What plot twist most disappointed you?

[Cazero]

If a law enumerates several ways of tampering with votes and outlaws each, instead of going to the principle and outlawing any tampering, it's a terrible law/law system.

You can't make a law against all tampering just like that. It could make it illegal to vote when someone is in a bad mood or some similar stupidity. And that's why laws are written about specifics.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

If a law enumerates several ways of tampering with votes and outlaws each, instead of going to the principle and outlawing any tampering, it's a terrible law/law system.

The alternative that you suggest will inevitably result in thousands of cases of "attempted tampering" and judges having to decide what is and isn't tampering, and you end up with a patchwork of what is and isn't tampering decided on a case-by-case basis. So, essentially the same result, except done by the wrong branch of government.

For example, is laying the case to people to vote your way tampering? Because I can promise you that if "any tampering" is illegal, someone, somewhere will claim that attempting to influence a vote by speechifying is tampering.

If you disagree with the idea that speeches tamper with votes and are about to start laying down rules for what is and isn't tampering in the vast gray area between "not" and "definitely" tampering, then congratulations: you've just created what you have called "a terrible law/law system" and what everyone else calls "a normal law system".

Grey Wolf

[Jasdoif]

For example, is laying the case to people to vote your way tampering? Because I can promise you that if "any tampering" is illegal, someone, somewhere will claim that attempting to influence a vote by speechifying is tampering.

"You mean you didn't hear the clearly implied threat that we'll all be killed if we vote to destroy the world?"

[Peelee]

speechifying

Grey Wolf

Speechitating.

[terodil]

The alternative that you suggest will inevitably result in thousands of cases of "attempted tampering" and judges having to decide what is and isn't tampering, and you end up with a patchwork of what is and isn't tampering decided on a case-by-case basis. So, essentially the same result, except done by the wrong branch of government.

Yes and no.

It's an indefensible notion that any and all attempts to subsume certain variants of a punishable offense under a common heading is automatically doomed to failure. If you want to outlaw murder, you don't need to enumerate 'murder by stabbing', 'murder by shooting', etc. -- 'murder' is perfectly sufficient for all of them (you might want to introduce certain criteria to separate murder from manslaughter, for example, but that's not the same thing). Now does this allow for a debate whether slightly less clear-cut cases (e.g., purposefully hiding a drug that an ill person needs to survive) also fall into this category? Yes, sure, but that is what the jurisdiction is for. What, in your opinion, would be the task of this particular constitutional branch if not the interpretation and application of laws issued by the legislation?

Edit: Meh. It should be obvious to absolutely everybody that civil law is best law.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

(you might want to introduce certain criteria to separate murder from manslaughter, for example, but that's not the same thing).

I don't really need to counter your overbroad original declaration when you do it for me.

And yes, yes it is the same thing as not being feasible to "outlaw all tampering" without specifying what is and isn't tampering or self-defence or politicking, etc. ad nauseam.

Grey Wolf

[terodil]

I don't really need to counter your overbroad original declaration when you do it for me.

And yes, yes it is the same thing as not being feasible to "outlaw all tampering" without specifying what is and isn't tampering or self-defence or politicking, etc. ad nauseam.

GW -- if you refuse to look at the abstract principle of what I wrote in order to try to score cheap points, you might wish to take a look at the civil-law based countries in the world. They provide ample examples and proof that show that what you claim impossible is, in fact, a sound basis to run a constitution.

Edit: Just to showcase this, as you say it's impossible to pour into a law:

(1) Whoever impedes an election or the process of determining its result, by using violence or threatening violence, will be punished [...].
(2) Attempting to do so is also punishable.

(1) Whoever votes without being allowed to, or induces a wrong result, or manipulates the results, will be punished [...].
(2) Whoever announces a wrong result or has one announced, will be punished.
(3) Attempting to do so is also punishable.

That's it. Case closed in regards to election manipulation as far as this particular law system is concerned. Is it truly impractical? 70+ years would say that no.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

GW -- if you refuse to look at the abstract principle of what I wrote in order to try to score cheap points, you might wish to take a look at the civil-law based countries in the world. They provide ample examples and proof that show that what you claim impossible is, in fact, a sound basis to run a constitution.

You've literally contradicted your own claim now twice. I'm done talking to you. I'm not "scoring cheap points" (nice ad hominem, by the way), I'm pointing out that you can't simply outlaw all forms of tampering without turning around and having to then define tampering. And that the vampires with access to the rules then can trivially find loopholes in any such constraints.

