Kingdom of God: A Quest of Holy Revolution

[X] Request a debt jubilee, relieving the weight of debt obligation on the people.

My Brothers and Sisters, I understand that there are many evils we wish to fight again, for the world is debased in sin in our times. But there is one battle we must fight before all others, and that is to cast down the evils of Debt Bondages.

We are the Free, our very purpose is to fight for the Liberation of all. What men, what women can be free when they are trapped under the chains of debt? Sure some of our oppressors would argue that debt is nothing, that there is nothing physically binding these people. That they can still walk around, live, laugh, and work freely. But that is a lie. Debt is the greatest of the world's evils, precisely because it is an invisible chain.

How can one break free when their chains cannot be seen with the eye? How can one laugh freely when the noose is tightening around their neck? How can one call themselves free when the Corrupt can barge in and take everything from them with a piece of paper? Free someone from their iron chains, from the steel bars of the prisons, from the guns of the corrupt Jurors, and yet all of that will accomplish nothing. Nothing but the delusion of freedom! A Fake, a falsehood meant to veil the eyes of the righteous. With debt bondage, they will still be enslaved! They will never be free!

Debt is nothing more but the work of Cannibals, who seeks to grind down the faithful and the honest until their narrows are sucked dry and their bones are reduced to dust, unfit for even the worms.

We fight for freedom, and this is the Liberation we must never turn away from. Yes, the corrupt fools of Nachiavan will never allow it. Yes, the Patriarch will not have the courage to do it. Yes, this will make us enemies. But who cares? Friends this is a Call to Arms, our scream against the injustice of the world so that we will not be eaten without making our voices heard to God in his Kingdom.

Once again I shall quote from the works of Prelate Lagarami Xoan. "I sometimes call out, to encourage those fighters who are galloping on in loneliness, so that they do not lose heart. Whether my cry is brave or sad, repellent or ridiculous, I do not care."

That is our duty.

[X] Abolish the legal status of penitents and free them from their bondage.
[X] Request a debt jubilee, relieving the weight of debt obligation on the people.

Approval voting is allowed.

Also, to clarify something, Vaspukaran has several kinds of unfree labour. Penitents are indentured servants and popular in areas where labour is otherwise free. Some regions of Vaspukaran, especially Gushanaram, have large populations of enserfed witches they use instead. And the south lowlands of Vaspukaran, on a line basically on the plain between the Hadit and the river system that includes Vadashta use the Oblate system, which are serfs who are in perpetual and inherited bondage to high priests. Keep in mind that for the letters from Ain Kalanu and Vadashta.

There's a lot going on here - shades of the list of grievances drawn up by the Estates General.

Seems like the most basic complaints once you look under the specific demands are an end to enclosure of the commons, lower taxes, debt relief, and standardization of laws, taxes, and customs duties.

There's also a variety of worldviews at work here from backwoods guys who got scammed in a railroad bubble, to what I sense is an actually reactionary position by the guys who want a stronger orthodoxy.

EDIT: The letter on monetary policy reminds me of the turn-of-the-century Greenbacks vs Gold Standard vs Free Silver vs Bimetallism debate. I guess these guys are William Jennings Bryan, of YOU SHALL NOT CRUCIFY MANKIND UPON A CROSS OF GOLD fame.

[X] Request a debt jubilee, relieving the weight of debt obligation on the people.

Friends, shall we stand idly by and turn away our eyes when our fellows are held in the most wretched of bondage? Not since the days of cruel Babarak have the people been enshackled to such a tyranny! I speak, of course, of the great physical and spiritual weight of the debts forced on us by a lordly mass, so enthralled by the Five Evils!

Our struggle is to bring up the weak and level down the mighty. How can this be done when some men hold others by their very soul? This cannot stand! We must demand His Holiness to immediately declare all of us free from the grasp of this choking darkness!

[X] Abolish the Threefold Tithe, a massive wealth transfer from the Mouflons to the other chambers.

I can think of no other measure that in its singular action would do more good to the faithful people of god and thereby allow them but the spare breath to perhaps work by degrees to all other measures, and perhaps in working for this with their own hands grow spiritually as well. Plus, it spits directly in the eye of the robber classes of landlord Deacons and serf-shackling High Priests, and the grand Juror-bankers who in turn profit from robbing the great robbers with their loans and debts.


