# What Must Change ## By Mr. Blake Howstein, Head of the Liberal Coalition, Clerk @ the QuikiMart on 71st steet, Nelkin, Wolfstar system, the Nautilian Barony, The Milgish County of the Haldewell Soveringty, Dipoette, 83344 The debate between Goodwin and Lewer-McIntosh has only just hit my system. Yet it sets my mind ablaze! What is the resolution? Where has a _liberal_ voice been among this Progressive and Conservative speakers? Perhaps in the debate between my betters, the voice of a petty clerk working in a small store, in some forgotten system, in a tiny barony, an insigificant county and a hardly regal lord is irrelevant. Yet, it is a voter like me, watching the economy hoping my children have a similar quality of life to myself, which matters. Of course Lewer-McIntosh is right to note how so many of us regular people are unhappy with our current system, and of course Goodwin is right to remind us that people will be unhappy regardless of their circumstances. Where they faulter is in assessing the root of our problems. No we do not need to 'abolish' the Senate, quite the opposite. The senate may be the only body which actually cares for hte productive citizens of our Federation, which defends their rights, and which currently is failing because the social contract between citizens and our government has broken down. Dr. Lewer-McIntosh is correct when she describes how our social contract has been refreshed by progressive DAM throughout our history. However, her imbuing revolution with the just authority of the masses in the name of a more fair social contract ignores the flaws in her analysis - notably that often, such as the coup against Madeline Laurencelle-Lobato de Faria, were backed by the vast majority of citizens. Similarly, it is ironic that one of *the* top historians in the Federation, at *the* greatest University in the Federation, the dean of the most honourable and beloved school of political hisotry in the Federation, ignored that the Lords are ultimately children of the Senate! The Senate created the Federation, it birthed it, and if any instition is a bastardization of its current form in need of change, it is the House of Lords, which is an overgarbed body for consulting with the sub-regions which make up our Federation. Oh look at the fine thrones and fancy titles, don't notice that of the roughly [[Amount of Federation Lords in Different Galaxies|254,728 lords in the Federation]], only about 50,000-100,000 can actually trace their lineage back more than 4,000 years. If we ask for those to survive more than 10,000 years, we find only 38,000 families. But our Federation is 80,000 years old, and the lords some 76,000? Of the original 25, 13 have survived. By the start of the third Federation, roughly 66 millennia ago that had risen to some 2,500 lords, by its midpoint just abot 50 thousand years ago there were 25,000 lords, and at its height, a mere 30 thousand years ago there were nearly half a million people holding the title of lord simultaneously. Of those 2,500 ~273 have survived, of the 25,000 ~1839 have survived, and of the 500,000, ~83,724 have kept their titles. From this perspective the fluidity of the 'intergenerational project' becomes apparent. Indeed it invites great reason to applaud and respect those thirteen families which have lasted nearly 80,000 years. So yes, the veneer of ancestry, of importance, of regel elegance are all present, but for the great majority of lords it is triffle more than circumstancial pomp. Let hte beautiful warships fly, let htem be well painted, let hte armies parade, make your beautiful art. But those of us who spent thirty years in the Federal service will never forget seeing our parliamentary and constintiotnal allies flee in terror at hte first pouding of the enemy cannons, leaving behind their fancy war machines and impressive barrackes, and soon after watching as our hereditary allies threw themselves into mindless slaughters searching for glory and honour as though they were Versians. We watched as the Federal navy, and the Federal army did all the real work, while the lords and their soft armies took the honours and credits. We know that we will win. But that does not mean we want imperalism as Lewer-Mcintosh proposes. Sure she may say that her imperial engine will be the commons rather than the Senate, but she leaves the president open to be transformed into Emperor again. Then she demands teh totality of the economy be shifted under the rule of the masses-in-Commons, while the commons themselves become the tools of the president and Commons to command and contorl, perported for the betterment of the commons, but in clear reality for the betterment of the Commons. No. I want a recognition that the only instition of our government which has ever cared for the good of the majority in any real sense is the Senate. The instition which birthed hte Federation, and which through its dissolution of power has seen the Federation propser. This is the truth which all great DAM recongize. I agree with Lewer-McIntosh in so far as I want ot circumscribe the power of the Lords and the Eklords. However I agree with Goodwin when she cautions againsta totalitizing revolution. I want the Senate strengthened at the expense of hte Lords and Business, and I want the Senate weaked by requiring popular elections. I want the lordly militarais abolished as a waste of taxpayer money, but I also want sizable fleet reform so that private companies can develop their own auxillary navies protecting communiaties from Federal power. I accept that we are in a transitional moment of the economy and no I do not have a solution for Lady Goodwin. However I don't think I need one. I just know that I want my children to have access to jobs. I don't want them to become netizans, but i don't think that justifies hating netizans. They deserve respect, they are our fellow humans and our Federation is rich enough to let htem have the choice to opt out. I would rather the conversation move towards, now can we find productive an meaningful work for Netizans to make them contribuing members of our Federation? Really what we need is a restoration of our social contract, our agreement between the governed and the governing. Not just a reaffirmation of our existing legal agreements but a renegotitation, a recognition that we don't want revolutionary upset, but at the same time, we need change. That is my vision going forward. Hopefully my small, tiny, voice from a far away place may be hard in the hallowed halls of power.