Good bye.

Grey Wolf

[terodil]

GW: I have not contradicted myself at any point. I have rejected the notion that you, among others, proposed, that a general law is impossible to formulate and would necessarily miss important variants that lawmakers could not foresee at the time they created the law. I have also provided an example. I honestly think it's up to you now to prove that all this is just deluded rambling.

[Peelee]

GW: I have not contradicted myself at any point. I have rejected the notion that you, among others, proposed, that a general law is impossible to formulate and would necessarily miss important variants that lawmakers could not foresee at the time they created the law.

Wouldnt being more general just make it more argumentative, though? Where is the line between, say, emotional manipulation and a persuasive argument that appeals to emotions?

[Jasdoif]

I have rejected the notion that you, among others, proposed, that a general law is impossible to formulate and would necessarily miss important variants that lawmakers could not foresee at the time they created the law. I have also provided an example. I honestly think it's up to you now to prove that all this is just deluded rambling.

How would a magical effect determine whether mentioning how destroying the world will kill everyone in the room is threatening violence to manipulate the results?

That's really critical here....There's an impersonal effect charged with interpreting dwarven law and empowered to incapacitate violators itself; for that to begin to make sense, those laws would need to be written with the expectation of handling such situations impartially....Which means the perpetrator-petrifying effect (The bailiff's basilisk? The constable's cockatrice?) is up a creek with generalities that call for someone to interpret when they should apply, no matter how much "common sense" that interpretation is expected to entail. (This is normally where it becomes apparent that there's too much faith put into detailed rules....)

[Darth Paul]

GW: I have not contradicted myself at any point. I have rejected the notion that you, among others, proposed, that a general law is impossible to formulate and would necessarily miss important variants that lawmakers could not foresee at the time they created the law. I have also provided an example. I honestly think it's up to you now to prove that all this is just deluded rambling.

Well, I myself tried to state something like this and I realize now that I was astray. Any general rule must then go on to define what it is that's being prohibited. For instance; murder is against the law, but what is murder? Is it murder if you kill the person who's actively trying to murder you? And if not, why not? After all, you intended to kill that person, now they're dead...

[Gluteus_Maximus]

I think the main problem is that for some reason that is probably "plot", the dwarves' meeting's barriers don't dispel magic a second time on the second barrier, nor do they ward against dwarven bodies with the "undead" monster type. That's an oversight that if they had the power to dispel magic on the first barrier and it's known you could just cast their spells past that barrier and then go through the second, they had the power to only have one barrier with all of the protections so it couldn't be violated at all.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

I think the main problem is that for some reason that is probably "plot", the dwarves' meeting's barriers don't dispel magic a second time on the second barrier, nor do they ward against dwarven bodies with the "undead" monster type. That's an oversight that if they had the power to dispel magic on the first barrier and it's known you could just cast their spells past that barrier and then go through the second, they had the power to only have one barrier with all of the protections so it couldn't be violated at all.

Or alternatively, that some clan heads did not feel safe if their guards could not re-apply defensive buffs while guarding the meeting. The idea being that in normal operation, they will have all the time in the world to re-apply buffs, but if someone attacks the place and gets in, then now they are fighting the guards buff-less, while all the guards still have theirs on. And also stops said attackers from nuking the place from afar.

Or any other explanation you care to come up with other than "because plot".

ETA: and yes, as Kish and Darth Paul point out, not predicting that vampires, or some other extremely rare undead menace, would be interested in interfering in clan council meetings probably seemed way to far-fetched to spend any money adding defences specifically against it.

Grey Wolf

[Kish]

I think the main problem is that for some reason that is probably "plot", the dwarves' meeting's barriers don't dispel magic a second time on the second barrier, nor do they ward against dwarven bodies with the "undead" monster type. That's an oversight that if they had the power to dispel magic on the first barrier and it's known you could just cast their spells past that barrier and then go through the second, they had the power to only have one barrier with all of the protections so it couldn't be violated at all.

The Council of Clans, like the Godsmoot though not to the same extent, was designed for a group of mutually hostile entities to jockey for power, not for a group of allies to have a harmonious discussion.

In other words, I'm sure the reason why the setup specifically does nothing to stop dwarves from walking into the council chamber with spell effects going, is that at least one of the rule-makers here was already planning to, at the very least, run Eagle's Splendor while speechifying.

