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Honor awakened a sleeping GIANT

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Re: Honor awakened a sleeping GIANT
Post by tlb   » Thu Jun 30, 2022 10:02 am

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ThinksMarkedly wrote:But there's a difference between something being legally right, morally right, or a good idea. You have the legal right to donate all your money and savings to charity (minus legal obligations you may have incurred, like debts and alimony); some might say this is even morally right and laudable. That wouldn't necessarily make it a good idea.

cthia wrote:Agreed. But, Manticore forcing the SL to change its Constitution is done out of no "moral right" (intended loosely) and it leads to it not being a good idea if its (c)onstitution lags behind. In fact, because of the foibles of man, if the two are exclusive, it is far worse.

The weaknesses in the previous constitution resulted in the immoral situation of OFS, Frontier Fleet and the trans-stellar corporations pillaging the worlds in the Verge. That situation culminated in the SLN violating its own prohibition against Eridani type attacks in an unjustified war against the Grand Alliance. I would say that there is a moral right to force a change so that actions by the government of the Solarian League have to be monitored and approved by its members.
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Re: Honor awakened a sleeping GIANT
Post by Joat42   » Thu Jun 30, 2022 10:09 am

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cthia wrote:Yes, I am applying a US centric view. This is Old Terra, and I may be incorrect in this assumption but I assume that the core of the US Constitution of today and its ideals were retained.

Constitutions are rewritten, yes. They change over time, yes, in the form of amendments, etc. But these changes are made at the behest of its own government. Not at gunpoint.

The constitution as a legal document isn't what's important, it's the ideas it represents that are important. If people shit all over the constitution they also shit all over the ideas it represents.

If a government and it's populace only pay lip service to a constitution and that leads to a war where they are forced to surrender at gunpoint, they have then no moral arguments to voice at all if the victor dictates in their surrender terms that they need a new constitution, regardless of their size because that doesn't matter in the slightest at that point.

The reality is that it's always the victor who dictates the term, and in certain conditions it's their moral duty to make sure it doesn't happen again and that can include forcing the aggressor to rewrite their laws. That the aggressor in this case happens to be the SL doesn't matter one bit, that "Old Earth" got bitch-slapped doesn't matter one bit either - because it was proven that its leadership was morally bankrupt. Whatever the SL and Old Earth once was doesn't matter either, because arguing otherwise is like saying that a narcissistic bully isn't that bad because he/she were such a good child.

Anyone wanting to enshrine a constitution to sacred levels and that no outsider should be allowed to meddle with it disregards everything that lead to that situation, because every action have a context and we all know the context here.

---
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Re: Honor awakened a sleeping GIANT
Post by cthia   » Thu Jun 30, 2022 12:18 pm

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Joat42 wrote:
cthia wrote:Yes, I am applying a US centric view. This is Old Terra, and I may be incorrect in this assumption but I assume that the core of the US Constitution of today and its ideals were retained.

Constitutions are rewritten, yes. They change over time, yes, in the form of amendments, etc. But these changes are made at the behest of its own government. Not at gunpoint.

The constitution as a legal document isn't what's important, it's the ideas it represents that are important. If people shit all over the constitution they also shit all over the ideas it represents.

If a government and it's populace only pay lip service to a constitution and that leads to a war where they are forced to surrender at gunpoint, they have then no moral arguments to voice at all if the victor dictates in their surrender terms that they need a new constitution, regardless of their size because that doesn't matter in the slightest at that point.

The reality is that it's always the victor who dictates the term, and in certain conditions it's their moral duty to make sure it doesn't happen again and that can include forcing the aggressor to rewrite their laws. That the aggressor in this case happens to be the SL doesn't matter one bit, that "Old Earth" got bitch-slapped doesn't matter one bit either - because it was proven that its leadership was morally bankrupt. Whatever the SL and Old Earth once was doesn't matter either, because arguing otherwise is like saying that a narcissistic bully isn't that bad because he/she were such a good child.

Anyone wanting to enshrine a constitution to sacred levels and that no outsider should be allowed to meddle with it disregards everything that lead to that situation, because every action have a context and we all know the context here.

The ideas that the Constitution represents are supposed to reflect their [c]onstitution. That is my point.

At any rate, the MBS is now supposed to be the hub of the rule of galactic law? And the huge SL is simply supposed to accept that? I can't accept that no more than they will.

Son, your mother says I have to hang you. Personally I don't think this is a capital offense. But if I don't hang you, she's gonna hang me and frankly, I'm not the one in trouble. —cthia's father. Incident in ? Axiom of Common Sense
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Re: Honor awakened a sleeping GIANT
Post by tlb   » Thu Jun 30, 2022 12:31 pm

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cthia wrote:The ideas that the Constitution represents are supposed to reflect their [c]onstitution. That is my point.

