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Talbott Quadrant government and parliament...

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Re: Talbott Quadrant government and parliament...
Post by hanuman   » Thu Jul 31, 2014 9:16 pm

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runsforcelery wrote:I think a lot of people are hitting around the target without quite hitting the bull's-eye.

The Star Empire of Manticore consists of legally coequal federal units. At this time, there are only two such units: the Star Kingdom of Manticore and the Talbott Quadrant. Both of those units have effectively complete local autonomy, but both are completely subject to the Star Empire of Manticore in the spheres specifically reserved to the "central government."

You may, if you wish, think of this as being something akin to the pre-Civil War US, in that specific powers are granted to the Imperial Government whereas all other legal matters are left up to the federal units. So, for example, the Star Kingdom and the Talbott Quadrant could enact different minimum-wage-equivalent legislation. They could adopt different regulations on child labor, and on environmental matters. They could not declare war, they could not negotiate political treaties with another sovereign star nation, they could not enact limiting legislation on interstellar trade, and they could not enact any legislation which contravened the provisions of the Imperial Constitution, including (especially) its limitations on imperial taxation and franchise qualification and the human rights provisions.

So the Talbott Quadrant will elect a Parliament which will sit in Spindle. That Parliament will be empowered to pass legislation initiated by citizens of the Quadrant dealing with anything not specifically prohibited to its jurisdiction by the Imperial Constitution. Any of its laws or regulations which (pretty much by definition) are going to have interstellar implications (that is, they will be promulgated to deal with the needs and desires of multiple star systems) will be subject to judicial challenge from outside the Quadrant's own judiciary only if it is their constitutionality under the Imperial Constitution which is in question.

The Imperial Parliament powers/responsibilities will include: the defense of the Star Empire; the diplomatic relations and foreign policy of the Star Empire; the passage of the Imperial budget; the issuance of the Imperial currency; the regulation of interstellar trade, both external (with other star nations) and internal (between member star systems of the Star Empire); the decision to annex/admit any future star systems to the Star Empire; and the enactment and enforcement of whatever Empire-level laws and regulations as may be required to discharge its responsibilities under the Imperial Constitution. This last point, obviously, would also cover apportionment of seats in the Imperial Parliament.

We're talking about a very complex edifice, a collection of institutions at both the imperial and the local level, so I'm not going to try to nail it down a whole lot more clearly than that at this point. As an example of how this would work, however, let's look at the Royal Manticoran Navy.

Because the Imperial Constitution places the burden of imperial defense on the Imperial Government (i.e., the Imperial Parliament), the existing SKM's Admiralty will find itself reporting to the imperial government (once everything is up and running) and not to the government of the Old Star Kingdom. Decisions about the navy — personnel, numbers of ships, deployment policies, etc. — will be made at the imperial level, in response to the imperial cabinet, and the Imperial Parliament will enact the necessary naval budget each year. The naval budget will be combined with all of the other Imperial Parliament's expenses into the Imperial Budget, and the Imperial Parliament will determine what portion of the total budget each unit of the Star Empire is responsible for. That is, if the Old Star Kingdom represents 75% of the total IGP (Imperial Gross Product), then the Old Star Kingdom will be responsible for funding 75% of the imperial budget. Precisely how the Old Star Kingdom goes about raising those revenues is an internal matter for the Old Star Kingdom to arrange as it chooses, with the understanding that any citizen who does not pay imperial taxes does not have the imperial franchise.

It's important to note here that the Imperial Constitution's provisions for the structure of the government — that is, of the cabinet, the cabinet's function, and the cabinet's relationship with the Crown — is a very closely based on that of the original Star Kingdom of Manticore. What this means is that Elizabeth will be no more of a figurehead on the imperial level than she has been in the SKM. She will be both head of state and head of government, and Dame Estelle, as her representative in the Talbott Quadrant, is effectively the "President" of the Quadrant. The Quadrant's PM is the most powerful politician in the Quadrant as the leader of the majority in the Talbott Quadrant Parliament; he is not the Quadrant's "head of state," even on the local level, however. While it is his responsibility and the prerogative to administer and govern the Quadrant in all those areas in which the Quadrant has local autonomy, and while Dame Estelle (or her successor) cannot overrule him or his Parliament in those matters of local autonomy, he is secondary to Elizabeth's representative in any matter which moves beyond that local autonomy and into the area of the Quadrant's collective legal relationship with the Imperial Government. Legislation governing matters of local autonomy can become law without the Crown Governor's signature; legislation enacted in accordance with decisions of the Imperial Parliament in respect to those areas relegated to its authority cannot become law without the Crown Governor's signature.

