Labor Party Standing Committee thread: Endorsement voting

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

The Labor Party of Atlasia's first Convention shall take place in Chicago, Illinois from Wednesday, February 1 to Tuesday, February 7 at the McCormick Place Convention Center. The themes will be 'Standing up for working people' and 'A serious Left for Atlasia'. The schedule is as follows:

Wednesday, February 1
2pm-8pm: Registration
9pm: Dinner party and symposium at Renaissance Chicago Hotel

Thursday, February 2
10am-12pm: Registration
2pm: Visit and speeches at University of Chicago Irving B. Harris School of Public Policy Studies
6pm: Opening Address
7-11pm: Plenary session: Platform planks

Friday, February 3

2pm: Speeches
3pm-6pm: Plenary session: Platform planks
9pm: Dinner party and symposium at the Art Institute of Chicago

Saturday, February 4

11am-3pm: Plenary session: Platform debate and vote
4pm-6pm: Plenary session: Discussion of endorsements
8pm: Mainstage 100th Revue at Second City comedy club or the music of Arthur Honegger, Mason Bates, and César Franck at the Chicago Symphony Orchestra

Sunday, February 5

12am: Deadline for endorsement recommendations
Free day for Chicago sightseeing and personal business

Monday, February 6

2pm: Luncheon at the Field Museum of Natural History
7pm-11pm: Plenary session: Decisions on endorsements

Tuesday, February 7

12-4pm: Plenary session: General business
6pm: Closing banquet at Renaissance Chicago

Hope to see you all there! Thanks to Simfan34 and our (or, at least, my) frenemies on the Right for the basic outline for the convention schedule.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

How do we feel about selecting a Special Convention Chair to move the convention along in such times in this schedule as I'm asleep or in class or club activities IRL? I'd float Xahar for both this position and the job of helping draw up some of the framework for a platform, but I'm not sure if he's actually officially a party member yet or not.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Bump, can we make sure this^ is squared away?

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Wonderful. I plan to have a few basic theoretical propositions ready by the opening of the convention which we can use to start debate and start building our platform.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Registration is now open for the First National Convention of the Labor Party of Atlasia.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

DINNER PARTY AND SYMPOSIUM, Renaissance Chicago.

Talk amongst yourselves!

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

*slices Stilton cheese, puts slices on Italian bread* What sort of speech would you like to make, Barnes? I had been thinking that I would give the opening speech myself, but depending on how the plenary sessions go, I should think we should be able to find some time to fit you in.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

That sounds like it would be good.

*Plays with samosa with fork*

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

*eats some of the samosa*

We're going to. My idea was to create a theoretical framework and have planks added from the floor. The theoretical framework is that government is a function arising out of society in order to mediate between different groups within the society and is given the power to ensure, ideally, that no part of society is in a position of absolute dominance over the others. Of course, it doesn't always work that way. Redistribution is an attempt to correct for human error within this system. The human error's name is susceptibility to tribalism and greed.

I'm sure we should have more than this, but I only wanted to start us off with a basic definition of the mission of socialism and the Labor cause that I thought we might be able to, if not all agree on, at least constructively debate. I want the building of our platform to be a discursive process.

*sips port*

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

And you call yourselves representatives of the people!

*shamefastly dumps out port and reaches for the whiskey*

He actually is right, you know. The good people of Youngstown, Ohio or Athol, Massachusetts don't have the same opportunities that we do. That's why we're here so we need to remain mindful of that even when the human temptation to indulge in the inherent luxury of a political convention waxes within us.

I'm not going to waste a delicious samosa, though.

How is your convention going, may I ask, Simfan?

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Simfan, I'm eating a delicious spicy potato samosa. I actually don't respond well to red meat, though I love fish and am going to see about having some nice trout later in the night.

Barnes, I entirely agree with your assessment. How about this for the beginning of our platform:

Government is a function arising out of society in order to mediate between different groups within the society and is given the power to ensure, ideally, that no part of society is in a position of absolute dominance over the others. Of course, it doesn't always work that way. Redistribution is an attempt to correct for human error within this system. The human error's name is susceptibility to tribalism and greed.

However, within the system of a government set up to ensure a certain measure of equality in the treatment of the people through the codification of customs into theoretically blind laws, there must be a preferential option for those who do not have recourse to other means of social and cultural involvement: The elderly, the children, the disabled, and, especially, the poor. It is for this reason that a truly socialist and Labor party pursues ideas of, to a certain extent, redistribution even when it is not required to address some particularly glaring flaw. The effect of this is to among other things bring to the forefront a cultural discussion and dialectic that forms the culture and the society into an exuberant dance around ideals of freedom and justice, equality and privilege, rich poverty and wasted wealth.

Hatman, of course we are somewhat hypocritical but at the same time self-aware and hence in a way fundamentally honest and good-hearted Fabians! That's part of the fun!

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Simfan, I'm eating a delicious spicy potato samosa. I actually don't respond well to red meat, though I love fish and am going to see about having some nice trout later in the night.

Barnes, I entirely agree with your assessment. How about this for the beginning of our platform:

Government is a function arising out of society in order to mediate between different groups within the society and is given the power to ensure, ideally, that no part of society is in a position of absolute dominance over the others. Of course, it doesn't always work that way. Redistribution is an attempt to correct for human error within this system. The human error's name is susceptibility to tribalism and greed.

However, within the system of a government set up to ensure a certain measure of equality in the treatment of the people through the codification of customs into theoretically blind laws, there must be a preferential option for those who do not have recourse to other means of social and cultural involvement: The elderly, the children, the disabled, and, especially, the poor. It is for this reason that a truly socialist and Labor party pursues ideas of, to a certain extent, redistribution even when it is not required to address some particularly glaring flaw. The effect of this is to among other things bring to the forefront a cultural discussion and dialectic that forms the culture and the society into an exuberant dance around ideals of freedom and justice, equality and privilege, rich poverty and wasted wealth.

