I think we're past that point, but I thank you kindly for the offer.

"The Delegate Solandra spoke to a question that I imagine many of us have, which is - why not just do a censorship board? Many countries have a censorship board. It is widely believed to work tolerably. It is reassuringly simple. This bill is more complicated, and its complexity means it might have oversights, and for this reason Delegate Solandra bids you to kill it, and speaks in favor by comparison of the censorship boards she is familiar with from Asmodean days.

I think that would be one of the most devastating mistakes this body could make. Countries with censorship boards tend to produce one of two results. One is that the boards are ignored and forbidden literature circulates widely. This is the way of things in Andoran or in Absalom; the state made a law it lacked the strength to enforce, and so the law is merrily ignored. If we err in that way it will be catastrophic. We have seen already the harm done by widely circulating pamphlets; if they are known to be illegal, and the state known to lack the strength to stop them, it will be much worse. 

The other result is that the state does have the strength to maintain the rule of law, and underground writings circulate very rarely, and at very real risk. The cost is merely - everything. Every cookbook that would have been written, but for the delays and costs imposed by needing to go to the nearest city with a censorship apparatus and interact with it, something most people will fear to do. Every book of woodworking lessons compiled by a particularly diligent student, which they want to share with their fellow students, which they must instead submit to a board that knows nothing about woodworking and whose members gain nothing by saying 'yes' instead of 'no', or by answering promptly. Every old book that someone would treasure but that no one would bother with the expense of shepherding through a censorship process, so limited would its readership be. 

And every thought that people believe the government might not want them to think. In Chelam the greatest challenge I have faced has been learning what the problems in Chelam are. People do not want to tell me. They are afraid of me. If I had a censorship board, they would not submit to it any accounts of the flaws of my rule of Chelam. If their petitions are permitted by law, as this law provides for, maybe they will make them. Probably not, though, not until years have passed. But if they need only submit to a publishing house, of which there are many, of which not all are controlled by nobles or by the state - if the publishing house will take anonymous letters - there are complaints they will make, to an independent body, that they will not make directly to their government. 

There must be oversight to ensure that incitement, slander, lies and delusions are not widely circulated. But it is best if not all of that oversight is conducted by the state, because people are terrified of the state. And - perhaps more important - because the state is busy. Her Majesty does not have enough honorable and decent men to carry out her will in Westcrown, let alone nationwide. How many of them should she reassign to a censorship board? It would take hundreds, to keep up with all the people of Cheliax want to say. That will not happen. Instead a few people will be appointed, and they will accept bribes to review things that are very important, and almost nothing else will be approved. The damage will be invisible, but it will be everywhere. 

The task before us is a very difficult one. We absolutely must end the horrendous situation in Westcrown. The freedom of the pen was a grave mistake and has proven a great evil, even in the eyes of those who started out with the highest of hopes for it. But we cannot take the road of adopting Lastwall's approach to censorship or Old Cheliax's, because we do not have hundreds of trained Lawful Good administrators to implement it. We cannot take the road of adopting Absalom's approach to censorship, as it only drives the pamphleteers underground, and turns thousands of lawful men into fugitives from the law. We have to chart our own course. This is such a course: to demand accountability for all written works, but to open five different doors by which that accountability may be demonstrated. A man can be liable for his words, or find someone else willing to be, or show that some trustworthy censorship board has approved his words, or show that they have long endured without causing harm, or keep them private. Enough avenues that that which can be published will be published, and a mess of underground publications will not be encouraged; few enough avenues that none of them will permit Valia Wain's speech."

Aaaand this part tips her hand but if it gets the bill through: 

"I had the pleasure of speaking this Starday with the wise and well-regarded Llorenç Casals, a merchant of Corentyn who relocated his business to the capital when it was liberated, and who mentioned his intent to open Westcrown's first publishing house should censorship laws enable such a thing. I will personally see to it that the best of the Chelish opera and theatre gets prompt and fair consideration from the publishing house, though of course Mssr. Casals abhors the riots and everything to do with them, and would never approve incendiary performances; were Valia's speech brought to him the only thing his house would print would be a prompt and thorough explanation of its errors and evils, and a reminder to the Chelish people that they are damned by riotous rebellion against their Good government.

Should there be subsequent adjustments to this bill? Assuredly. The Archduke Requena and the Archduchess Bainlius are good and diligent people, but they cannot have thought of everything. But I cannot think of a better foundation for Cheliax's censorship laws than this one, and a law is urgently desperately needed. Vote for this, and then as we witness its effects we will improve on it."

Well, she'll clap for the duchess, at least, at the part about the amendments, in case anyone's watching her for cues.

Fuckers. Fuckers. Fuckers. Her heart is in her throat.

Nethys, let us know.

"All right, I’m going to explain this one more time for everyone who's still confused, and then I promise I'll be done. Last week, Valia Wain gave an ill-considered speech, in this hall, intending to call for repentance. Someone else copied and butchered those words, and gave people the impression that they must rise up and burn the devil, not where they had found him, but anywhere that anyone thought he might be. As a result, more than three hundred people died, and much of the city was burnt."

"Under the proposed law, if anyone were to, say, copy down the words 'to the pyre with every book copied under the Thrunes', sign the speaker's name to them, and add inflammatory commentary about stealing these books from private homes and burning them in large piles within a city not noted for its fire resistance - he may do so, for the sake of remembering who he heard say what, and remembering his own thoughts on the matter. But he may not display it, read it aloud in public, or distribute copies, unless he finds a man with six thousand gold pieces who is willing to stake his fortune and his life on the pamphlet being safe to distribute. If he cannot find such a man, he must take it to the censorship board of Lastwall, Osirion, or Molthune - those are his only options, if he wishes to see the pamphlet in print before five years have passed. If they will not allow it, that's it. He's out of luck, and the city, happily, stays unburnt."

