She'll wink at him once she's down from the podium.

"Your Excellency, were I confident that the only loophole in yesterday's statute was the one already abused, I would wholeheartedly support your proposal. But I do not expect it is — indeed, many others have already been identified, and were identified on the floor yesterday, even if thus far no one has taken advantage of them. We cannot solve this problem merely by adding a censorship board, because those who are taking advantage of other provisions of yesterday's law to legally publish anarchic or wicked works will have no need to submit their works to a board of censors. 

The archduchess spoke earlier of how it is better to repair a drafty house than to build a new one on a foundation of sand. I don't disagree. But it is yesterday's law that establishes a publishing regime built on a crumbling foundation, a foundation that until yesterday no country in the history of Golarion had ever attempted to build on. It may be that this proposal is imperfect, and will need to be amended — but where it differs from Lastwall, from Molthune, from Taldor, from Thuvia, from nearly any polity you can name, it does so only in the details and not in the fundamentals. Better to reestablish our censorship law on a firm foundation than to continue with an experiment that has failed in less than a day.

I agree that it is unfortunate if a law passed one day must be amended or repealed the next. But if we cannot repeal even laws that are manifestly flawed, we ought to refrain from passing any more novel and experimental statutes, and stick to laws that have been tested and proven in those countries we wish to emulate."

If this proposal fails, but everyone agrees to not do any more novel legal experimentation, that also seems like a success, frankly.

He sighs deeply, before beginning, a fresh wave of regret that he was not stronger sooner, was not able to help in their rescue.

"It was wrong that you were denied knowledge of goodness; it was wrong that you were forced to follow twisted laws; it was wrong that the government hated and feared your friendships with your neighbors and love within your families.

The Thrune's censors wanted to harm you. They wanted to limit you. They wanted you burning in Hell.

That is not the censorship board I hope to create. In my travels, I met a Shelynite cleric from Andoran; she works now in Fraga, healing the wounded, spreading redemption literature, planting the seeds of authentic love. She does not want to harm you; the opposite. She does not want to limit you; the opposite. She does not want you burning in hell; the opposite. Hers is the first name I will submit for consideration for the censorship board.

But why have a censorship board at all? Because our world is filled with both good and evil, both obedience and rebellion, and it is the strength of Good that it can coordinate with itself against evil. When we block necromancers from sharing notes with each other, we weaken them, and strengthen the public. When we stop liars from poisoning the well, everyone can drink more deeply from it.

Our law must both protect the public and not strangle it. Yesterday's law does not protect the public, because it is not challenging for an inventive adversary to get around it. Today's law will not strangle the public, because it allows for the private possession of what works already exist, and will allow for their distribution as swiftly as is reasonable. An empowered board will be able to react flexibly to challenges as they arise; rather than the convention needing to write in an exemption for marriage announcements or cookbooks and revise the law the next day, the board can simply create a category and allow works within it, without any need for the Convention to return its attention to the topic.

We all agree there is a need for censorship, and a need for distribution; that we must treat Cheliax's literacy as a prized accomplishment and also a serious matter of good governance. This bill improves on the previous one, and should be approved accordingly."

"Thank you, Your Grace. I hope that with your Songbird's help we can protect every Chelish subject without placing unnecessary restrictions on virtuous texts."

He looks at the remaining people in line; none of them are archdukes or other sorts of people likely to be dangerously offended if the discussion cuts off here.

"With that, I call for a vote for cloture, so that we may begin to vote on, first, the proposed amendment to allow any works approved by Lastwall's censors as of the first of Sarenrith, and second, the proposal itself."

The vote for cloture passes! That's what happens when a lot of delegates are hostages!


The vote to amend to allow any works approved by Lastwall's censors?

In favor because it'll limit the damage though she's annoyed that to limit the damage he ended up resorting to the precise solution that his initial speech was denouncing.

In favor. Lastwall's censors are sensible, so far as he knows, and it'll make the statute more likely to pass.

Lastwall is Iomedae's country and she is a loyal servant of Iomedae. This one is easy. In favor.

Against, because without it the bill is worse and likelier to fail which she can take credit for.

Sigh. In favor. One country's books are better than nothing. They probably don't have the saga with the Iomedan guy who goes around challenging people to duels, though.

In favor. Lastwall's books are probably the most important to have. Though he still doesn't understand why people keep insisting that they can experimentally send a thousand people to the mines.

It won't help that much, and it makes the proposal sound better. And she's anonymous. Against.

It will help tremendously if worst comes to worst. In favor.

Of course he's in favor. Why wouldn't he be?

She doesn't think this law sounds that bad? But a bunch of the nobles she really doesn't like are in favor, and the ones that are reasonable are against it, so probably they're planning to do something like put a bunch of Asmodeans in charge of the censorship office again and not let anyone publish anything criticizing the nobles at all. It's pretty hard to see how letting books from Lastwall in would make it worse, though, she's in favor of that part.

Since it’s not a loyalty test and voting is genuinely anonymous… against.  It’ll make the main proposal more likely to pass if it passes and slows down the disastrous effects of the main proposal enough that they might not be able to repeal it.

In favor of the amendment.  Hopefully Lastwall has a good selection, but if it comes to that it will still be disastrous, just slightly less than otherwise.

In favor. It's more likely to pass with the amendment and if you had to pick a country for it Lastwall seems like the least bad one.

This law is supposed to ban bad books and not good books, but Lastwall probably has good books. In favor.

Against. It's less likely to pass without the amendment and she'd rather make sure the bill dies. If this brinksmanship fails she'll feel bad about it but judging by the mood of the room the amendment will probably pass anyway and leave her vote against moot. 

Marit is not from Lastwall but he's always found his fellow Reclamation members from Lastwall wholly reasonable, and he can't imagine Lastwall's censorship board approving anything strongly objectionable. In favor.

The main law is guaranteed to pass, because it is a bad law, so for the amendment.

She sits back down, vaguely relieved that she didn't actually make it to the front of the line before the voting started because she hadn't figured out exactly what she wanted to say. 

Now she realizes that she's confused about whether she should vote against the Lastwall bit, because it probably makes the whole law more likely to pass, or for the Lastwall bit, because if the law does pass it makes it less bad??

Why is everything so hard and confusing. Also she misses her baby though not having him here is so helpful for actually being able to follow what's going on. 

She dithers. 

She's kind of annoyed about Lawfulness right now, maybe having many of their books banned would maybe teach the Lastwall types some kind of lesson about Law and make them notice ways that it can be bad. 

Against the amendment. 

In favor of the amendment.

When Asmodeus conquers the other afterlives all the people flocking to paladins to save them are going to feel pretty stupid, if any of them even manage to escape Hell to begin with. Against.