Hatman, of course we are somewhat hypocritical but at the same time self-aware and hence in a way fundamentally honest and good-hearted Fabians! That's part of the fun!

I quite agree!  Let's get our "mission statement" and then put in the real meat on the floor.

I think three or four paragraphs is a nice length for a preamble/mission statement. Would you do me the honor of drafting the third (which I reserve the right, as Party Chairman, to edit for style without changing the substance of it), and I might see if Xahar, who expressed interest in this stage of the process, could do a nice conclusion?

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Made the pronouns agree in the second sentence, and added a phrase that probably sounds better in Japanese to make it a bit more gender-neutral. Other than that, really excellent stuff, I really like how this is coming along.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Okay, that's it, have the hotel staff take away the Goddamn caviar. If this kind of disconnect is going to be a problem for anybody other than the Washburn ultra-revisionists then the next dinner party and symposium can be at Red Lobster for all I care as long as the security is decent. Not Arby's, though. We have standards.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Arby's is the bourgeoisie's idea of prolefeed, imposed by the owning classes.

Anyway, back to platforming. Xahar, do you have any specific ideas for how to address societal cleavage in the text, beyond what's in it so far?

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Speech time!

We're at the UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO.

I won't be making a speech until my opening address to the convention this evening. Go wild, anyone else who wants to!

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Depending on how the next couple of days of the convention go, and assuming one of us is willing to run, yes.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

(pretend I made a speech, sorry, real-life stuff)

Okay, everybody, plenary session time! We're talking about platform planks and possible candidates/endorsements. Would Barnes do the honor of reading out the framework for the platform as we hashed it out at dinner last night?

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

I think the Washburnist platform, despite my earlier grandstanding rhetoric, is eminently acceptable to most of us (although my personal sympathies are more anti-abortion, or less pro-abortion, than most of the party; there are few places in the world where I could be considered 'Labor Right' in any sense but Atlasia is arguably one of them). Since none of us seem particularly interested in Presidential runs, you have my support for a presidential endorsement. I'd like to ask for some movement toward parochial schooling as an exemption from the abolition of private education, but that's not terribly critical; what's more critical is that I feel any leftist platform on education MUST include genuine commitment to the idea that public schools, if they are to be the only game in town, must provide physically or mentally disabled students with, if they or their parents request it, in-school, free support along the social rather than or in addition to the biomedical model of disability. I say this as a former disabled public school student who had to move into a private school due to lack of such support. Vermont is a wonderful state for many, many things but, at least at the time, its elementary education for otherwise-than-normal students was not one of them.

I would like the changes to the Washburnist plank on education that I have just mentioned to, if nothing else, be included in the Labor Party's official platform. We may debate the extent of the religious exemption. In fact, I encourage debating that. But the mandate for comprehensive social disability services in public schooling if tailored private schooling is to be curtailed is non-negotiable for me.

ZuWo, thank you for putting your platform forth. While I can say with some measure of surety that you're right that we're probably not your ideal audience, I at least certainly appreciate your openness about your candidacy and your platform.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

I think the Nye Bevan quote in your signature should be in our platform somewhere, Barnes.

How about this for our education policy:

The Labor Party believes in extensive investment in genuinely public education at all levels including our beleaguered state universities. The public school, improved and reinvigorated, should remain the general and universal educational default in Atlasia, with exceptions only for religious conviction, disabilities requiring a non-standard educational environment, or private education undertaken as supplementary to the public curriculum. We believe that the public schools must in addition be genuinely committed to providing disabled students with free support along the social rather than or in addition to the biomedical model of disability, in the interests of furthering their development as young members of the whole society. The schools must likewise give up their sole and fixated emphasis on perceived economic value of the material taught and recommit themselves to a whole and humane mission of teaching and guiding.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

Oh, I completely understand and agree with the reasoning behind wanting to destroy the system of stratification in primary education. Beyond my concerns about disabled students and students whose parents might throw enormous fits rather than send them to secular schools (and a questionable education is preferable to being dragged out to the woods to be raised by Mason Tarwater. For most children), I have no problems with the Washburnist position at all.

Oh, I forgot to mention that post secondary education would become free under a Washburn administration

This I like.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

I'd like to formally ask the convention for an up-or-down vote on endorsing the Washburnist ticket for the Presidency.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

I'd like to formally ask the convention for an up-or-down vote on endorsing the Washburnist ticket for the Presidency.

Should this need any kind of second, I give it.

It doesn't, since I'm the Chairman and I'm making party rules mainly by setting precedent. Thank you very much, though.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

I would ask the Chairman to word the vote something like this:

You must be logged in to read this quote.

All members should be allowed to vote on both questions.  I'm not trying to upstage anything, but it's just what I believe.

Agreed. (Sorry I haven't been here the past twenty-four hours; social dilemmas called.)

Most of the Washburnist manifesto, with the exception of the education concerns already noted, is very acceptable to me, at least.

I think we should begin voting on this, then, since we have heard from all of the candidates (thank you, everybody, by the way!)

Ballot

Should the Labor Party field its own ticket for this Presidential election?
[ ] Yes
[ ] No

If the party does not field a ticket, which other candidate should it endorse?
[ ] 20RP12
[ ] EarlAW
[ ] Polnut
[ ] ZuWo
[ ] No endorsement

Second vote is by IRV.

[Okay, maybe Mike Johnson is a competent parliamentarian.]

By the way, this will be a twelve-hour vote.