NationStates

Finally decided to work on this one. Hope it's fun enough.

Draft 1.10

Title: What Goes In Must Come Out
The Issue: After a late night at a local government office turned into a festival of drinking games and prank calls, the federal parliament woke up to rioting, a petition to ban body piercings, two thousand bottles of booze being shipped from Wezeltonia, and a massive headache.
Validity: Alcohol is legal

Option 1: "Oooooooh," moans your secretary, guzzling another alka seltzer and adjusting an ice pack. "I think it's... painfully clear that we should not work while drunk. Or drink while working... or something like that. It leads to nothing but trou...bluh. We need to send out a formal apology and promise that everyone, from here on out, will have compulsory time off work while drunk."
[effect] people partying when the should be working are told to take the day off

Option 2: "Politicians should be held to a higher standard than this," sighs Opposition leader @@RANDOMNAME@@, having opposed everything from drinking to calling an ambulance and instead opting to clock out early. "No drinking. As a matter of fact, politicians should be completely detoxed so as to perform optimally." @@HE@@ frowns as @@HE@@ finds drool under @@HIS@@ shoe. "Wouldn't you agree, @@LEADER@@?"
[effect] parliament no longer has coffee

Option 3: "Come on, you have to admit that was fun," slurs your party-loving uncle, falling as he climbs through your liquor cabinet. "It was so fun that we should totally start a trend where every bill we pass has to be approved of twice, once while sober and once while drunk. That will help with corruption as well as be a blast—woooOOAH!" You watch as he topples along with everything on your desk.
[effect] policies are made by drunks

Option 4: "We're forgetting something: what we did last night," declares your usually-staunch and possibly not-quite-sober Minister of Law and Order, who streamed the event, while wildly swinging a truncheon. "And we should live with the consequences. We—*hic*—should uphold our word, like the righteous government we are, and enforce a ban on alcohol. And our shiplements of booze from Weaselponia? We'll break the bottles and laugh. Haha, huh... HRNG-" The minister rushes to your trash can.
[effect] controversial decisions lead to controversial decisions

Jutsa wrote:After a late night at the office turned into a festival of merry drinking and rough partying, @@NAME@@ woke up with a phone call from a Wezeltonian minister about a shipment of two hundred thousand bottles of booze, a "passed" bill banning alcohol, and a massive headache due to one of your aides livestreaming the whole event.

I didn't get all this at first: what had Wezeltonia got to do with it all? Is booze legal or not? Then I read it again and realized you were talking of the shenanigans that happened while everyone was drunk. Maybe clear that up?

Does this help clear anything up just a tad?

After a late night at the office turned into a festival of drinking games and prank calls, @@NAME@@'s parliament woke up with a "passed" bill banning alcohol, a phone call from a confused Wezeltonian merchant asking about a shipment of two hundred thousand bottles of booze for your office, and a massive headache due to one of your aides livestreaming the whole event.

Yeah, that's better.

You mean to tell me that every single politician drinks, much lsess binge drinks?

This issues assumes a fair amount more than I'm comfortable with about my governmental structure, the process of law creation, nepotism, and my personal habits. It's an amusing concept, but I would dismiss this without even getting through the options due to its lack of boundaries.

my governmental structure

Eh... yeah, kinda. It does assume that there are either policy makers, or that you're a drunk.
Also "opposition", but that was mostly for fun. I could easily change that.

the process of law creation

Eh, I guess it could be seen as "finalizing" a bill that somehow passed the lower house or something, but eh,
I can kinda see where you're coming from. That's the one I admit I can agree with you on... though hopefully "dismiss" is alright for those instances, idk.

nepotism

I could always add a "corrupt" validity. Would make more sense that way, between the "opposition" (again may change that) and the fact that this happened.

and my personal habits

Not at all! It never actually says you're one of the people who attended the party... otherwise option 2 wouldn't even make sense.
(In fact, actually, I could have option 2 fire all the drunkies. mhmmmhmhm yes I like that idea... would reduce the nepotism a touch too.
[well, then it'd assume you weren't one but I could try to find a way to make that still ambiguous])

Any comments on my comments?

I have to wonder about the mentality of politicians who pass a bill banning alcohol while drunk.

Supposedly, alcohol works by lowering your inhibitions, making you act on your first instincts without thinking through why doing so is dumb. So if banning alcohol was their first instinct, it must mean they really regretted getting drunk.

which in turn contradicts calling 2000 orders of booze. Hmm... yeah I may change that.

Jutsa wrote:Any comments on my comments?

my governmental structure

Eh... yeah, kinda. It does assume that there are either policy makers, or that you're a drunk.
Also "opposition", but that was mostly for fun. I could easily change that.

Well, the whole parliamentary system is an assumption here - there are other means of governance. At minimum, there will need to be a couple more validities added - elected representatives is a big one, as is having internet and computers, since live-streaming wouldn't be a thing without both of those.

the process of law creation

Eh, I guess it could be seen as "finalizing" a bill that somehow passed the lower house or something, but eh,
I can kinda see where you're coming from. That's the one I admit I can agree with you on... though hopefully "dismiss" is alright for those instances, idk.

The idea that a law can be drafted and passed and signed and officialized in a single night by a bunch of black-out drunks is pretty questionable. This is one of the points where it assumes the leader must be one of the participants. Somehow I, the leader, accepted and signed whatever nonsense they came up with, so I have to have A) been there (or else I'd not have seen it 'til morning), and B) been sufficiently out of control to think it was a good idea. I like the dismiss button for those situations where my response is "What happened is fine, let it ride" rather than "This issue violates my autonomy"

nepotism

I could always add a "corrupt" validity. Would make more sense that way, between the "opposition" (again may change that) and the fact that this happened.

