"Every delegate has, when this convention ends, the option to board the next ship for Absalom and never pay another cent in Chelish taxes. But should we choose to remain I think we should be subject to the very laws it is our solemn responsibility to create."

Do you have any idea how much willpower it takes to not say ‘good idea, I propose delegates being exempt from all laws’ right now? 

"I stand with the Duchess," he says, giving Iker a 'you should know better' look. "Any man who wants to leave the laws of Cheliax behind should do so now. Those who would sacrifice the country's wealth by Mephistophelean decrees for the sake of their own purses are worse than honest thieves, who merely bankrupt men, not nations. This proposal is unworthy of us."

"I join my voice to the Duchess of Chelam and the Archduke of Sirmium in condemning this idea as simple Asmodeanism!" because for the sake of all the gods we need some common sense here.

"The paladin said he supports it, it can't be Mephistophe- however you say it. Or Asmodean."

Ah well if the hot guy is opposed. "With no revenue we will be unable to raise an army and will be invaded by Galt and Rahadoum again!"

...He may have misjudged the level of personal avarice among the Chelish nobility.

…. Wait, maybe she should vote for the ridiculous law, then. An invasion would distract everyone from the forests. … probably bad for Whisperwood. Oh, well.

"I believe the paladin Alexaera Cansellarion has been stricken with some grievous illness or temporary madness," he says flatly, looking Alex straight in the eye, "possibly as a result of a spell cast by an Evil wizard or more likely as a product of overwork caused by his long hours providing sterling service on behalf of the nation, and I dearly hope he will recover."

Enric is pretty sure that archduke who just said that thing about “honest” bandits who just rob men being better than everyone voting for no taxes… has enough guards to never really worry about bandits on the road. 

Well, maybe Cansellarion just knows a different way to fund the state once it's not Evil, like a portal to the Elemental Plane of Gold or something. But Valia's not planning to speak up in this conversation because she doesn't really know anything about economics.

On the one hand, taxes are bad.

On the other hand, legal innovations are bad.

On the mage hand, this place is a madhouse and if she says nothing maybe they'll forget she's here.

It didn't even occur to Livi that he could pass a law saying delegates have to pay taxes! What a great idea!

...Can he also pass a law saying delegates get to keep their slaves but everyone else doesn't? He'd get a huge advantage over the competition that way. It would probably get voted down, but gods he would love it if he could.

Well.

In the first place, he's relieved that the body has gotten itself away from the topic of outlawing outlawing slavery. He's not disappointed in the delegate who proposed the absurd tax exemption. He did kidnap one hundred and fifty people in the hopes that they would speak out in their own self interest. Besides, why should he know better? The difference between a bandit and a Chelish tax collector is that the worst a bandit can do is kill you. They'll learn. 

Alex doesn't have an excuse. If he was planning to bankrupt the country unless they replaced Alfirin as queen he could just have told them that.  The redeeming feature of paladins is they're predictable about these things. There's probably a book about it in Lastwall: Official Diplomatic Guidance 334a-4, regarding allied polities currently governed by immortal body-stealing witches. He explained the whole immortal body-stealing witch situation precisely because Alex was his ally and deserved to know and he wanted to deal with him as fairly and honestly and openly as was possible given the admittedly deranged circumstances. He's not asking for much! He's not asking for anything! He'd have done it even if he'd known that Alex was going to approach this whole project with the attitude that the stability and prosperity of the Chelish nation and its twenty million inhabitants was less important than finding something Evil and stabbing it in the back. Iomedeans shouldn't be allowed in government. They'd have found a different monarch if he'd asked. 

Nothing to do about it now but look disapproving enough that Alex picks up on it but not so disapproving that everyone else starts trying to placate him. He's given them the rope: they may hang themselves with it, if they like.

Yes, he misstepped, though he's not sure of the exact nature of the misstep here. He'll do his failure analysis when the assembly is over.

"Perhaps we ought to return to the original proposal, which was -" he's guessing, here, but he's pretty confident in his guess " - to create, by underhanded trickery, a committee whose primary purpose is to perpetuate into eternity the evil and Asmodean institution of slavery."

...Damn, that's a count, thinks the elected delegate, there's no way to properly respond to that insult that won't get him laughed out of the room.

"Slavery is of course one matter that I expect to be of interest to the committee," he says levelly. "Alongside other matters, such as tariffs, debts, and the question of whether every man here should be permanently exempt from taxation. I of course would likewise prefer to keep Asmodean men from enshrining their view of contracts and other economic matters into the Constitution; was there something unsatisfactory about my proposal to allow a priest of Abadar to determine the composition of the committee?"

"To forbid by your rules of conduct, without debate and without acknowledging to the greater body that it would do so, that any proposal to end slavery be raised in your committee is an act of Hellish trickery. Remove that clause and I, at least, will have no complaint about the formation of your committee."

If the committee gets derailed into arguing that banditry is good he's blaming the Count. "Very well. I make an amended motion for the creation of a new committee, to discuss matters of economics and property, the composition of which shall be determined by a priest of Abadar. ...And that all members of the committee conduct themselves with decorum, as determined by same."

“I am against this motion and committee on the grounds that you seem like a massive prick.”

...Huh. Perhaps there are merits to a body of such mixed composition, if people who are not gentlemen will say the things that no gentleman would ever say but all of them are thinking.

"I am opposed to this committee on the grounds that it amounts to finding a priest of Abadar and doing whatever he says, and if we want to do whatever a priest of Abadar says we don't need a committee for that."

Aspexia-Isona is against this motion on the grounds that she won't be on it. She should try to find a better excuse.

"...If anyone has another idea for creating a Committee on Economics and Property without allowing bandits or Asmodeans" or slips "on it, I am open to alternative suggestions. I trust that we are all in agreement that economic matters are of considerable importance to our Constitution."

There already is such a committee, but he's not going to draw attention to that fact because he doesn't actually want this obnoxious character inviting himself in to cause trouble.