Yes, "one of the barriers destroys undead" would be a sensible refinement no living dwarf is likely to object to, one I'm sure they'll take steps to add after this is over.

[Darth Paul]

I think the main problem is that for some reason that is probably "plot", the dwarves' meeting's barriers don't... ward against dwarven bodies with the "undead" monster type.

How about "because the Dwarven elders did not foresee the possibility of a mass invasion by vampirized dwarves"? In real life people (quite intelligent people) often don't think about possibilities that, in hindsight, seem obvious... only because they already happened.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

How about "because the Dwarven elders did not foresee the possibility of a mass invasion by vampirized dwarves"? In real life people (quite intelligent people) often don't think about possibilities that, in hindsight, seem obvious... only because they already happened.

Or there is only so much money to spend, and extremely rare events are considered too expensive to bother with. No-one, after all, is going to drive tanks through a forest, so it's hard to justify spending money building anti-tank fortifications facing it.

Grey Wolf

[Peelee]

Or there is only so much money to spend, and extremely rare events are considered too expensive to bother with. No-one, after all, is going to drive tanks through a forest, so you don't need to bother spending money building anti-tank fortifications facing it.

Grey Wolf

What's French for, "Wheeeeeee!"?

Sacré bleu!

[AstralFire]

Terodil is correct. Full stop.

The fact that rules exist does not mean that it is trivially easy to find loopholes in them. The model penal code is remarkably light, and in general, law is actually a lot more simple than people act like it is, outside of contract law, which unfortunately is the majority most deal with regularly. 60% of non contract law is argument procedure, 30% is mostly common sense, 10% is arcane citations of conflicting rules.

The supposition that there must have been a loophole that vampires could have taken advantage of is a viewpoint looking to automatically justify the plot.

As terodil themselves pointed out initially, the issues in this case would be detection and enforcement, yes. And a lack of foresight is understandable, yes. But "law was written badly for understandable reasons" and "law has difficulty with enforcement in an unforeseen situation" do not negate that general case laws are remarkably simple and common.

All countries whose legal systems are derived from the British Empire include over 400 years of case law, most of which basically mirrors the cultural backdrop that the society speaking in plain language already uses when referring to law. It is rare that anyone actually cites to a court of chancery today. The judiciary exists beyond the trial level for two reasons: major errors at the trial level and edge applications of conflicting legal principles. While one may argue (I often do) that a particular form of judiciary has been over relied upon in certain situations, this is what that branch of government is in fact for.

I'm citing to common law rather than civil law because it's what I know but I am in full agreement with terodil.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

Terodil is correct. Full stop.

No they are not. Not in the conversation we are having. If they want to change topics and talk about real world law systems, they can find a forum where such things are allowed. In the context of plot twists in OotS, the idea that a general rule would have prevented the vampires from enacting a plan in nonsense.

Grey Wolf

[AstralFire]

No they are not. Not in the conversation we are having. If they want to change topics and talk about real world law systems, they can find a forum where such things are allowed. In the context of plot twists in OotS, the idea that a general rule would have prevented the vampires from enacting a plan in nonsense.

Grey Wolf

If a law enumerates several ways of tampering with votes and outlaws each, instead of going to the principle and outlawing any tampering, it's a terrible law/law system.

Being able to detect tampering is another matter, granted, but THIS loophole at least should definitely not exist.

Direct quotation.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

Direct quotation.

The direct quotation in no way defend the claim "Terodil is correct. Full stop.". As Jasdoif keeps reminding everyone, the context for this conversation is the fact that the voting enforces all laws via petrification. A general law such as "you can't tamper with the vote" would mean council heads turning to stone in every vote.

Grey Wolf

[Peelee]

Terodil is correct. Full stop.

The fact that rules exist does not mean that it is trivially easy to find loopholes in them. The model penal code is remarkably light, and in general, law is actually a lot more simple than people act like it is, outside of contract law, which unfortunately is the majority most deal with regularly. 60% of non contract law is argument procedure, 30% is mostly common sense, 10% is arcane citations of conflicting rules.

Non-contract law? Would that be criminal law? Constitutional law? Tax law? Corporate and Securities law? Environmental law? Family and Juvenile law? Health law? Space law?

Are you a lawyer? If yes, would you claim knowledge of any whole number percent of the law? If yes, I will admit to being very impressed.

