What is the point of this story?

Translator! Somebody fetch us a translator!

Since Webboard's still down, you'll have to come here for all of your circular debate needs (names have been changed to initials, in order to technically protect the identities of the combatants while still making it abundantly clear who we - er, "they" - are):

R: Read your blog. You're misguided on all points.

S: That's a succinct summary. Will you be posting it in the comments section?

R: Eventually. For now I just insulted you.

S: Well, that's the next best thing.

R: It's still a step up from my typical Council argumentation.

S: The mutterings from beneath your desk, where you're nearly passed out?

R: Those would be the ones. I prefer the term "representation".

S: "Thank you Mr. Speaker. While I would not pretend to disagree with the *sentiments* behind Councillor Smith's BLEEEEEAAAARGH."

*Thunderous applause*

You're a modern-day Winston Churchill.

R: I appreciate the "thunderous applause".

S: Well, I'd applaud that.

R: Now, generally speaking, the independents are more powerful now because they are un-whipped swing voters. Look at Cadman. Or look at Kilgour getting Darfur promises.

S: Okay, but what would have happened if O'Brien had stayed in his caucus and *behaved* as a swing voter?

R: That would be your view of how the HOC should work.

S: Yes. My point is just that you don't gain any power by leaving a caucus.

R: Effectively, you do.

S: You gain power by refusing to allow your vote to be whipped.

R: But they are whipped. Realize it.

S: They are whipped, but only because they consent to being whipped.

R: Independents have more personal freedom than cabinet ministers, whether you like to admit it or not. In the state of today's government, that gives them a lot of leverage. And it's easy to say, "they don't need to be whipped", etc etc. But we have party solidarity in our system, and that's just the way it is.

S: MPs have the freedom to vote as they choose, if they're willing to risk being kicked out of their caucuses.

R: But they typically aren't. I know you don't like the party system, but that's irrelevant.

S: As such, they voluntarily relinquish a degree of freedom.

R: Yes, they do. And, when they become independent, they regain it.

S: But they didn't need to relinquish it in the first place.

R: That would undermine the entire party system.

S: All the better. Let's deal with this from the perspective of an individual MP. Why should he/she relinquish her/his freedoms to prevent the entire party system from being undermined?

R: Doesn't matter. Until the party system goes away, that's the framework within which we look at things. And, the fact that he left instead of being a rebel backbencher, demonstrates that he respects that system. As for Belinda, she's whipped. He's not. Thus, he has more leverage.

S: I don't understand how you can possibly say that my question "doesn't matter". It seems to be the foundation of our argument.

R: The way you're approaching things is like, if I were to get a raise and said that I'm better off, and you said "you're not better off because you should have been paid that much in the first place".

S: Let me adjust that analogy a little: you voluntarily relinquish a portion of your salary, because "that's the way things are". Then you take a new job that pays the same, but stop relinquishing a portion of your salary and you are, for some reason, happy about your "good fortune". *Then* I tell you that it doesn't matter, because you were being paid that much in the first place. Then you quiver on the ground in the face of my dominant logic.

R: S, if we assume party solidarity to take place, does this dude have more voting flexibility than he did before?

S: Yes. But I reject that assumption.

R: How? Party solidarity exists.

S: And again we return to the point that it only exists because the whipped allow themselves to *be* whipped.

R: Yes. Because that's the nature of the system.

S: Do you see any problem at all with people agreeing to forfeit their freedoms, not for any higher purpose, but because "that's the nature of the system"?

R: They aren't "forfeiting their freedoms". They agree to function in a party system.

S: Which, I think we've agreed, entails a forfeiture of freedoms.

R: Which isn't necessarily a bad thing. There are positives to a party system. I'm saying that, given how our system works, he is in a different position. You're questioning the system. I prefer to look at reality.

S: I view "the system" as being the set of rules within which MPs must operate, not the ones in which they *choose* to operate.

R: Then you're on crack. With that, I'm off to bed.

Are we even speaking the same language, here?