At any rate, the MBS is now supposed to be the hub of the rule of galactic law? And the huge SL is simply supposed to accept that? I can't accept that no more than they will.

The faults in the previous constitution resulted in pillage and war crimes, did that represent the core beliefs of the citizens of the Solarian League?

The actions of the Solarian League cost/lost them the moral high ground. The Solarians do not have to accept that as a permanent result; they merely have to earn that position back.
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Re: Honor awakened a sleeping GIANT
Post by ThinksMarkedly   » Thu Jun 30, 2022 12:51 pm

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cthia wrote:Yes, I am applying a US centric view. This is Old Terra, and I may be incorrect in this assumption but I assume that the core of the US Constitution of today and its ideals were retained.


Like the cabinet position of Prime Minister?

Snark aside, I agree and expect that the ideals of the Age of Enlightenment, which are present in the US Constitution, but also in the Bill of Rights 1689 in the UK and the Commonwealth, most of the French constitutions (particularly the republican ones), and in other countries. I also expect such a constitution to have started more modern, such as giving women the right to vote from the first day, not through an amendment.

Unfortunately, that also means that we can't predict what will be the moral norms in 1200 years. So it may actually be very different from what we expect of it.

That said, as the Honorverse is a work of fiction intended for current audiences, we can and do project our current morality onto the characters. Moreover, since RFC is American and most of his audience is too, we can expect that this is the cornerstone of the ideals too. So yes, the ideals of the US Constitution should be evident... including where they're conspicuously absent. Here's a thought: the fact that the SL was corrupt and morally bankrupt, and its Constitution had to be rewritten and replaced, could be in fact a tell that it was not following the ideals of the US Constitution in the first place.

Agreed. But, Manticore forcing the SL to change its Constitution is done out of no "moral right" (intended loosely) and it leads to it not being a good idea if its (c)onstitution lags behind. In fact, because of the foibles of man, if the two are exclusive, it is far worse.


Something does not need to be morally right to be a good idea. Committing a crime is legally wrong, probably morally wrong (if the law isn't immoral in the first place), but can still be a good idea if one isn't going to get caught or convicted. There's also the fact that "good idea" is in the eyes of the beholder, so very subjective.

That said, I disagree, and I think Manticore did have the moral right. See Joat42 and tlb's replies above.

Methinks that is why God, in his infinite wisdom, gives kids a much smaller body with much smaller muscles until their brain catches up to their (c)onstitution. Thus, giving parents a chance - obligation and moral responsibility - to mold that (c)onstitution. The parents failed to raise this big kid properly, and the big gorilla grew up to become a bully.


Indeed, so a bully needs to be called on their actions and probably punished, so their behaviour will change in the future. The parents of a bully child would set some parameters, for example grounding or curfew. So I fail to see how your analogy would apply to the SL.

But! When they helped found the SL, Beowulf and all members officially accepted the SL's Constitution, along with the responsibility of, and for, its (c)onstitution. It is a package deal. That is not to say that member systems officially agreed with any changes Sol made to its Constitution as you have pointed out. But remaining a member when shit is rolling downhill is literally accepting, perhaps even welcoming, the stink of the fallout.


I agree. As a member, each of those Governments and their populations should have striven to hold the SL Constitution up to its ideals (and I won't get into the discussion of originalism or not; "ideals" suffices here). So they failed by allowing the League to become corrupt and fall short of the ideals.

And in having failed, should they not accept the consequences? And corrective measures?

If that is true then they were/are idiots. The SL Constitution can affect them much more than their own. And it can become very fatal to their health. Foregone conclusion.


We don't know that.

If the best analogy to the SL Constitution is not the US Constitution, but the Treaties of Rome and Maastricht, then the national Constitution affects the citizen far more than the supra-national one. The EU Commission has very limited powers, even less than the US Constitution originally granted the Federal government, even before the government itself started growing and granting itself more powers. And IIRC, many of its regulations must be individually voted into law in the member states to take force. There's an extremely large power of veto in the EU member states too, seeing as they did not accept the EU Constitution in the first place after one country rejected it; in the US it is very difficult to pass a constitutional amendment, but no single state has veto power.

However, that does not absolve them of keeping the bureaucrats in check, and the elected officials up to the ideals.

I agree if we limit that sentiment to rewriting it on their own terms, to suit their own agenda and needs. But not forced at gunpoint by their most hated and neobarbaric enemy!


