Saturday, April 19, 2008

Notes on vocabulary

Thesaurus.com has been acting weird.  I'm a word-box devotee, and until a couple of days ago, Thesaurus.com was great - it gave me lots of words, let me cross link to their dictionary definitions....  Now, it's as if all of the words have disappeared.  Happy used to bring up 30 pages of definitions; now it brings up 7 entries (so down from 300 to 7).  That's not good.  So... I'm off to Merriam-Webster.


Friday, April 18, 2008

The irony of peace

Peace is terribly ironic.  I consider myself to be heavily pro-peace, but there are wars I'll agree to either support financially or physically -- and recent ones are not among them.  (Caveat: I supported the initial engagement in Afghanistan because I believe the Taliban are a much worse threat to the world at large than any other fundamentalist group.  However, that mandate shifted and the program was not implemented.)

I am not anti-war.  I believe there are things worth fighting for -- progress, equality, self-preservation, self-determination.  I don't believe in fighting over natural resources, scraps of land, religion or to make rich men richer.  I'll fight for ethics and intangibles, excepting religion (which has its own exception -- I'll fight a religious war to a) defend myself and not be forced to convert or choose death; b) to prevent others from facing the same; and c) if a religious war ever comes up that isn't an excuse for a landgrab.)

I also believe in a better way to wage war.  I'm still not sure what that is, but I know that throwing literal money at problems (not the figurative money we throw in the forms of bullets and bombs) can make them go away.  I know there is something to be said for non-violent intimidation (i.e. parking your biggest, baddest boats in a harbor, standing on the deck looking fierce, and saying 'Don't make me use this.'  And being willing to use this if necessary).  There's something to be said for economic boycott -- After all, when the biggest customer in the world looks at your product and your means of production, sneers and walks away because they won't buy what you've produced unethically, you start changing.  

I am a huge fan of economics, especially the economics of motivation.  I'd like to see a world where incentives and disincentives made war go away.  

Is Rebellion pro-war or anti-war?  Neither.  It's pro-peace, by my definition.  

Wednesday, April 16, 2008

On creating a proto-constitutional monarchy

I have an affection for the idea of monarchy.  I don't think it's been implemented well historically, and only recently is the concept coming to match what I believe it should be (specifically in Norway, Sweden, Denmark, the Netherlands and hopefully, Bhutan).  But I like the idea.  

I am a democrat and a Democrat, but that's not inconsistent with being a constitutional monarchist.  I believe the role of monarchy is not ceremonial and those nations that reduce their monarch to a hand-waving piece of tabloid fodder are wasting an incredible resource.  

Monarchy is about long-range planning and continuity of government.  Prime ministers, presidents, and other elected officials are about operations -- it's the difference between a CEO  and a COO.  The monarch is the vision, the PM/Pres is the action.  

I've always lived under the American system, and I think that lets me see its flaws.  As a nation, we're focused on a four year cycle, so focused in fact that Presidential election campaigns are now running for almost two years and cost hundreds of millions of dollars, if not billions.  And for what?  A maximum of eight years, with another lump of money to be spent in the middle.   And guess what we get for that?  An operations manager because that's how the job is set up.  It's very hard for any President to implement a century long vision.  Look at EPA -- it's 30 some years old, and it has never been allowed to live to its mandate and each President has tinkered with (and sometimes damaged) it.  

The advantage of monarchy is that long-term, long-range, big picture perspective.  Of course, it requires some serious thought -- the potential heirs to the throne require extraordinary intelligence, emotional stability; extensive, quality education; security and freedom to fail.  No wonder royal families have to be rich -- providing that kind of background takes money or the pure luck of a Bill Clinton (and he kinda slipped on the emotional stability thing, but then again, who doesn't? He wasn't Henry VIII by any means!)

None of the above Monarchies are absolute; all are constitutional (except Bhutan, which is working on it) and all have a Privy Council or cabinet to advise and distribute the long range planning.  The monarch and council are an intrinsic check on the power balances.  Imagine what would have happened after 9/11 if we Americans had possessed body separate from the election process who had served for half a century and seen a little bit of everything in that time.  (The Supreme Court could do this, but it's so rigged and so handicapped by not being able to prevent bad law from going into effect they're kinda useless now.)  Imagine having that body in the weeks afterwards saying, "yes, we're scared.  Yes, we're angry.  But no, we're not going to lash out.  We have to do this right because our long-term survival, not just the election cycle, depends on it."  Lacking that voice of reason has cost us close to a trillion bucks and almost 4,000 lives, our faith in government, untold legs, brains and arms, 150,000 Iraqi lives, and most of the world's good will. 

The key power a constitutional monarch has (and this is especially true in England) is a set of brakes.  If the British Parliament decided to do something utterly insane (like, after the Underground bombing, they had decided to expel anyone of middle eastern descent who wasn't yet a citizen -- and it could have happened) Lilibet had an ace up her sleeve.  Just one, and it will probably cost her the crown and end British monarchy when she uses it, but she can use it if Parliament is trying to do something destructively stupid.  She can disband Parliament and call for a new one.  It'll be her last act as Queen, most likely, or damn near, but she can, and doing so might save her country. 

Of course to use that power or even just possess it, requires great brilliance, education, patience, wisdom, courage, insight, dedication and world knowledge.  It requires giving up your private life from the day of your birth until you die.  The monarch never has the basic freedom to duck out to the bar for a martini or take a walk in the park on a Sunday afternoon.  The power the Monarchy possesses also enslaves.  But it's a service I would be happy to pay for in the US.  I can't.  There is no mechanism in the Constitution to provide that sort of check.  And that's too bad. 

So that's why I feel a lot of affection for the concept of monarchy.  It's not perfect and it has detriments (though the above countries have done a good job cleaning up their gene pool) but when a nation balances the strengths of monarchy and democracy together, and those opposite strengths balance out the opposite weaknesses... is it surprising that some of the best places on earth are in constitutional monarchies where the monarch takes an interest?

But no country gets such a government by wishing for it.  It almost always takes experience, hard lessons, and usually some blood.  The Scandinavians managed to learn from the neighbors and Bhutan is doing pretty well so far, too.  The Netherlands is soaked in historical blood, as is England.  

So when I started building Galantier, I consciously built it to move from the fragment of a proto-republic to althang republic to feudal monarchy to Rebellion, which is the transition point from feudalism to proto-constitutional monarchy.  And that transition is gonna hurt. 


Tuesday, April 15, 2008

The Background

Six years ago, I was thinking about the fall of the Roman Empire.  (Yes, I do this.)  Rome didn't fall so much as contract and stop interfering in the world, but it still served as a center of communication, cultural movement and authority.  

I got to thinking, "what if Rome completely ceased to be?"  It was possible -- a massive eruption at Vesuvius could have wiped half of Italy off the map.  That it hasn't happened yet is geologic luck -- right now, it isn't a huge threat, but it once was.  Had some of the eruptions before 79 CE happened later (they were nastier), Rome... well, maybe not. 

Rome had lots of little outposts all over Europe and Western Asia, most numbering a few hundred Romans and a couple thousand locals under Roman guidance.  So I got to thinking, what would have happened to those little outposts?  Could they have survived and kept the culture alive, if evolving?

And so, the seed of Galantier was born.