EDIT: with approval voting also tossing in this as well

[X] Request a debt jubilee, relieving the weight of debt obligation on the people.

[X] Abolish the legal status of penitents and free them from their bondage.
[X] Request a debt jubilee, relieving the weight of debt obligation on the people.

[X] Reinforce and expand the Folk Rite, which protects Mouflon communal property rites.
Approval voting:
[X] Request a debt jubilee, relieving the weight of debt obligation on the people.

[X] Abolish the legal status of penitents and free them from their bondage.
[X] Reinforce and expand the Folk Rite, which protects Mouflon communal property rites.
[X] Abolish the Threefold Tithe, a massive wealth transfer from the Mouflons to the other chambers.

I will note that the debt jubilee is a one-time event that does nothing to actually address the underlying problems of the poor. We should do something that strikes at a major pillar of the present injustice and provides a rallying point for the people.

[X] Abolish the legal status of penitents and free them from their bondage.

Cetashwayo said:

An organic and integral union of the Vasp and all the other faithful is the way by which Vaspukaran will be brought back to the place of salvation. Anything else, and indeed to even entertain the folly of those who wish for this Sanhedron to be the harbinger of that old nightmare of 'reform', is the path to hell.

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Integralism? In our Vaspukaran!?

Cetashwayo said:

You must accept denominations in silver. Silver is free, it is holy, and it is abundant and it will level the wealth of the country. Further, you must reform the crafts examination process. Too many monks, novices and lay brothers are being blocked or charged terrible and destructive fees by those ill-rotten priors and abbots who seek to protect their workshops from the competition of better men and women. Finally, you must end at once the concessions granted to the Mare-

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These demands are something to consider-

Cetashwayo said:

-and raise severe customs wall everywhere to protect our goods from the Jurors! Tax-exempt and free from the litigious warfare of the indulgent classes, they are destroying us in a manner unbecoming of fellow faithful. Restore order to the heart of your country, o watchmaker, and repair the cogs of this exquisite machine!

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> more customs wall
> MORE CUSTOMS WALL

Oh no, these are tax farmers in waiting!

but anyways
[X] Abolish the legal status of penitents and free them from their bondage.
[X] Abolish the Threefold Tithe, a massive wealth transfer from the Mouflons to the other chambers.

[X] Request a debt jubilee, relieving the weight of debt obligation on the people.
[X] Pursue the sanctification of labour, improving the sacral and legal position of Mouflons.
[X] Abolish the Threefold Tithe, a massive wealth transfer from the Mouflons to the other chambers.

On one hand, debt jubilee alone is not going to be enough if people still getting taxed to death and have their communal land enclosed. On the other hand, we are not making a public policy, but a request for action, so maybe debt relieve might be more palatable?

Regency said:

Oh no, these are tax farmers in waiting!

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Nah, they are a smaller artisan class who are getting outcompeted by industrialist and suddenly having their livelihood ruined. They don't really want to be tax farmer as much as they to have a tariff and tax privilege so their good can be more competitive against the factory-made goods.

On the other note, our low roll difficulty in our home town is clearly God's punishment for our refusal to let guru Wendam reunite with his wife.

[X] Reinforce and expand the Folk Rite, which protects Mouflon communal property rites.
[X] Request a debt jubilee, relieving the weight of debt obligation on the people.

Thus speaks Sister Shevah while tying on her red headband so she can go proselytize the Gunpowder Eucharist to the womenfolk of Nachivan later:

I very firmly believe that without their property our mouflon brethren are doomed to be cut apart, sliced up like a wheel of cheese at a rich deacon's wedding, consumed piece by piece without recourse.

Without their property what will they then do, as a community? The tithes will still be there, will still be due, they will not be able to pay, and then it is enserfment or penitence, thus I say to you, my brethren: we must not, must not forget how important the folk rite is to a community is in this day and age. Not everyone lives in the synod city capitals!

etranger01 said:

I will note that the debt jubilee is a one-time event that does nothing to actually address the underlying problems of the poor. We should do something that strikes at a major pillar of the present injustice and provides a rallying point for the people.