[AstralFire]

The direct quotation in no way defend the claim "Terodil is correct. Full stop.". As Jadoif keeps reminding everyone, the context for this conversation is the fact that the voting enforces all laws via petrification. A general law such as "you can't tamper with the vote" would mean council heads turning to stone in every vote.

Grey Wolf

Terodil takes exception to a very specific point: that the vampires flat-out take advantage of an "Air Bud" exception, "the law doesn't say a dog can't play basketball". While popular in fictional law, that doesn't actually occur much in real law, relatively speaking. While making note of this, they immediately admit that actually implementing the enforcement of said better law in this case would be difficult. I do not believe they have not said anywhere within the last 100 posts (per my checking on mobile) that the vampires would be defeated by a better law. Just that the law is badly written.

[Sir_Norbert]

Surely the simplest refutation of Terodil's point is: We have no idea how the law in question is written. Maybe the dwarves do have a law that says "No electoral fraud"! How would that change anything in the comic? It just means Dvalin doesn't personally oversee whether or not the law is being broken, because he's a demigod, not a one-dwarf police force.

In fact , #1157 makes it clear that, one way or another, what the vampires are doing is illegal. They're just making sure they don't take any illegal actions while in the inner chamber.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

Terodil [...] I do not believe they have not said anywhere within the last 100 posts (per my checking on mobile) that the vampires would be defeated by a better law. Just that the law is badly written.

No, they claimed it would be a terrible law, implying no good law ever was written by enumerating the specific definitions of the words it used. This is 1) nonsense and 2) almost certainly false, if I were to try to bring RL law. I don't want to get red-texted/carded, so I won't bother, but I'm confident in saying that there exists good laws that do explicitly list white and black areas where they apply and don't just rely on broad declarations.

Terodil takes exception to a very specific point: that the vampires flat-out take advantage of an "Air Bud" exception, "the law doesn't say a dog can't play basketball".

And the strawman award for today goes to AstralFire.

Grey Wolf

[Cazero]

No-one, after all, is going to drive tanks through a forest, so it's hard to justify spending money building anti-tank fortifications facing it.

I thought they did that to spare Belgium's feelings, but that reason makes more sense.

[Grey_Wolf_c]

I thought they did that to spare Belgium's feelings, but that reason makes more sense.

No, they didn't build them along the rest of the border because the plan was always to send their own forces up to defend Belgium's border (the longer version of "France and Belgium were friends" that you mention). Everything I have heard, though, is that the forest itself was considered to be uncrossable with any kind of haste, so if the Germans did try, France expected it would have had plenty of time to reposition (like, a week or two was expected*). Germany managed to move through it in like 2 days*, essentially cutting off all forces in Belgium from their supply lines.

That said, I am by no means an expert of military history, and this is cobbled together from a bunch of less-than-stellar sources plus filtered through my memory, so take with a very large pinch of salt.

Grey Wolf

*Numbers might be way off from reality. Meant to exemplify, not for accuracy

[AstralFire]

... right, it's a straw man to point out that Terodil is saying a law is bad by only enumerating very specific examples in which it fails, which is what I said?

That's not a strawman, and it's not goalpost shifting.

By the way, it's actually a strawman to take terodil's assertion that that your law is bad at handling tampering if it has to enumerate every specific method of tampering and say that every law is a bad law if it ever uses specificity for any reason. That's not an implication of the statement; there are laws where specificity is used exclusively for good reason. Like procedural laws. Whether or not terodil would agree with me there, I can't say, but it doesn't seem like a reasonable interpretation of their statement at all.

Peelee, I'm not a practicing attorney. But I've been to law school and I've got enough experience as a legal assistant to feel confident with that statement in most fields of law outside of contract and IP law. This in no way means that you can take a lawyer off one specialty and have them do well in another; procedure is a huge percentage for a good reason, and one quarter of the remainder is quite a lot. But most cases the law needs to be applied, the law is actually quite simple to follow since it necessarily has to be followed by lay persons.

[Darth Paul]

Or there is only so much money to spend, and extremely rare events are considered too expensive to bother with. No-one, after all, is going to drive tanks through a forest, so it's hard to justify spending money building anti-tank fortifications facing it.

Grey Wolf

I thought they did that to spare Belgium's feelings, but that reason makes more sense.

Sort of both, but the fact that the Ardennes Forest was considered "untankable" meant that when the Germans did drive their tank battalions through it, the French fortifications were bypassed and the Allied troops were taken by surprise and encircled.