"The reason the law is long and complicated is partly that it lays out penalties, but mostly that it says that to prevent that butcher from copying those words, we don't also need to go through your homes and local shops and burn all the words that we know haven't caused riots. We don't need to ban private correspondence, business records, or wedding invitations, either. We don’t need to keep you from reading books from countries with excellent, longstanding censorship boards. I’m not going to stand here and lie to you that the bill doesn’t inconvenience anyone; there would be no point in passing one that did nothing. Many writers and artists will be inconvenienced, until a board of censors can be created to allow new works without a bond, which we will have, when we can. But we are the most literate country in the world, and no human censorship board can possibly work through the backlog of books we now have without taking many, many years about it. This bill says that while we fully intend that Cheliax should eventually have such a board, those things you already have will not be taken from you while you wait for them to do their jobs."

“Some in this room take issue with this, and say that the devil is yet hiding among us - and so we should go through and burn your grandmother's recipes, your child's sewing primer, the letters you sent to your lover while shivering at the worldwound, and every novel and manual you own. Not because they found the devil in any of them, or even because they intend to look for him there. Just because they know the devil hides in some books, as Valia knew he hides in some men, and it is tempting to call to burn them all in an effort to be sure we get the devil with them."

"But while 'burn all books not approved by newly appointed Chelish censors' certainly takes fewer words to say, the Archduke Requeña and the Duchess de Chelam rightly point out that it is a much worse thing to say. I think we do not need to burn your property in the name of preventing further property damage. I think we do not need to ban you from writing letters to your family while you are at the convention. I think we do not need to force you to prove to the watch that the book of Shelynite poetry you bought last year is not secretly Asmodean propaganda, or that your child's sewing primer is not, particularly, associated with hell. If you find the devil in your child's sewing primer, by all means, be a patriot and send him to the Queen. I am certain none of you need the watch's help to subdue a piece of paper, and will win the fight easily when you do find him."

"But for tonight, I think it would be tragic, but also just - really, incredibly, unspeakably embarrassing, for absolutely everyone here, if someone were to copy the words 'to the pyre with every book copied under the Thrunes', butcher their context, distribute them throughout Westcrown, or throughout another city without reclamation troops and convenient storms, and that city were to turn to rampant arson in another ill-considered attempt to root out the devil - not where we found him, but where we thought he might be, reasoning that burning absolutely everything to ash must be enough to catch him. So let's not! Let's skip that. Let's make doing that illegal, right now, and not watch another city burn."

"If you would like to keep your letters, your sewing primers, the right to keep a diary or business accounts, every book you already own, new books from Lastwall and Molthune, and proven classics from a handful of other countries, but you would like to see an immediate end to all writing that spreads dangerous words like wildfires, and leaves real fires in its wake - vote for, and let's see that it doesn't happen again tonight."

Maybe she's a good noble? Is there such a thing? And the girl braver than he is, to keep standing up, continues to make good points.

Surely someone else has already offered Tallandria a job post-convention but Carlota will leave a staffer a note to do so just in case somehow they haven't.

She’ll start clapping once Korva finishes.  Thea may be too cowardly pragmatic to speak on such a controversial issue she herself is divided on, but she approves of Korva.  

That's so much less irritating than what the duchess said and she will clap louder.

Lisandro makes a note to himself, if things go bad he really should try to extradite that Tallandria to a better city. 

Okay Enric is pretty sure he now understands whatever it was he voted for in the rights committee, with Korva explaining it. He isn’t sure why they want to let anyone keep writing pamphlets, even if some people like books and plays. But it doesn’t sound too bad. 

He needs to try to hire her again.

"Well, said, Delegate. Now, we've got a lot of other work to get done today and I think we've said what needs to be said, so I'd like to call for a vote to cloture."

Yes. Stop on a high note; none of the people still in line to talk can improve things.

De Guiomar is leading the liberal nobles, De Fraga the conservatives. Jilia's not sure whether it's the commoners or the radicals, but it's clear Tallandria is leading someone.

...If she's noticed that.

"I second the Archduke's motion for cloture."

Cloture votes never fail because no one wants to be here.

And then the bill! Xavier's for it, of course, and he hopes all his vassals are. (Though he can't check, any more.)

She can't check either, but everyone near the city will, she's pretty sure. It would have been nice to hear from Cansellarion but it was a good place to stop.

In favor, of course. Let it pass, let it pass, let it pass. If it fails she'll still vote for the 'just ban everything' proposal because she does not want to know what one more day does to the mad rumors on the streets (she doesn't know if the instigators have been intimidated into fleeing or are still alive at all, but she does not want to chance it).

He's in favor because he thinks the Queen probably supports it and he's her loyal subject.

Taís is confused about what she's supposed to think on this one. Lots of people have been abstaining so probably she can abstain just this once without getting in trouble?

Munch on a goodberry. He has no opinions on this bill and has not been given any reason to have any.

There's no reason they can't pass this bill and one that says they should censor everything harder, right? For, she guesses.

For, it outlaws pamphlets and is better for the economy. (He will, of course, do his best to remember voting against.)

For, with inchoate misgivings, but she really wants to find out what's going on. From Enric, probably.