Oh, I actually agree with that. That's just human nature: one may want to do something, but if they're told to do it by someone else, they may go on the defensive and protest doing it in the first place! So yes, rationally the citizens of the League may have agreed that replacing that Constitution was a good idea, but the moment that it came at the end of the graser mounts, they turn and start defending it.

But we go back as to what may be a good idea for Manticore and the GA. Is it better to force the rewrite right now, for a longer-term gain in spite of a short term reaction in public opinion, or is better to not do it? My phrasing here shows my bias, of course: I happen to think that it's best to take the hit right now, particularly when the SL can't do anything about it anyway.

I also think it was morally right to force the SL to fix its flaws.

And I am certainly not sure the SL's Constitution isn't personal to the old money and native inhabitants about Old Chicago, where galactic law was made and enforced for centuries.


That sounds a lot like "politicians and lobbyists." I'll readily agree that those stand to lose the most and therefore would be the most vocal opponents of any rewrite. They probably also have the means to influence public opinion in and around Old Chicago, probably throughout the Sol System ("Intra-Kuiper opinion" was the term, I think).

But the population outside of Sol is much larger. We never got official numbers for Sol, but I don't think it was above 50 billion, definitely not 100 billion (meaning we're still VERY far from Kardashev 2 scale). Compare that to the pre-war population of the League of at least 2 trillion. There was a point somewhere in the text that tells us that there are a couple dozen systems with populations above 20 billion. So even in a post-war SL 2.0, the population of the Sol System is unlikely to be near 10% of the full league. Even with its outsized influence in the government, they can't unilaterally do things without the agreement and consent from other members.

Particularly, that was one of the reasons for replacing the Constitution in the first place.
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Re: Honor awakened a sleeping GIANT
Post by Joat42   » Thu Jun 30, 2022 1:03 pm

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cthia wrote:At any rate, the MBS is now supposed to be the hub of the rule of galactic law? And the huge SL is simply supposed to accept that? I can't accept that no more than they will.

For now yes, because the SL fucked up big and it can't be trusted. If you do stupid shit you win stupid prizes, like being slapped around and told to behave or else. They better accept it, because the alternative is that they want to be the neighborhood monster again who robs, kills, rapes and blackmails its neighbors which will lead to them being smacked around once again if need be.

And your question doesn't take into account who was supposed to be the "hub of the rule of galactic law" before the SL very publicly just shat on that concept which means someone else had to step up to fill that position.

---
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Re: Honor awakened a sleeping GIANT
Post by ThinksMarkedly   » Thu Jun 30, 2022 2:20 pm

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Joat42 wrote:And your question doesn't take into account who was supposed to be the "hub of the rule of galactic law" before the SL very publicly just shat on that concept which means someone else had to step up to fill that position.


That doesn't mean the SL's and particularly Old Chicago's perception of reality was true. They may have thought themselves being that hub of law and righteousness, and thus resent the illusion being taken away from them.
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Re: Honor awakened a sleeping GIANT
Post by Joat42   » Thu Jun 30, 2022 5:14 pm

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ThinksMarkedly wrote:
Joat42 wrote:And your question doesn't take into account who was supposed to be the "hub of the rule of galactic law" before the SL very publicly just shat on that concept which means someone else had to step up to fill that position.


That doesn't mean the SL's and particularly Old Chicago's perception of reality was true. They may have thought themselves being that hub of law and righteousness, and thus resent the illusion being taken away from them.

Considering how the books presented the Mandarins and their discussions it's clear as crystal that they didn't really give a shit about the law unless their decisions may have ruffled the feathers of some the SL members or the public. They may have felt righteous, but even a morally corrupt person may feel that when someone isn't paying them the respect they think they are entitled.

---
Jack of all trades and destructive tinkerer.


Anyone who have simple solutions for complex problems is a fool.
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Re: Honor awakened a sleeping GIANT
Post by ThinksMarkedly   » Thu Jun 30, 2022 8:37 pm

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Joat42 wrote:Considering how the books presented the Mandarins and their discussions it's clear as crystal that they didn't really give a shit about the law unless their decisions may have ruffled the feathers of some the SL members or the public. They may have felt righteous, but even a morally corrupt person may feel that when someone isn't paying them the respect they think they are entitled.


At the very top, that's true. And likely several layers below the top.

But what did the middle-class of Old Chicago think?
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Re: Honor awakened a sleeping GIANT
Post by kzt   » Thu Jun 30, 2022 9:16 pm

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ThinksMarkedly wrote:But what did the middle-class of Old Chicago think?

Considering there is a huge criminal underground (literally) that everyone ignores except when they want to use it?

Nobody cares.
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