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Cetashwayo said:

Also related to usury is that the Patriarch is expected to occasionally grant debt jubilees in order to alleviate it. There has been no such jubilee for over a hundred years and any Patriarch who dared without significantly increasing their power would be overthrown in a temple coup by the Jurors.

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Inasmuch as this isn't a vote on actual policy, but instead a cudgel to bludgeon reform into the ossified upper classes of the Kingdom of God, debt jubilee has been widely requested across several letters and has historical precedent, and seems a good first step to begin wresting power from the oligarchs.

Also debt jubilees were actually semi-regular events before the central power of the patriarch collapsed in the temple coup. It is a decent bandaid for short term relief of suffering, and likely to invite juror backlash, which is kindling for the Pugilist Revolution.

[X] Request a debt jubilee, relieving the weight of debt obligation on the people.

Cetashwayo said:

Revoke the results of the three Sanhedrons

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Found the arch-conservatives!

Typoes?

Cetashwayo said:

What can be said about us, who are called 'low priests', and yet so such high work?

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do?

Cetashwayo said:

Was is not the fundamental conclusion of the Confessional Sanhedron that we are all to be raised up to the priesthood,

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it?

Cetashwayo said:

Funding for the scholastic and artisan orders has completely collpased,

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collapsed?

[X] Reinforce and expand the Folk Rite, which protects Mouflon communal property rites.
[X] Request a debt jubilee, relieving the weight of debt obligation on the people.
[X] Abolish the Threefold Tithe, a massive wealth transfer from the Mouflons to the other chambers.

Also, if the Patriarch does actually manage a chad moment and pushes through a Debt Jubilee, the debt administrations which are choking the life out of select regions of the Kingdom of God will lose all legitimacy, which is no small thing.

It seems the prayer request that has the most broad appeal, traditional basis, and most likely to for the Patriarch to carry out if enough people ask for it, and the most likely to directly create a flashpoint with high jurors rising in open rebellion which imo is kind of inevitable and needed to clear out a lot of the rot.

We are not a militarily competitive nation and we need to behead our unholy chimera as fast as possible to try and fix that lest we get ottomanned or chinad.

[X] Abolish the Threefold Tithe, a massive wealth transfer from the Mouflons to the other chambers.

Did not Pasan Ghadi call on us to turn the leash on the wicked? Someone well versed in his teachings should recognize that he would have greatly approved of not giving the wicked the means to acquire the leash in the first place. This cursed tithe is a systematic transfer of god's riches designed to cement the blasphemous hierarchies that allowed the five evils to grow in the heart of god's kingdom for centuries. Breaking these hierarchies and stopping the upper chambers from growing rich on the blood and toil of god's true chosen, the mouflons, is the first step to true salvation. The wicked tithe is what allows the upper chambers to whip the downtrodden true children of god into submission because it turns their own labour against them by making their sinful masters richer and stronger everyday.

The mouflons are going to be backbone of our holy revolutionary army that is going to sweep away all the sinful internal divisions that pollute the kingdom of god. As pugilists should it not be our goal to foster self-discipline and reliance in the future soldiers of our army? Stopping the wicked from starving their children through the tithe is going to allow the mouflons to organize themselves and seek the true path to salvation.

I beseech you my comrades in god are we foolish moderates that want to rely on the patriarch for a debt jubilee that would strenghten his position while not doing anything about the rot of the five evils? Or are we true pugilists that want to form god's true revolutionary army by elevating the mouflons?

[X] Reinforce and expand the Folk Rite, which protects Mouflon communal property rites.
[X] Request a debt jubilee, relieving the weight of debt obligation on the people.

Regardless of what we beg from the Shepherd of Injustice, it shall not be granted! He stands upon the pyramid of evil, so why would he dismantle it foundations? No, these words will pass from corrupt to the wicked to liar! They will disappear in cogs of rotten machine, and cries of the People will be ignored!

Plenty of other communities are begging for a debt jubilee already because they're incredibly deep in the hole. If we're going to be petitioning, we need to focus on things that will advance our cause and materially improve the system in at least some way.

