaders detest this practice almost as much as the Futurists they usually accept the "lost sheep" back into the fold and eventually manage to forget the temporary treason to the party. Maybe it has something to do with the hefty membership dues they collect. {Some are even secretly glad that certain legislation fails.} Therefore, the Futurists have instituted a modification to their legislative platform. Its aim is to prevent any party member from defecting on a temporary basis, and thus force block voting along party lines ( maintaining their position as the controlling swing votes). They call this additional platform "One Member - One Waiv". This platform changed enraged the Conservatives, who disdain trusting the Futurists to swing their way. (Which the Futurists don't always do, of course.) They have threatened to dissolve the coalition if the Futurists don't remove the additional platform. Secretly, some of the Radicals are just as mad as the Conservatives. Openly for the platform, since it guarantees Party Unity, some of the less scrupulous Radicals plan on selling their votes to the Conservatives. These mercenary Radicals have begun their own underground campaign to support the Conservatives in their effort to remove the unprofitable platform. They call their campaign "Save the Sales". Ed Graham {{P.S. I don't know if this will be judged valid, I just _had_ to finish my play on the slogans.}} Date: Sat, 10 Aug 1996 22:20:33 -0500 From: Doug Chatham To: frc@nvg.unit.no Subject: Re: 62:10 62:10 was posted after the round ended, so I will not judge it. There'd be no point in doing so. Sincerely, Ex-Judge Doug Chatham _________________________________________________ Doug Chatham Email: dchatham@utk.edu Web page: http://funnelweb.utcc.utk.edu/~chatham/ Nomic Board: http://funnelweb.utcc.utk.edu/ ~chatham/cgi-bin/msgs.html