If this passes, it would be yet another classic TNP-stereotype making the modern operation of this region even more annoying for those of us who still bother to try. No one likes to have to be in this situation. Perhaps some of you should take a look outside and actually see what color the sky is, because you're clearly living in some idyllic fantasy world. The law can change. The law can reflect the times in which we live. We do not have to retreat back to 2007, it is in fact 2025.
Yeah, that's the point, the delegate shouldn't be able to ignore the intent of the law and appoint themselves just because they don't like that they have to appoint someone else to a Ministry and would rather hog control for themselves. It's bad organizationally, it's bad for activity, it's bad for democracy, and it's frankly unnecessary.
I find it interesting that only now, after years of the Delegate having zero issues appointing other people to Minister positions, are we suddenly unable find anyone to appoint as Executive Officer in ministries that have 20 to 30 members in them. That circumstance seems less to do with the pool of available candidates and more to do with the mentality of the Delegate.
The delegate has to worry about every single area of regional governance, and it is a lot. If the delegate felt the talent existed for the position, then he would appoint someone to the role. The number of staffers is irrelevant. A cabinet pick has to have the skills and capability to do the job, they have to be a good fit for leadership, they have to agree with the delegate's vision and cooperate on seeing it through, and there has to be chemistry. You compromise on any number of these things, you're inviting trouble. Considering I have already pointed out that this prohibition will encourage delegates in this boat to appoint an empty suit and run roughshod over them, the fact that you think the number of people available to pluck is enough for this to be a reasonable expectation tends to make me think you don't consider the empty suit problem to be a problem.
What is interesting about the fact that we currently exist in some of the toughest times for NS and retention and interest in players generally, and therefore our staffing of key ministries is also negatively impacted? Makes perfect sense to me, unless you've been living under a rock. Multiple successive delegates have agonized over the problem of putting someone in charge of the NPA. We repeatedly went back to people who struggled and disappointed us, like Cretox and 9003, whose ultimate performance was inevitably disappointing. Sometimes it's just the circumstances of the moment, and we do the best we can. We have been able to call on promising experienced people even if the military wasn't what they were known for. Mostly the problems have just persisted despite who we put in charge. You ought to know, seeing the state of our membership, that we have very slim pickings for MoD right now. Do we have someone who meets most or even some of the criteria I listed for cabinet picks? I would say no.
There are good reasons why the RA has designated Mandatory Ministries. It does not mean that the idea of a military is enough. We want and need different people dong those jobs. It is the Delegate's job to, well, delegate.
There is an economic concept of comparative advantage. Applied here, the delegate can try to do everything. They may be the best at doing everything. But if they are spending their time doing the lower level stuff, the organization will not be as successful and productive as having others do the work needed. Even if the Delegate can do it better, they shouldn't. They need to be guiding and encouraging the Executive Officers.
Some delegates are more hands-on than others. Recently we have seen this come up frequently in our elections, and it has been a major point of contention. We say we want active and engaged delegates, that activity is paramount. But we must also force the Delegate to delegate responsibility to others and hope they will be able to be what we need. And if they aren't, the Delegate has to play musical chairs or throw darts at a wall to see if their next pick will work. I have over the course of my times as Delegate appointed 8 different people as MoD, and 3 of them were appointed twice, one of them twice in the same term. I had one time where I had a MoD last the entire term, every other time I made 2 or 3 appointments. And this is true for other ministries across other delegacies - and through it all, we have somehow managed to muddle through no matter how desperate we get. Sometimes you just have to take the reins and do it yourself, if the circumstances are bad enough. Or at least, that's how it should be. Why make the Delegate's life harder? Why force a mediocre or sub-par at best, unqualified or detrimental to cohesion at worst, person to be picked just to meet this arbitrary standard?
It's not like I don't understand your comparative advantage argument. No Delegate wants to have to do minister-level tasks. Your hypothetical despot doesn't want to do that either, and won't - I think we've seen how poorly despots manage ministries. Not to beat this dead horse, but the despot is going to ignore a lot of norms and laws anyway. Let's be considerate of our track record of responsible and civic-minded delegates who do their best and are asked to manage a difficult region in difficult times. We love bringing up promising talent and working with people who are experts or dedicated in their respective fields. This is something we would like to get back to. The Delegate, this Delegate we currently have, would love to get the ball rolling and build us up and hopefully attract new talent so that one day he can bring in someone else to run the NPA and see how that goes. Being distracted by this of all things? Come on.
I agree with this amendment. In my view, it is in line with the spirit of the law. It would also encourage the delegate to take a punt on people.
The law is ambiguous on this point. The delegate can appoint themselves, it would still make sense. You come from a different time where the idea of such a thing was so outrageous, evidently the framers of the existing legal code didn't think it even had to be stated. We live in modern times now. We can recognize the challenging new reality, give our Delegate some flexibility, and still honor that spirit. I have a bill that aims to do just that, codifying this practice while also placing limits on how far it can be applied. If you feel even more limits are needed, we can have that conversation. But closing the door to one possible form of relief, and creating more bureaucracy to weave through, isn't actually going to help us make this tough situation easier.