Do not try to find a close terrestrial parallel/model for what is being described here. There are bits and pieces of DNA from several historical systems included in the Star Empire's Constitution, but the Constitution itself is unique to Manticore's experience and needs.


Aww, now you've gone and spoil all my fun, Sir!!! :grin:

But seriously, those are the kind of details I was looking for when I started this thread - it's fascinating stuff. While I love all the tech and military/spook action as much as the next fan, it's the sociological and political aspects of the Honorverse I really thrive on - oh, and the interpersonal relationships, of course!

Thank you.
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Re: Talbott Quadrant government and parliament...
Post by roseandheather   » Thu Jul 31, 2014 9:19 pm

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hanuman wrote:Aww, now you've gone and spoil all my fun, Sir!!! :grin:

But seriously, those are the kind of details I was looking for when I started this thread - it's fascinating stuff. While I love all the tech and military/spook action as much as the next fan, it's the sociological and political aspects of the Honorverse I really thrive on - oh, and the interpersonal relationships, of course!

Thank you.


...you are secretly me, aren't you.

:lol:
~*~


I serve at the pleasure of President Pritchart.

Javier & Eloise
"You'll remember me when the west wind moves upon the fields of barley..."
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Re: Talbott Quadrant government and parliament...
Post by hanuman   » Thu Jul 31, 2014 9:27 pm

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roseandheather wrote:
hanuman wrote:Aww, now you've gone and spoil all my fun, Sir!!! :grin:

But seriously, those are the kind of details I was looking for when I started this thread - it's fascinating stuff. While I love all the tech and military/spook action as much as the next fan, it's the sociological and political aspects of the Honorverse I really thrive on - oh, and the interpersonal relationships, of course!

Thank you.


...you are secretly me, aren't you.

:lol:


You wish! I'm a decent kinda person...
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Re: Talbott Quadrant government and parliament...
Post by roseandheather   » Thu Jul 31, 2014 9:33 pm

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hanuman wrote:
roseandheather wrote:
...you are secretly me, aren't you.

:lol:


You wish! I'm a decent kinda person...


:o :evil: :x :twisted:
~*~


I serve at the pleasure of President Pritchart.

Javier & Eloise
"You'll remember me when the west wind moves upon the fields of barley..."
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Re: Talbott Quadrant government and parliament...
Post by MaxxQ   » Thu Jul 31, 2014 9:48 pm

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hanuman wrote:
roseandheather wrote:
...you are secretly me, aren't you.

:lol:


You wish! I'm a decent kinda person...


Heck... I'm sitting here trying to figure out which one of you is the other's sock puppet. :mrgreen:
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Re: Talbott Quadrant government and parliament...
Post by roseandheather   » Thu Jul 31, 2014 10:18 pm

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MaxxQ wrote:
Heck... I'm sitting here trying to figure out which one of you is the other's sock puppet. :mrgreen:


Please. If I were his sockpuppet, I wouldn't be so interested in Dame Estelle's... attributes.

And if he were mine, he would be. :lol:
~*~


I serve at the pleasure of President Pritchart.

Javier & Eloise
"You'll remember me when the west wind moves upon the fields of barley..."
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Re: Talbott Quadrant government and parliament...
Post by MaxxQ   » Thu Jul 31, 2014 10:28 pm

MaxxQ
BuNine

Posts: 1553
Joined: Sat Aug 08, 2009 5:08 pm
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roseandheather wrote:
MaxxQ wrote:
Heck... I'm sitting here trying to figure out which one of you is the other's sock puppet. :mrgreen:


Please. If I were his sockpuppet, I wouldn't be so interested in Dame Estelle's... attributes.

