[Discuss] A few Issues

[John P. Murphy]

On Apr 17, 2008, at 1:14 PM, Tom Vogt wrote:
>
> Am 16.04.2008 um 17:33 schrieb John P. Murphy:
>> They absolutely should have the right to change government, I agree
>> -- what's the point of forming a colony if you can't rule it as  
>> you   
>> see fit?
>
>
> Powergaming argument.

No it isn't.

> You see the government system as just another tool in the toolbox to
> gain the most profit. It isn't. Anyone who flouted that attitude in
> any government system in any realm of the real world would be accused
> of high treason.

I most certainly do not, and I'll thank you not to put words in my  
mouth.  The history of colonies in the real world has ALWAYS been one  
of setting up different styles of government.   The British routinely  
set up governments different than their own.  They may have been  
ruled by the Crown, but the style of governments ranged from straight- 
up democracies with a governor to out-and-out dictatorships.  Groups  
like the East India company said exactly what I said: Why should they  
go to the trouble of forming a colony if they couldn't rule it as  
they saw fit.  The British saw them as a vital national asset, not  
traitors.  Ever read Heart of Darkness, or heard of banana  
republics?  Those are the kinds of colonies that democracies love to  
set up.

Look at it this way: If I'm a King and I'm sending my subjects out to  
form a new realm, I likely have perfectly good reasons to not want  
them to set up a monarchy:
1) If none of them are of royal blood, to declare one of them a  
"King" is similar to declaring a commoner to be a King -- it would  
dilute the value of royalty.
2) If one of them *were* of royal blood, I wouldn't want to just hand  
him a crown and risk setting him up as a threat to my own power.  Let  
him be a "Prime Minister" or something.
If I'm starting a colony, I want to make damn sure I can keep it  
under my thumb, politically and militarily.  If there were someone I  
could put in charge who I really trusted, I'd want to set it up as a  
Tyranny so that person had complete power.  If they're all sketchy,  
I'd want them to be a democracy -- so busy arguing with each other  
that they can't possibly pose a threat to me.

Theocracies are another thing entirely: if the ruler of the founding  
realm believes very strongly in a religion, and also believes very  
strongly in maintaining his own power, then carving out land for the  
church (far away from my own territory so they can't steal my land)  
and setting up a theocracy on it seems like a pretty good solution.

> Government systems are environmental conditions, not levers to be
> pulled or curtains to be changed depending on season or mood. They are
> very intentionally hard to change.

If you start off assuming that everyone who ever wants to change  
government types is automatically a powergamer, then I suppose that  
might actually make sense.   I'm not talking about changing  
governments willy-nilly, I'm talking about changing it ONCE, on  
forming a new realm.

John