Rules Held On: Category, Joke Proposal, Metagaming, Contradiction (267, 465)
Argument:
Following my submission of a proposal for Preventing the Spread of Disease, multiple members of the General Assembly Secretariat have struck it as illegal, allegedly violating proposal rules on no less than five (5) counts. Some of these claims of illegality grasp well beyond the scope of reason, while others appear far more plausible, at least upon a cursory reading of the relevant legislative texts. However, all these claims ultimately fail upon diligent inspection, as I shall demonstrate using legislative text, the General Assembly proposal ruleset, and game text.
Among the many claims of illegality, that of a category violation convinces me -- and the members of the Secretariat, according to their summaries regarding the legality of the proposal -- the least. The game describes Regulation as a category "to enact uniform standards that protect workers, consumers, and the general public". Thus, a resolution submitted under Regulation : Safety must in some way establish workplace safety standards, consumer protection measures, or public health and safety laws. The proposal for Preventing the Spread of Disease unquestionably does the latter, protecting people from violent, diseased, and otherwise dangerous animals. Even the title speaks to this obvious primary purpose, despite claims to the contrary. If this public safety measure is not suitable for Regulation, then no public safety measure is. A reasonable view of the scope of this category will naturally find my application of it legal.
The charge of metagaming suffers from an identical departure from the realities of my proposal text. The only justification provided for this claim argues that the proposal's references to marsupials actually refer to a specific, dynamic set of nations, rather than marsupials. This, of course, ignores that nations cannot be quarantined, cannot reproduce, do not have vital organs, cannot be hunted, and most importantly, are not "any of the various brutal, soulless, nonsentient mammals that carry young in a pouch". To hold to a metagaming accusation, the Secretariat must pretend that these contradictions between its chosen interpretation and the active clauses of the proposal do not exist, that the entire first active clause does not exist, and that a reasonable interpretation where "marsupial" means marsupial does not exist. Furthermore, any claim of contradiction with resolutions concerning hunting or endangered species is incompatible with the interpretation that "marsupials" refers to nations as a part of NationStates. While "marsupial" may have another meaning in Gameplay, and resolutions almost always have out-of-character motivations behind them, it is patently absurd to force an unreasonable illegal interpretation of the word "marsupial" over a reasonable legal interpretation of it. Certainly similarities may be drawn in this matter, but any argument that my use of the word is metagaming can only be made in bad faith.
Joke proposals are, in the word of the General Assembly ruleset, "intended solely to be 'humorous' or a 'joke'". I will not argue that my proposal does not at least attempt humor, although clearly that attempt has been poorly received. This alone, however, is not basis enough for a proposal to be dismissed as a joke. Historically, humorous legislation has gone to Vote and even passed by wide margins. Law Enforcement Education was repealed by a recipe for Orange Julius, for example. By comparison, my proposal is rather measured. Certainly, I make implied references to the "marsupial" hunts familiar to Gameplay, but the resolution takes itself seriously, as it would written by an authoring delegation whose purpose for authorship is a genuine concern with the dangers marsupials pose to the public. Thus, clearly humor is not the sole purpose of this proposal, and the rule against joke proposals does not render this illegal.
Finally, we depart from the contrived legal objections to this proposal and consider two questions of contradiction. We first consider contradiction of GAR #267, Sensible Limits on Hunting, which requires member states to regulate hunting such that it is "sustainable and environmentally suitable". First, this does not proscribe a recommendation to license the hunting of marsupials. Second, even if it did, the same clause in GA #267 lists "'invasive' species, species parasitic on people or domestic livestock, or species carrying agents likely to cause serious epidemics in people" as exempt from this protection. I contest that marsupials, being infamously disease-ridden and undesirable to many environments, thus are not protected under this clause's provisions. Now we consider the final claim of illegality thus far levied against my proposal, that of contradiction with GAR #465, Preventing Species Extinction. Again, while this resolution does not protect endangered species from deliberate extermination, it does not do so without exception. Clause 6 states that the resolution's mandates may be wholly or partially lifted when considering, among other factors, the danger it poses to the public to protect a species. As marsupials reasonably meet the standards of the exceptions in clause 6.i "the endangered species presents a public health risk, such as through infection or parasitism" and in clause 6.iii "the clearly needed protections for the species would present a serious public health emergency", I hold that quarantine and hunting of marsupial populations does not contradict GAR #465.
From this exploration of the many accusations of illegalities within my effort to prevent the spread of disease, we can now clearly see that many were rather unpersuasive from the start and others, while initially compelling, do not hold up to scrutiny. The proposal now held illegal may not suit the tastes of the members of the Secretariat -- understandably so -- but it is within the bounds of legality.
