Incoming Transmission
Comm ID: Aurelia Silvan
Recipient(s): Council
For the reasons I stated earlier, I vote
yay.
-Aurelia Silvan
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End Transmission
Comm ID: Chairman Mal
Two hours left before the balloting deadline, Delegates.
The tally so far:
http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=reZ...amp;output=html
Our rather "lacklustre" participation compared to past votes seems to indicate that there is indeed a wide range of feeling and conviction on this matter; but I urge you to vote your conscience/Pineal/best approximation anyway.
One thing we cannot afford to lose is our sense of camararderie and shared responsibility for our future as Zoners.
Again:
Should the current "Item 4" be rescinded, and replaced with the following:
Resolved, that the Council of Zoners will not take any official position on the legality or illegality of the slave trade in what is considered Zoner space. This resolution does not stop any individual Zoner from following his or her conscience, but affirms the Council's neutrality in this matter.
Thank you, my Brothers and Sisters.
*Incoming transmission*
From: Top
To: Zoner council voting officer
Re: Item 4
Yay to rescind it and take no official position on the matter.
Top out.
*crackle crackle transmission terminated*
Comm ID: Malcolm Reynolds
I vote Yea on the Issue at hand, Enough said.
Comm ID: Lucky LeRoux
To: The Council of Zoners
Re:The Slaving Issue..
Hope I'm not too late with my vote ..
Personally I'm against lugging these poor souls around the place just for the fun of it, not to mention the cost, but if there's money to be made from the trade then I'll look into it. Therefore I have to abstain from this vote and keep me hat on until it's proven a profitable cause and beneficial to my general interests.
Lucky
Comm ID: Chairman Mal
Fellow Delegates,
The voting on the "Two Bears" Motion is now closed.
I believe that this reversal in direction is significant. It suggests a number of lessons that have been learned, both in the processes we use to arrive at consensus, and in the way many of us think about what it means to be "a Zoner".
I leave it to the ingenuity of each Delegate to discover and ponder those lessons.
Here are the results:
For the Motion: 15 votes
Against the Motion: 5 votes
Abstentions: 4 votes
Not voting: 12 Members
(Detailed Results:)
The Motion passes.
As a result, the previous "Item 4" will be struck from the Draft of "Official Policies". I would then strongly urge that the language of Delegate Shestov's Motion be applied as our Policy towards ALL commodities entering and leaving our Freeports. If we are to be "free" in our dealings with others, then let us be truly and completely free. I will instruct Delegate Silvan to proceed on that basis.
Before we proceed, I wish to share with this Council the Discordian Prophet Hagbard Celine's First and Second Laws as well. I do not know if my presentation of the Third Law changed any minds on the matter just decided. I do believe that wisdom comes from many different, and sometimes surprising, sources.
Indulge me if you will:
Celine's First Law
National Security is the chief cause of national insecurity.
"Reflecting the paranoia of the Cold War, Celine's First Law focuses around the common idea that to have national security, one must create a secret police. Since internal revolutionaries and external foes would make the secret police a prime target for infiltration, and because the secret police would by necessity have vast powers to blackmail and intimidate other members of the government, another higher set of secret police must be created to monitor the secret police. And an even higher set of secret police must then be created to monitor the higher order of secret police. Repeat ad nauseam.
This seemingly infinite regress goes on until every person in the country is spying on another, or "the funding runs out." And since this paranoid and self monitoring situation inherently makes targets of a nation's own citizens, the average person in the nation is more threatened by the massive secret police complex than by whatever foe they were seeking to protect themselves from. Wilson points out that the Soviet Union, which suffered from this in spades, got to the point that it was terrified of painters and poets who could do little harm to them in reality.
At the same time, given the limitation of funding and scale, the perfect security state never truly emerges, leaving the populace still vulnerable from the original threat while also being threatened by the vast and Orwellian secret police."
and,
Celine's Second Law
Accurate communication is possible only in a non-punishing situation.
"Wilson rephrases this himself many times as "communication occurs only between equals." Celine calls this law "a simple statement of the obvious" and refers to the fact that everyone who labors under an authority figure tends to lie to and flatter that authority figure in order to protect themselves either from violence or from deprivation of security (such as losing one's job). In essence, it is usually more in the interests of any worker to tell his boss what he wants to hear, not what is true.
In any hierarchy, every level below the highest carries a subtle burden to see the world in the way their superiors expect it to be seen and to provide feedback to their superiors that their superiors want to hear. In the end, any hierarchical organization supports what its leaders already think is true more than it challenges them to think differently. The levels below the leaders are more interested in keeping their jobs than telling the truth.
Wilson, in Prometheus Rising, uses the example of J. Edgar Hoover's FBI. Hoover saw communist infiltrators and spies everywhere, and he told his agents to hunt them down. Therefore, FBI agents began seeing and interpreting everything they could as parts of the communist conspiracy. Some even went as far as framing people as communists, making largely baseless arrests and doing everything they could to satisfy Hoover's need to find and drive out the communist conspiracy. The problem is, such a conspiracy never existed in any form. Hoover thought it did, but any agent who dared point out the lack of evidence to Hoover would be at best denied promotions, and at worst labeled a communist himself and lose his job. Any agent who knew the truth would be very careful to hide the fact.
In the end, Celine states, any hierarchy acts more to conceal the truth from its leaders than it serves to find the truth."
Thank you for your indulgence, and your service, Delegates.
I will allow that a discussion of the current "Planet Sydney" rumors and fears is prominent in the minds of sombunall Delegates. I believe our previous Agenda items have been nearly covered, so I hereby open the floor to "New Business".
The Sidney situation is serious we should make a statement, a clear one. by force if it must be. Bretonian imperialism must be stoped and stoped now-
If we don't take a stand we will be disgraced.
Comm ID: [TAZ]Doc Holliday
The Canaria/Sydney issue is being worked. Words must be chosen carefully in diplomacy. We all have much to lose if we don't.
-Doc
From: Pope David Fenderson
Source: Planet Gran Canaria, Omega-49
Re: Bretonian Encroachment
Now, while it would please me to show any non-Zoners on Gran Canaria the way to the nearest Jump Hole, I do recognize that doing so would violate the very thing that makes us Zoners in the first place.
While we should do our utmost to prevent others from taking our hard-won home world, I would not see us deny refuge to those who need it. Any diplomacy we do with the Bretonians should be done from a position of strength. This is our home, and any agreement should reflect that fact. We dictate the future of Gran Canaria, not some imperialist outsider.
Regardless of what stance the council chooses to take, I urge that you do not forget who we are.
Hail Eris! -><- καλλιστι -><- All Hail Discordia!
Secretary Reynolds, sir,
I'm curious as to just what regulations the Regional Council might have in place in the way of Immigration Ordinances. You know, Passports, Visas, Citizenship applications, that sort of thing.
If there are none in place, then perhaps there should be...
a) some restrictions in place, or
b) some way to make a buck out of the mess.
I have had a marvelous Idea. If these folk truly want to "invest" in our future on Canaria, then the least they can do is let us "invest" in the future of Bretonia.
I say we bargain to move an equal number of our "less-fortunate" to New London, which we shall call... "Tenerife"!
..or Gran Tortuga!