And if he were mine, he would be. :lol:


Ah... but that's what makes a good sock puppet - being different from the one with the hand up its ... rear. :mrgreen:
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Re: Talbott Quadrant government and parliament...
Post by Jonathan_S   » Thu Jul 31, 2014 10:48 pm

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runsforcelery wrote:We're talking about a very complex edifice, a collection of institutions at both the imperial and the local level, so I'm not going to try to nail it down a whole lot more clearly than that at this point. As an example of how this would work, however, let's look at the Royal Manticoran Navy.

Because the Imperial Constitution places the burden of imperial defense on the Imperial Government (i.e., the Imperial Parliament), the existing SKM's Admiralty will find itself reporting to the imperial government (once everything is up and running) and not to the government of the Old Star Kingdom. Decisions about the navy — personnel, numbers of ships, deployment policies, etc. — will be made at the imperial level, in response to the imperial cabinet, and the Imperial Parliament will enact the necessary naval budget each year. The naval budget will be combined with all of the other Imperial Parliament's expenses into the Imperial Budget, and the Imperial Parliament will determine what portion of the total budget each unit of the Star Empire is responsible for. That is, if the Old Star Kingdom represents 75% of the total IGP (Imperial Gross Product), then the Old Star Kingdom will be responsible for funding 75% of the imperial budget. Precisely how the Old Star Kingdom goes about raising those revenues is an internal matter for the Old Star Kingdom to arrange as it chooses, with the understanding that any citizen who does not pay imperial taxes does not have the imperial franchise.
Hmm, that combo letting the Federal governments set how they pay their Imperial share, but tying Imperial franchise to Imperial taxes seems like it might be vulnerable to abuse. (Although there may be safeguards that you omitted for brevity; being too tedious, or even not fully fleshed out)

But just from those couple of sentences it seems like if for some crazy reason the SKM government wanted to restrict the Imperial franchise to specific groups they could fund the vast majority of their Imperial revenues from some none tax source (like junction fees) and then pass Imperial taxes only on the groups they want to en-franchise. (Like an Imperial tax on Peers, or on only the wealthiest 0.5%, or even on left handed pipe fitters).


Now I'm sure there would be pretty massive political blowback at the Federal (Star Kingdom) level if they tried ; and since the House of Commons needs to be involved in budgets even a group of "crazy" Lords is unlikely to drag the Commons into political suicide by deliberately hyperlimiting the Imperial franchise. But it still sounds like you could run the risk of targetting some groups for deliberate exclusion from Imperial taxes for the real purpose of denying them the Franchise (but would likely be sold as assistance, or helping the unfortunate, or something along those lines)



Still, I'm sure I'm overthinking this.
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Six Degrees of Hitler aka Nazi Golf
Post by TheMonster   » Thu Jul 31, 2014 11:46 pm

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hanuman wrote:Monster, I see you left out the most relevant part of my post. No matter, I'll quote it for you:

It is an argument that says: 'We are better than you, we are superior to you, therefore we know better than you, therefore we have the right to tell you what to do and how to do it, therefore we have the right to reap the benefits and you do not'.
And that's what makes it the most irrelevant part of your post, because I said nothing of the sort. I do not presume to declare myself superior to anyone; I merely say that if someone should decide to declare himself not up to the job of telling me what to do and how to do it (which is what people do when they vote) I will respect his decision to recuse himself from his civic duty, because pointing a gun at someone and demanding he make laws to constrain my liberty is insane. I'm the guy saying that telling him that he has to vote is wrong, and somehow that's equated with the above embedded quote? Puh. Lease.

To suggest that this position shares anything whatsoever with people who demanded that they had the right to force their will upon certain classes of people (and arguably refused even to acknowledge that they were people) is ludicrous. It's a sort of "guilt by free association" exercise that would make McCarthy green with envy. It's become all too convenient for people to try to taint their opponents' positions as racist/sexist/etc. and therefore unworthy of consideration by decent people.

However, at the same time I do have opinions of my own, and I am not shy to make my opinions known. That I criticised one of your posts does not in any way mean that I have any kind of opinion ABOUT YOU as a person, one way or another.
Of course you don't. You went out of your way to state that you weren't doing an argumentum ad hominem attack on me personally, and I said as much upthread. No, you're only saying that because you can twist what I said into agreeing with racist sexist elitist bastards, then what I said must not have any validity at all, but I'm still a good guy, who is just . . . misguided on this one issue. "Sorrow more than anger" and all of that.

