Shireroth

Today, Somnisday 12 Ikolstyme, will be celebrated as Flag Day in the Imperial Republic of Shireroth.

I've made no secret that the flag is not my favorite thing in the world. But the new version is better, and better still is what it stands for. The past few months of flag changes have been a traumatic experience for the country, but it's an experience we've learned from and one which ended up showing what was best about Shireroth.

Despite all the fear and anger, somehow most people came out of this happy. The supporters of the old flag have their flag back. The supporters of the new flag have mostly been placated with concessions and compromises. Everyone who ragequit or threatened to do so found the courage to come back and fight for their convictions. And the flag itself is at least a little bit nicer than when the whole affair started (thanks, Shyriath).

Best of all, both the pro- and anti- flag movements were conducted by grassroots campaigns using the Landsraad and the court of popular opinion. It was this participatory politics that legitimized the result and let the issue be settled without the nation exploding. Those of you who have been following my government reform proposals know I'm trying to expand the opportunities for such politics, but I'd say we've done pretty well for ourselves without the full legal framework. Special praise goes to Kaiser Leto III, who after trying to decree his favorite flag had a change of heart and decided to respect the normal procedures, and to Kaiser Mors VI, who despite his strong feelings on the matter refused to rule by decree. Their ability to resist the temptations of power allowed the Shirerithian people to settle the matter on their own, and turned the whole issue into an impressive victory for benevolent absolutism.

This issue has been one of the greatest tests our political system has faced, and we have come out the other side with every reason to be confident, and at least a few reasons to be proud of ourselves. So I proclaim the following:

1. That today will be celebrated as Flag Day.

2. That the Golden Mango Throne recognizes the flag passed by the Landsraad as the true flag of Shireroth.

3. That the other flag, the red-black-and-blue flag, takes the old flag's place as Imperial Standard.

4. That in order to prevent an endless cycle, there will be no further flag change proposals for the space of at least one year, under threat of Kaiserial auto-veto.

Not to be a giant pain, but Imperial Proclamations does not hold the force of law. If you want to change the LawBook, you have to issue an order for that since this is not binding in any way. You could change the wording in 3. or just issue a decree making the red-black-blue the imperial standard, as an amendment to the DecreeBook, which is the place where it should be anyway. 1. is now interpreted as a recommendation to the nation, not as law. 2 and 4 have no legal consequences, so I won't bother with those.

-END OF LEGAL RANT-

All in all, I like it. Good that we are using the red-black-blue since Aryeztur was thinking of stealing it for some bullshit in Antica.

Special praise goes to Kaiser Leto III, who after trying to decree his favorite flag had a change of heart and decided to respect the normal procedures

Oh wow, historical revisionism on an event that happened less than a year ago?

Anyway, yeah, cool.

Well that's our iconoclasm controversy out of the way. Where next for the mango-stained Byzantium?

Probably title names. And the House system after that. And if we're still starved for controversy, I'll start demanding that the Landsraad address the monumentally important issue of declaring a national cheese.

But cheese is important!

Shyriath wrote:Probably title names. And the House system after that. And if we're still starved for controversy, I'll start demanding that the Landsraad address the monumentally important issue of declaring a national cheese.

Gouda or I'll ragequit.

I support Gouda.

Not to be a giant pain, but Imperial Proclamations does not hold the force of law. If you want to change the LawBook, you have to issue an order for that since this is not binding in any way. You could change the wording in 3. or just issue a decree making the red-black-blue the imperial standard, as an amendment to the DecreeBook, which is the place where it should be anyway. 1. is now interpreted as a recommendation to the nation, not as law. 2 and 4 have no legal consequences, so I won't bother with those.

I did that on purposes. 1 is meant to be interpreted as a recommendation with no force of law, and I figured considering the bad associations some people probably have with the red-black-blue flag that it would be better to have it as an unofficial Imperial standard than as an official-by-law one.

The Landsraad can make any part of this they want official and add it to the lawbook.

Also, any chance we can get rid of those big flag signatures now?

Okay, just wanted to bring your attention to it.

I don't mind the other one as the Imperial Standard.

Aurangzeb Khan wrote:Well that's our iconoclasm controversy out of the way. Where next for the mango-stained Byzantium?

No doubt the forum colors!

Kaiser Ikol II wrote:Also, any chance we can get rid of those big flag signatures now?

No idea what you're talking about.

Harvey Steffke wrote:

Kaiser Ikol II wrote:Also, any chance we can get rid of those big flag signatures now?

No idea what you're talking about.

CLASSY SPECS!

Harvey Steffke wrote:

Special praise goes to Kaiser Leto III, who after trying to decree his favorite flag had a change of heart and decided to respect the normal procedures

Oh wow, historical revisionism on an event that happened less than a year ago?

Anyway, yeah, cool.

Yeah.. that's kinda bugging me too. I don't mind trying to appease people slightly.. but to outright change events that happens long ago, and people kinda forgot about... is really just making things worse.

Erik Mortis wrote:

Harvey Steffke wrote:

Special praise goes to Kaiser Leto III, who after trying to decree his favorite flag had a change of heart and decided to respect the normal procedures

Oh wow, historical revisionism on an event that happened less than a year ago?

Anyway, yeah, cool.

Yeah.. that's kinda bugging me too. I don't mind trying to appease people slightly.. but to outright change events that happens long ago, and people kinda forgot about... is really just making things worse.

Shut up, you! Leto was the coolest and most awesome Kaiser ever!

Yeah.. that's kinda bugging me too. I don't mind trying to appease people slightly.. but to outright change events that happens long ago, and people kinda forgot about... is really just making things worse.

I don't think it's false. Leto tried to change the flag unilaterally, everyone got really upset, and he backed down and said it would be conducted through a Landsraad vote, which it was. How is that not "Kaiser Leto III...after trying to decree his favorite flag had a change of heart and decided to respect the normal procedure"?

I think it's the "special praise" part. Jonas later announced that he decreed the flag purely to stir up trouble and to make people upset and had every intention of vetoting his decree the next day anyway and that the rebellion that sprung up immediately and demanded it be vetoed had nothing to do with it. If this is true or not I can't verify without a mind probe, but it sure as heck doesn't sound like the sort of thing that counts for praise. But since he was the kaiser he gets all the glory and the people that actually wanted the process to be followed get no mention at all.

Harvey Steffke wrote:I think it's the "special praise" part. Jonas later announced that he decreed the flag purely to stir up trouble and to make people upset and had every intention of vetoting his decree the next day anyway and that the rebellion that sprung up immediately and demanded it be vetoed had nothing to do with it. If this is true or not I can't verify without a mind probe, but it sure as heck doesn't sound like the sort of thing that counts for praise. But since he was the kaiser he gets all the glory and the people that actually wanted the process to be followed get no mention at all.

I don't remember that Leto had the intention to veto that. Could be wrong about that, of course.

That's a fair complaint. But it was less about saying what a wonderful guy Kaiser Leto was than saying how nice it was that our Kaisers were able to handle the matter without ruling by decree. If another Kaiser had been in his place, I trust that Kaiser would have done the same thing, because that's how awesome our system is.

Forgetting for a moment my tendency to use decrees in lieu of blunt object trauma, yes absolutely! Our system of governance is unsurpassed for the virtue it fosters at all levels of society.

If at any point I can tell with certainty if the Khan is being serious or being sarcastic then I will feel he is not quite doing his job.

Yeah, he's slacking off.