ANST - re: p-word: political considerations

[j'lynn yeates]

On 17 Feb 98 at 12:41, Keith Hood wrote:

> How about extending the tenure of kings and queens to two years? 

point of order, if i'm not mistaken term of tenure is defined by 
Corpora and outside the scope of easy change (as it should be).  idea 
had been proposed again and again over the years and always fly's 
about as well as the proverbial lead balloon

anyone who aspires to "royalty" status does so (hopefully) with a
clear understanding of the costs involved (time, stress, financial,
obligations, ....).  it's all there in the job description. 

> Whatever the supposed advantages of dividing this kingdom, obviously
> the regular people of this kingdom still have little or nothing to
> gain from it. 

actually, the people have a great deal to gain from it.  the primary
reason for breaking up into smaller units is the fact that the work
necessary to run such a large entity (kingdom) is becoming 
problematic. breaking it down into self-governing regions *should* 
result in more responsive management and smoother running operations. 

smaller units should make for more healthy organizations that are 
more easily managed and grown (and if the stats i have seen on 
membership are an indication, this is a serious concern as membership 
seems to be dropping nation-wide).  if the SCA is to survive and 
remain healthy, it needs to maintain the members it has and bring in 
new ones to ba;lance attrition and provide a managed level of growth 
(and organism or organization that stops growing begins to die ... 
right Rome?(g).

> And how can it benefit this kingdom's standing with other kingdoms
> to make it smaller and weaker?  Aren't we already badly outnumbered
> at Gulf War without cutting down the size of the recruit pool?

physical size is not the measure of the man or the kingdom.  so the 
big wars will be fought by *alliances* against other alliances (as it 
was done in history ...).  smaller regional wars would still be 
fought.  

i would guess the only reason that we are outnumbered at 
Gulf Wars is that it's a bit of a distance from here.  hold a similar 
war (encourage them to invade us for example ... ) and see if the 
tables would not be turned ..... make the wars more flexible ... 
right now the are static - same time / place each year.  move them 
around, change the focus, basis ... be creative and spread the 
advantages around
 
> And new boundaries give people a new set of problems in dealing with
> other people:  can you still go to tournament X without falling out
> of favor with people at home?  Are the old friends you used to fight
> beside at war now your enemies?  There must be ways of dealing with
> the problems without taking measures that may strain and even sunder
> relationships that may have formed over years.

sounds like you're describing very basic medieval politics there ... 
so you could argue that smaller organizational entities with their 
inherent military and political considerations are more 
historically accurate and "in period"

'wolf
... KLFA

... in diversity there is strength
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