Date: Tue, 18 Jan 94 13:37:25 EST
From: justin@dsd.camb.inmet.com (Mark Waks)
Message-Id: <9401181837.AA04338@dsd.camb.inmet.com>
To: Carolingia@bloom-beacon.mit.edu
Subject: The Principality -- various discussions

Okay, I'll try to put together all of my various responses into one message
here, to avoid too much duplication. Please bear in mind my position --
I am strongly in favor of the creation of a *North-only* Principality;
that is, I would prefer that Carolingia not be in it. Some of my reasons
are below.

Harald cites me:
>Justin, about a year ago, reported that the
>result of some meeting he had attended "made it obvious that the
>question was not whether, but when" the Northern Principality would be
>formed.  (Please forgive me if I have badly misquoted you, or even
>worse, misattributed the statement) 

It's reasonably plausible, anyway -- it was, and is, my opinion. Frankly,
the folks just north of us *are* (as far as I can tell) overwhelingly
in favor of a Principality; I haven't yet heard a dissenting vote from
ME, NH, or VT, although I'm sure a few must exist. Nor is this movement
nearly as flawed as the last one was -- while I think Randal and Katherine
have made some mistakes, I think that they're proceeding reasonably
carefully, and are in it for mostly the right reasons.

As far as I can tell, Harald, you're actually opposed to the existence
of the Principality at all, as opposed to just saying that Carolingia
shouldn't be in it. You are the *only* person I can recall saying
this; what are your reasons?  I think it would be a good thing overall
(for the reasons Elayne cited), but don't particularly want to be in
it.

I still think it's going to happen. We're going to have some real
teething pains about where the boundaries are going to be (and I give
almost exactly 50-50 odds at this point about whether we wind up in it),
but I think that, once a firm boundary is decided upon, it's going to
become real.

>I don't want to see another polling right away -- I'd like to see the
>pro-principality forces to bloody well accept the word "no" when they
>hear it -- at least for, say, two years -- I'll readily admit that
>opinions and conditions change.

Why do you believe they heard a "no"? The upshot of the meeting was
essentially that the polling was so flawed that they can't tell *what*
they heard. It was a mistake, but one in good faith. They're trying to
correct those mistakes and try again -- this seems only right and fair
to me. (It's certainly a lot better than the Board's apparent attitude
of "This was a flawed poll, and here are our results and decisions
based on it.")

>But I'd prefer not to have another polling.  Especially one that will
>consider, a 30% plurality to be a binding majority.

What would you demand? Honestly, I know of no larger-than-Barony vote
in the Society that has *ever* gotten more than a 40% response rate.
By your standards, no Principalities would *ever* be formed in the
Society. I think that's foolish, and, frankly, shows that you have no
clue how hard it is to run this Kingdom...

The people who actually go to the work of showing they care get a say.
If the rest are too lazy or apathetic to express an opinion, then they
get what they deserve...

Cinaed asks:
>Why are the various people involved concerned with conducting "official
>polls"?  After all, won't the only relevant VOTE be the final decision?
>Everything before that is just gathering opinions on where they want to
>draw the lines.  Once they've drawn the line, then we need an official
>poll.

Not quite that simple. Remember, the final vote will be restricted to
corporate members only. Therefore, Randal and Katherine feel (correctly,
I believe) that the straw polls have to be conducted with the official
lists, in a manner reasonably similar to that of the final poll, so that
they get a reasonably accurate assessment of the feelings of the people
who will be voting in the final poll. This makes sense -- you don't want
to get nasty surprises at the end of the process...

Tibicen points out that her suggestion of passing the helm was intended
to estimate support, not as a fund-raiser. I personally don't think that
it would show anything significant. Remember, this was an event being
held in a group that *is* overwhelmingly in support of the Principality.
The show of support would mostly show that Stonemarche supports the notion.

Now, you could try to pass the helm at every event in the region, to get
some idea of which groups support it. It's an incredibly imprecise way
of gathering data, though. Trying to control for how big the event is,
how many people travel to it, and simply whether they could find someone
to collect the money is nearly impossible. In the end, I'm sure that they
will find enough support to put out the next poll -- trying to get more
data than that is probably a frustrating and futile exercise...

Elayne enumerates some of the arguments for the Principality:
>1.  The kingdom is administratively too big.  We are all volunteers. Some of us
>know what we are getting into when we accept positions at the kingdom level,
>some don't (and therefore do not always do the job they would be capable of if
>the scope were more manageable.)

Correct, and certainly one of the stronger reasons for the creation of
a Principality at all.

>2.  More people would be able to participate in the ceremonial aspects of the
>SCA (being part of a royal household, or on the thrones).  There is always
>going to be a large number of us unable to participate in that aspect of the
>SCA if we don't win crown.  This would give more people a shot at it.

Honestly, I don't find this a compelling reason. The fact is that, no
matter *how* you slice it, only a tiny fraction of the people around are
ever going to get to sit on the thrones. Therefore, I don't find any of
the usual arguments along these lines strong. It's *far* more important
to worry about getting *good* Royalty than getting *more* Royalty. The
only good argument for *more* Royalty is so that they can do their job
better.

