Cowardly Pacifists wrote:Although empowered to enforce the rules, the GenSec does not have the authority to unilaterally amend them or distort their plain language. GenSec members also may not stretch the meaning of the rules to reach a desired result if doing so requires disregarding the plain text of the rule. Put differently, the interpretations of a GenSec member are not entitled to any greater weight, simply because they are a GenSec member, when those interpretations require ignoring or modifying parts of the written rule. This maxim is an essential feature of ensuring that gameplay within the GA is fair: the rules as written apply to us all.
A couple of notes before I delve into this. First, I want to clarify that GenSec has the authority to interpret and revise the rules as it sees fit, yet this authority is without exception exercised in collaboration with the community. This authority has two implications that are relevant here. First, we are under absolutely no obligation to take a purely "textualist" or "originalist" approach to any rule, and you will notice if you read through the case law that GenSec's interpretation of the Honest Mistake rule has evolved to address community needs as we understand them. And second, our interpretations, simply as a matter of fact, are the ones that count. That is not because we have special insight into the rules but because it is simply the necessary consequence of creating a body whose role it is to definitively answer legal questions. Though I stressed that we are not judges in my previous post, it is useful to analogize us to judges at least in this limited sense: The judge has more weight in determining the rules than ordinary citizens. We are not under any obligation to defer to the majority opinion on a given rule, and in fact, it is our obligation to apply the rules according to how we interpret them. Of course we take into consideration first and foremost the text of the rule, as well as the community's expectations and the way in which the rule has historically been interpreted, but it is simply a misinterpretation of our role to claim that "the interpretations of a GenSec member are not entitled to greater weight..."
That being said, it is not immediately obvious, despite your insistence, that your interpretation of the rule is the plainest interpretation for reasons I will explain shortly.
Some features here are worth pointing out. First, the core principle of the rule is that "repeals should address the contents of the resolution it's targeting." This suggests that Honest Mistake violations will generally be found where, rather than addressing a resolution's content, a repeal author instead "just state[s] the reverse of the arguments given in the resolution." A good example of this can be found in other proposals to repeal the target resolution in this case which, rather than address the contents of what the resolution does, instead quibble over whether the "facts" laid out regarding the transgendered experience are true. Another example based on this part of the rule, in this context, would be a repeal that does not address what the resolution does about the right to transgender hormone therapy but, instead, argues that transgender people are bad and undeserving of protection. While such an argument might provide a "reason" for repeal, it would fail to "address the contents of the resolution" and therefore violate the rule.
Your interpretation of the Honest Mistake rule in this component of your argument depends on a mistaken assumption about the core principle of the rule. It is true that the core principle is to ensure engagement with the target resolution, but only in the limited sense that the rest of the rule descends from that principle. But that is not an argument against an interpretation of the Honest Mistake rule that enforces a strict test of factual accuracy. You treat your identification of the rule’s underlying principle as an insight that bolsters your argument, but really it is trivial — no one denies that the Honest Mistake rule fundamentally requires engagement with the target resolution. Where you are mistaken is in assuming that somehow this interpretation suggests that the Honest Mistake rule should not prioritize strict factual accuracy whereas many on GenSec would argue that the strict factual accuracy test is actually parasitic on the very principle you mention here. In other words, it does not make sense to say "the real focus of the rule is on ensuring the repeal engages with the target resolution, not on whether the claims are strictly accurate," because the latter complain is perfectly compatible with the principle that the repeal engages with the target resolution.
Second, the rule expressly permits several repeal tactics and explicitly states they "do not constitute an honest mistake." Those tactics expressly approved include: embellishment (dictionary def: a decorative detail or feature added to something to make it more attractive), exaggeration (dictionary def: a statement that represents something as better or worse than it really is); deceptive/weaselly words (no dictionary def available here but the common understanding would be intentionally ambiguous or even misleading words; for instance, saying "many people believe" to hide the fact that the actual number is few, or "wasted tons of money" when in fact the money involved is small in value but extremely heavy for some reason).
This is true, but it is not immediately obvious that the Honest Mistake rule permits the type of deception you are talking about here. We have chosen to interpret the rule generally as permitting exaggeration and embellishment only to the extent that they do not mischaracterize the original resolution. It is a misinterpretation of a resolution, and therefore an Honest Mistake violation, to suggest that a resolution does something that it does not in fact do or that relies on an unreasonable or bad faith interpretation to be true. You merely take for granted that because the rule permits embellishment and exaggeration that it must permit some type of mischaracterization, but this is not a rule that one can simply interpret according to the black letter law. What constitutes permissible deception and impermissible deception depends on standards that the rule itself does not contain explicitly. Despite your protests that your interpretation relies solely on the text, it makes implicit value claims about what constitutes mischaracterization — value claims that you have not defended in their own right. GenSec, generally speaking, has established a strict test for mischaracterization that we have substantiated based on what we perceive to be the community goals and purpose of the rule.
Rest assured that I will address the substantive rather than theoretical aspects of your argument shortly, because I believe, like SL and BA, that this proposal violates the Honest Mistake rule. But I do not have two hours to engage with this all at once, so for now I will leave you with this response to your interpretation of the rule.