Therefore, I believe we should petition to either:
[X] Abolish the legal status of penitents and free them from their bondage.
[X] Abolish the Threefold Tithe, a massive wealth transfer from the Mouflons to the other chambers.

[X] Abolish the legal status of penitents and free them from their bondage.
[X] Abolish the Threefold Tithe, a massive wealth transfer from the Mouflons to the other chambers.
[X] Reinforce and expand the Folk Rite, which protects Mouflon communal property rites.

Though I acknowledge and despise the evils of debt bondage, a jubilee is merely a temporary relief from this degradation of pious spirits.
Is this Justice? Is it Justice for the wicked to cease their tormenting of the faithful just long enough that their victims can barely survive the next blow?

I say No! It is not enough to grant a temporary reprieve from the predations the wicked! We must strike a permanent blow against them and take a lasting step towards the final battle.

Shard of Victory said:

Regardless of what we beg from the Shepherd of Injustice, it shall not be granted! He stands upon the pyramid of evil, so why would he dismantle it foundations? No, these words will pass from corrupt to the wicked to liar! They will disappear in cogs of rotten machine, and cries of the People will be ignored!

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This I must concur with, with all my heart. I am not a lettered man so I cannot speak with the fervor with which my brothers and sisters so eloquently declaim those devils that squat upon and within the holiest of holies, but this much rings true even to my simple mind. I have no doubt that if their pocketbooks were threatened our brothers in the High Juries would not hesitate to enact a temple coup just as they did before...

On the other hand, it must be said that this letter, this appeal written up as part of this Grand Sanhedron, may indeed stand as proof of our conviction and our desires as Pugilists. So do not lose heart when you consider the futility of our current actions as well.

With all said and done I feel that we must, as others have said far more eloquently, endorse for the rights of the mouflon. Long they toil and bleed beneath their "betters" just as an ox toils and bleeds for a cruel taskmaster… and as I have said, perhaps it will be a bitter truth if what I dread—that our appeal and appeals like ours fall upon deaf ears and uncaring hearts—comes to pass. Even so it may be the medicine that will rouse hearts of conviction from stupor and apathy, just as Amalgast brought the light of wisdom to those who endured the darkness of ignorance. God willing, the false and the wicked will choke on this denial in due time.


[X] Pursue the sanctification of labour, improving the sacral and legal position of Mouflons.
[X] Abolish the Threefold Tithe, a massive wealth transfer from the Mouflons to the other chambers.

EDIT: changed votes

Let's be realistic: none of this is likely to happen. What we should be asking ourselves is which community needs a voice the most to rally around right now, and which community is most likely to form a base we can use to strike at the old order once convinced of our rightenousness by our demands. Don't really think about the positive consequences of those demands as much as who they rally and who they attack.

It's also worth remembering how we are sending the demand. Our sect splinter got a seat in a suburb of a large city, one where the poorer workers are likely to be segregated. They're representing Mouflons and I think our demands should reflect that to help their own efforts. If they can claim to be a voice for the Mouflon population of the city itself by demonstrating their dedication, it would be a great success. And it also shows that we don't make a mockery of their representation by starting with demands they're likely to share.

[X] Pursue the sanctification of labour, improving the sacral and legal position of Mouflons.
[X] Abolish the Threefold Tithe, a massive wealth transfer from the Mouflons to the other chambers.

Labour is I think the best bet, because it's what defines the day to day life of the lay people we're presenting demands for, and what the other social strata are exploiting. With stronger positions there, they'll be able to make their own claims for more.

The tithe is something they're likely to care about as it weights upon them, but I'm not sure it's as defining. It's probably a good compromise position though, since that's likely to be a concern shared by more rural Mouflons too.

[X] Request a debt jubilee, relieving the weight of debt obligation on the people.
[X] Pursue the sanctification of labour, improving the sacral and legal position of Mouflons.
[X] Abolish the legal status of penitents and free them from their bondage.
[X] Reinforce and expand the Folk Rite, which protects Mouflon communal property rites.
[X] Expand and reinforce Mouflon legal rites, protecting them from unjust arrest.
[X] Abolish the Threefold Tithe, a massive wealth transfer from the Mouflons to the other chambers.

Give us everything or we shall take it! No, I don't care that only 1 can win.