It's more of an argumentum ad hitlerum twist that allows your hands to remain completely clean of the slightest hint of personal attack. So that makes it slightly less odious than the ad hom fallacy, but it's still fallacious.

Example:
I like Interstate highways, but since they were built because Eisenhower saw how well the Autobahn network served Nazi Germany, that means the argument for Interstate highways is the argument that produced the Holocaust. I don't even have to play Six Degrees of Hitler; the tee shot in Nazi Golf puts my ball right on the green just a few feet from the pin.

It is trivial to find something that a bad person did that isn't the least bit bad.

But here's the worst part of all about your meta-argument: If taken at face value, the moment anything someone is thinking starts to sound like it could be used to justify racism, sexism, elitism, or any other -ism, they must stop believing it. Unless, of course, they really are racists, sexists, elitists, or some other kind of -ist. At that point, the only people left telling the truth are the -ists. By making "that could be used to justify -ism" a disqualifier, you're ceding a perverse moral high ground to people who should never be able to claim it. And that way lies unspeakable evil.
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Re: Talbott Quadrant government and parliament...
Post by SWM   » Fri Aug 01, 2014 11:01 am

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Jonathan_S wrote:
runsforcelery wrote:We're talking about a very complex edifice, a collection of institutions at both the imperial and the local level, so I'm not going to try to nail it down a whole lot more clearly than that at this point. As an example of how this would work, however, let's look at the Royal Manticoran Navy.

Because the Imperial Constitution places the burden of imperial defense on the Imperial Government (i.e., the Imperial Parliament), the existing SKM's Admiralty will find itself reporting to the imperial government (once everything is up and running) and not to the government of the Old Star Kingdom. Decisions about the navy — personnel, numbers of ships, deployment policies, etc. — will be made at the imperial level, in response to the imperial cabinet, and the Imperial Parliament will enact the necessary naval budget each year. The naval budget will be combined with all of the other Imperial Parliament's expenses into the Imperial Budget, and the Imperial Parliament will determine what portion of the total budget each unit of the Star Empire is responsible for. That is, if the Old Star Kingdom represents 75% of the total IGP (Imperial Gross Product), then the Old Star Kingdom will be responsible for funding 75% of the imperial budget. Precisely how the Old Star Kingdom goes about raising those revenues is an internal matter for the Old Star Kingdom to arrange as it chooses, with the understanding that any citizen who does not pay imperial taxes does not have the imperial franchise.
Hmm, that combo letting the Federal governments set how they pay their Imperial share, but tying Imperial franchise to Imperial taxes seems like it might be vulnerable to abuse. (Although there may be safeguards that you omitted for brevity; being too tedious, or even not fully fleshed out)

But just from those couple of sentences it seems like if for some crazy reason the SKM government wanted to restrict the Imperial franchise to specific groups they could fund the vast majority of their Imperial revenues from some none tax source (like junction fees) and then pass Imperial taxes only on the groups they want to en-franchise. (Like an Imperial tax on Peers, or on only the wealthiest 0.5%, or even on left handed pipe fitters).


Now I'm sure there would be pretty massive political blowback at the Federal (Star Kingdom) level if they tried ; and since the House of Commons needs to be involved in budgets even a group of "crazy" Lords is unlikely to drag the Commons into political suicide by deliberately hyperlimiting the Imperial franchise. But it still sounds like you could run the risk of targetting some groups for deliberate exclusion from Imperial taxes for the real purpose of denying them the Franchise (but would likely be sold as assistance, or helping the unfortunate, or something along those lines)



Still, I'm sure I'm overthinking this.


The way I interpreted it is that there is an Imperial tax, which applies to anyone who wishes to vote in imperial elections. This is paid directly to the Imperial government. The Talbott Quadrant has no control over that, cannot limit who pays it, and does not even touch the money. Over and above that, the Talbott Quadrant government is responsible for contributing some amount of money to the Imperial government, as determined by the Imperial Parliament. How Talbott raises that is up to them, but they can't call it Imperial taxes because they have no authority to create, gather, or control Imperial taxes.
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