Kalistan

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Princess of the Empire Delivers Keynote Speech
"Empire of Rights" lays out Kalistani philosophy on political freedom
Eveari, Grand Duchy of Ananto
February 1, 5738


Princess of the Empire Carolina Ananto-Connor speaks to High Eveari Society

The Eveari Garden Club's Winter Party is always a Who's Who of Imperial High Society. This highly exclusive engagement tends to welcome members of the Anantonese Peerage and Gentry, along with high profile guests. Of course the press gains access as well. The Party usually features the finest in cuisine cooked by world class chefs, socializing, and entertainment, including music and dancing. It also features a major key note speech by a high profile national orator. This year, the Eveari Garden Club selected the hometown option, and invited Her Highness, Princess of the Empire Carolina Ananto-Connor, who is also the Countess of Eveari County, to deliver the address. Though she is an active member of the Eveari branch of the all-female National Garden Club, her prestige both as the former Empress and a world renowned and respected intellectual made her an obvious choice for the annual event.

This year, the Princess of the Empire gave a speech called "The Empire of Rights," which presented a unifying picture of individual political rights within the Empire of Ananto and Kalistan. Below is the transcript of the Princess' speech:

Hello fellow Peers and Ladies of the Garden Club. If you do not know me, my name is Carolina. I am a long time member of this Garden Club. I know most of you, but would also like to extend a welcome to our new members who have joined since we were last together. You are the future of this excellent and most prestigious organization, and whether you have come from Sulari, or Kaliburg, or even right here in Eveari, I would personally like to greet you as a Sister and a fellow Gardener.

If this is your first, or your fiftieth Winter Party, let me be the first also to apologize for my topic tonight. Usually, the speech includes humor and is entertaining. But I have a bit too much of my grandmother and not enough of my mother, and humor is something that is often kind of difficult for me. I am fun, but I can't remember if anyone has ever called me funny... Ah, you're laughing, well, that's a positive start. I will however, in an effort to keep up the tradition, begin with a joke. They say that when you are nervous and have to make a speech, you should imagine your audience naked. But I think that is wrong. I think I should imagine myself naked... Because if I am standing up here naked, you probably won't be paying any attention to what I'm saying or hear any of it anyway, which means I can say anything I want... (at this point the audience laughed) Oh good. Ok, that one worked... alright... I'll have to remember that one. (applause) Thank you, you are very kind.

I'm not nervous in fact. Tonight, I would like to talk to you about our nation, and the rights of individuals. We all are aware of some of the efforts that conservatives are making around the world to limit the rights of certain groups of people. Without naming those nations, due to a desire to not interfere with things that are, fortunately, above my pay grade, I would just state that some places which Kalistanis had long associated with liberty appear to be rolling back some of those freedoms. And in fact, those rollbacks seem to be rather arbitrary in their nature: There is no cause for these rights to be rolled back. There is no historical catalyst for these rollbacks. The action against certain groups of people seem to be a matter of political ideology, and they verge upon scapegoating of certain groups of people.

It becomes easy to pick on protected groups. Whether it be impoverished people, or ethnic or religious minorities, or people who live a different lifestyle than we do, as a result of genetic predisposition or choice, what it boils down to is that this is a political choice, and not a normative impetrative. In fact, it is a very easy step to take from denying political rights to people to denying them their humanity. And who benefits from this? We could say, those who rely on the politics of exclusion are the ones who benefit. 'Vote for us, because we will hurt your enemies for you. Who are your enemies? We'll be happy to tell you.' It is this sort of attitude that leads to a sort of small minded totalitarianism, especially if the people themselves are not prepared to resist it, but instead, go along with it.

Kalistan is fundamentally a very conservative nation. To a large degree, my family has been responsible for that. I take that responsibility, as does my son and his daughter when it is her turn. We do not like change. We like things to stay as they are, because that gives people security. It helps us mitigate contingency as well as we are able. Nobody would ever claim that we are a liberal nation at any rate. Kalistan is the definition of illiberal, and I would add, I don't think anyone has a problem with that, within our nation at least. Plenty outside of our nation do, but their opinions on the question have never mattered much within our nation.

And yet: We are a conservative nation based on civil liberty. And I can add, within a fairly but not infinitely broad scope, we are a nation based on civil rights. We are, you may say, an Empire of Rights. There are many things that we are able to guarantee the people, and these rights are fundamental. They are political rights to be sure: In order to have a healthy society, people need not only the freedom to do things within their society, but they also need protections against oppressive forces telling them that if they believe, or act, a specific way, then their rights, and indeed, their humanity is forfeit, regardless of the justice of the laws proscribing such action--and to be clear here, I am certainly not saying there are not unjust laws: We absolutely know there are unjust laws. People know within our nation that they are free to believe, and to act in a way that accords them their own nature, and as long as they do not limit the rights of others to the same, they have freedom to act as they will.