(Personally, I think that we are *far* too focussed on the Royals in
general, and it skews our recreation badly.)

>3.  I see a principality as a route (long or short) toward kingdom.  A
>principality for its own sake I am not crazy about.  This would add an
>unnecessary layer of paperwork to the system.

While I happen to disagree with this point strongly (like Tibicen, I
am a fairly chauvanistic Easterner, and have little desire to leave
the Kingdom), I complement you on your honesty -- you're only the
second person I've heard from the pro-Principality side who has
actually admitted to wanting a proto-Kingdom. (Danulf was the first.)

This is actually a strong factor in the argument. *If* what you want
(as I do) is a relatively permanent Principality, so as to subdivide
some of the burdens of running the Kingdom into more manageable chunks,
then the North-only Principality makes more sense, since it's a good
division. *If*, on the other hand, you want a proto-Kingdom, then the
North&Central Principality may make more sense, since it is roughly the
size of a smallish Kingdom to start with. (However, it may not work, since
it leaves the remaining East Kingdom *quite* small.)

>4.  Quicker recognition for those who desrve it.  In a large group, it takes
>longer (often too long) for an individual to be recognized by the crown.  A
>principality can award AoA's and principality orders.  (I'm not sure about
>peerages.) If you have ever watched the wheels grind slowly, you know how
>frustrating it is.

This is actually one of the reasons I'm in favor of a smaller Principality;
I think it's a better division of the Kingdom, and should therefore
expedite recognition better. More below.

>For my own part, I think being part of a new group would be exciting -  Starting
>traditions, keeping that of the East which is best and trying to correct the
>flaws.  

This actually worries me. Mind you, the mistake most often made by
fledgling Kingdoms is the creation of *far* too much bureaucracy.
They usually keep most of their parent Kingdom's law (they all profess
a desire to scrap much of it, but can rarely arrive at agreement about
what to get rid of, so they keep most of it). Then they add on a ton
of new rules, regulations, offices, and awards, so as to promote a
sense of "identity" by creating new cruft. The result is a hash.

I'll be very explicit here. The last time the Principality movement
happened (some five years ago), they started talking about new awards
and offices before they had even agreed on the borders. I concluded at
that point that we were going to wind up another over-regulated mess,
and starting arguing vigourously against it. The same holds now -- if it
starts looking like we're going to create a bad group, I'll start doing
everything I can to pursuade people to kill it, regardless of whether
or not Carolingia is in it.

(Yes, this is a button -- the Society is dramatically over-centralized
and over-regulated already, and every little bit hurts.)

Anyway, my argument is fairly straightforward. I'm in favor of a
Principality for mostly the reasons Elayne cites. But I'm opposed to
the "big" Principality, because I think it's a poor division of the
Kingdom. It winds us up with a new Principality that is most of the
size of the Kingdom (leaving out AEthelmearc, which I expect to go
Kingdom within five years). The new Principality is *still* too big
administratively to manage really easily, and still too large
geographically and in population for the Royals to get most
places. And the Kingdom is left as a rump that is, I believe, too small
to be fully viable on its own. (Yes, I care about the fate of the rest
of the Kingdom.) We get a whole new level of bureaucracy and
administration, with little benefit.

(Not to mention my worries that Carolingia would be too dominant in
the Principality -- we'd be far-and-away the largest group in every
respect, and in general the south would be much "bigger" than the north,
which could cause us-vs-them problems.)

On the other hand, a North-only Principality avoids most of those problems.
It would still be large geographically, but relatively small in population
(about a third the size of the "big" Principality). This means that the
Royalty would have the time to get to the smaller and more remote groups,
some of whom have *far* worse recognition problems than we could ever
dream of here. The remaining kingdom would still be fairly large in
population, but *much* smaller geographically, so it would be far easier
for the King and Queen to get to the places that still need them, and
it wouldn't feel so much like a rump that has been left out. And the
Principality wouldn't be dominated by big southern Baronies, so it could
develop its own identity more freely. The *only* argument I see against
the smaller Principality is that it would not be viable as a Kingdom for
many years.

(There is a stock argument that it divides an already-existing
identity down the middle. Personally, I don't buy it -- people aren't
going to stop going to Birka just because it's in the new
Principality, and the existing "identity" is extremely weak, IMO. Yes,
there may be some gradual shifts in who plays with whom, but I don't
see this as a problem -- there is always some gradual evolution and
shifting in these lines, and there's little reason to declare the
current situation "good" and a possible future one "bad".)

And yes, there's some argument that a Central Principality would be a
good thing. I'm largely indifferent there -- I don't think we need it
as badly as the North, but it would probably present some modest
benefits along the lines outlined above.

				-- Justin Longwind

Random Quote du Jour:

"Speaking of latin -- A citizen of the eternal city walks into a bar and
 says to the bartender, `Give me a martinus'. The bartender says, `Don't you
 mean _martini_?'. To which the roman responds `If I want two, I'll ask
 for them'"
		-- Etienne