I think that would be helpful, yeah. My irresponsible family members have no business being at internal government functions, and there are some serious ethical concerns with getting that plastered with my significantly lower subordinate employees.

and my personal habits

Not at all! It never actually says you're one of the people who attended the party... otherwise option 2 wouldn't even make sense.
(In fact, actually, I could have option 2 fire all the drunkies. mhmmmhmhm yes I like that idea... would reduce the nepotism a touch too.
[well, then it'd assume you weren't one but I could try to find a way to make that still ambiguous])

Actually, I think it makes that assumption repeatedly. The first is as mentioned above, with the process of signing a new bill. The second is in option 3, where your uncle is saying "Come on, you have to admit that was fun," and tries to get you to make it a regular thing, which definitely suggests your presence in whatever revelry occurred. The third is in option 4, where your minister is beseeching you to remember "what we did last night" and suggesting you need to live with the consequences. That makes no sense unless you were there, participated, and are likewise feel honor-bound to live with the consequences. If you didn't participate, this argument would be meaningless.

A random unrelated note, Alka-Seltzer is a real-world trademark, so it should probably be a slightly modified version of that... Alcy-Seltzer perhaps, given the context!

An obvious solution to the autonomy issue: make it for nations with the Devolution policy, and have it happen in a local legislature. Of course, the does limit the number of nations who can get it, but I don't see how you could preserve autonomy otherwise.

That doesn't, however, solve the problem that most legislative bodies have processes that take longer than one day for a proposal to go from "first draft" to "enshrined in law".

Or just tone down the shenanigans.

Baggieland wrote:Or just tone down the shenanigans.

Eyeah that seems like the easy one.

Trotterdam wrote:An obvious solution to the autonomy issue: make it for nations with the Devolution policy, and have it happen in a local legislature. Of course, the does limit the number of nations who can get it, but I don't see how you could preserve autonomy otherwise.

Good idea! Definitely better than adding "corruption".
I'd still like your party-loving uncle to sift through your liquor cabinet, but I get he doesn't belong there. Will change the character.
That said, it's now canon that you do, in fact, have a liquor cabinet.
(it's not a necessity though.)

Well, the whole parliamentary system is an assumption here - there are other means of governance. At minimum, there will need to be a couple more validities added - elected representatives is a big one, as is having internet and computers, since live-streaming wouldn't be a thing without both of those.

Good points... "parliament" could be changed to "your office" (or, in this case, devolution would fix that too). Livestreaming, hmm, yeah, that would require internet... thanks.

Actually, I think it makes that assumption repeatedly. The first is as mentioned above, with the process of signing a new bill. The second is in option 3, where your uncle is saying "Come on, you have to admit that was fun," and tries to get you to make it a regular thing, which definitely suggests your presence in whatever revelry occurred. The third is in option 4, where your minister is beseeching you to remember "what we did last night" and suggesting you need to live with the consequences. That makes no sense unless you were there, participated, and are likewise feel honor-bound to live with the consequences. If you didn't participate, this argument would be meaningless.

First one: Good point. Will change the "passing a new bill" thing... though it does complicate matters with option 3.
Second one: He was meant to be talking to the previous speaker, but I get why that's not clear. Will try to amend that too.
Third one: Wasn't meant to be an inclusive "we" but an exclusive "we", and really wasn't meant to pull on your heart strings.
Note: Fun fact, some languages separate the two, but English doesn't. What fun. >__>

A random unrelated note, Alka-Seltzer is a real-world trademark, so it should probably be a slightly modified version of that... Alcy-Seltzer perhaps, given the context!

lmao alrighty.

Now for a criticism of my own:

Jutsa wrote:Hey me, just wanted to let you know that "Parliamentary Playground" is an issue. You should probably look out for overlap!"

Crap.

Devolution and/or corruption might fix this too but at this point it'd cross the line with a pair of drafts I had submitted about corruption and devolution.


Draft discarded. Feel free to scrap it for parts.

Jutsa wrote:Hey me, just wanted to let you know that "Parliamentary Playground" is an issue. You should probably look out for overlap!"

I don't think that one's similar at all, actually. They're both broadly about parliament doing something embarrassing, but the reasons they're embarrassing are very different.

Parliamentary Playground is about a fistfight breaking out between politicians over a serious disagreement, presumably one over a political issue that actually is very controversial. They actually are doing their jobs, even if they're doing it in a very unprofessional way.

This draft is about politicians doing outright stupid stuff, rather than using the wrong methods to pursue legitimate political goals.

Huh... alrighty. .-.

Eeeh, I'll leave it as [DRAFT?] cause there are several other problems with it, but yeah, you do have a good point there.

Trotterdam wrote:I have to wonder about the mentality of politicians who pass a bill banning alcohol while drunk.

Supposedly, alcohol works by lowering your inhibitions, making you act on your first instincts without thinking through why doing so is dumb. So if banning alcohol was their first instinct, it must mean they really regretted getting drunk.

Maybe the few sober politicians, who were sick pf cleaning up after everyone, and trying to avoid scandles, manipulated thr drunkards into signi mmg without reading

Eh, I'm still not quite feeling this one. Gonna put this one in my "Discarded" files.

I don't suppose anything like politicians getting drunk and doing something like this has ever happened / would ever happen, would it?