Let's take a question like transgender identity. What would our society gain by our Emperor's Government limiting the freedoms of transgendered individuals just living? More importantly, how does one person's transgender identity affect the identity of another person at all? Like in any way? Does a transgendered female standing next to me make me somehow less female? Or should we be so totalitarian in our way of thinking that we cannot permit others to see themselves as they do? Should we not recognize the humanity in that person, as we ourselves demand that recognition from others for ourselves?

Well, His Imperial Majesty's Government has not opined on the question. My own government also refrained from making comment on that question. Because how one sees themselves is not necessarily a political question, or rather we should say, it is outside the realm of business. Our rights are attached to the person, not the identity. If a person comes to some self realization later in their life and realizes that they are transgendered, does that mean they should surrender their rights? The rights they have enjoyed without question their entire lives? The rights that makes them just like me, a citizen of this great nation and a subject of His Imperial Majesty, the Emperor William II Ananto? Why should it?

Why should a same sex couple choosing to live with one another and opting to adopt a child which was given up for some reason or another by their parents be subject to any scrutiny they wouldn't be if they were an opposite sex couple? The right to adopt is a political right. It has nothing to do with their sexual preferences. Why would it? And what business is it of His Imperial Majesty's Government to make any sort of comment on it? Why should our Government make any sort of comment on one's gender identity, or what is a marriage? Or what is a family? These are areas that are out of bounds for public attention in our Empire of Rights.

The Rights of the People are their rights by virtue of their being people. I believe those interested in limiting rights are those who believe that rights are a precious commodity: That extension of rights to one group must necessarily limit the rights for another. They do not have a problem with that, not at least as much as they are interested in determining which group gets the rights and which lose them. They are, therefore making a political choice which, at its logical extreme asks "who has the right to exist at liberty in society, and who deserves extinction?"

Kalistan is an Empire of Rights because we do not assert that rights are a zero-sum commodity. Rights should be expanded to all of society. Rights are meant to be protected against erosion, whether that erosion comes from a menace nearby or a government above you. The right to vote, the right to a trial by jury, the right to the means of survival, the right to a relatively equal share of the wealth of our society. These are the methods by which men and women more fully realize themselves in our society as civic individuals. With that is the right to love who one likes, and the right to express one's gender identity. Rights are expansive. They should apply the same for all, or they are cheapened for us all.

I'll say that again. Limiting the rights of one groups cheapens the rights for all those who enjoy those rights—if we assume rights are valuable because they allow individuals to exist more fully in our society, that is. We would not tolerate giving certain groups of people more privileges in our society than we have, why should we expect them to accept fewer privileges in our society than we have? Would any of us seriously advocate the exclusion of rights for anyone else so that our own rights feel more valuable?

I can answer that by looking at the question from the other side. If we take the opposing argument, expressed by these individuals seriously, the right is only of some value if someone can be excluded from it. But there is a problem with this logic. If you make a simple logical extension, this means the right is, in and of itself, not inherently valuable. It's only value lies in exclusion. Well, what is the point of pursuing rights for anyone then? Wouldn't it make sense to exclude as many people from those rights as you can, if your value is based on exclusion?

I have to acknowledge: As your Empress, when I served, I did stand on privilege. I still have privilege among you. So the irony of me talking about universal basic human rights is not entirely lost on me. But I would say also, what better champion could you find for the cause of these basic civil rights, which go to make our society better only to the extent that we as a society protect them for as many people as we possibly can than myself? I may be among the most highly privileged members of this society, yet my civil rights are exactly the same, by virtue of my humanity as anyone sitting in this room, indeed, any group or person in this Empire.

Kalistan is a conservative nation. Nobody can doubt this. But that conservatism conserves the legitimate and full rights of our citizenry against parochial, narrowminded beliefs being propagated for political gain by a segment of the society. We protect our rights and fiercely in this nation, against all comers, whether that be a foreign power aimed at forcing us to kneel to some external ideological order as the Liberals would, or our own government whose members seem to think sacrificing a small group of us for the benefit of a bare majority is not only a just idea but a profitable one as well. There are clearly some rights that the Emperor does not permit his people in this nation: Those rights primarily have to do with acts that will divide the society against itself and include specific political and economic privileges that specific sectors of society enjoy elsewhere that allows them to exploit their fellow citizens for their own personal and political gain. But protecting the rights of people involves curbing opportunities to act upon those base impulses in society.

For all legitimate civil rights, the People of this Empire will find no fiercer defender than the Emperor and his Government. From day one we are trained in, and then we reinforce ourselves, the notion that our society is healthy to the degree that civil rights and liberties are the cornerstone of the public space in this Empire. Without them, we are a tyranny. If His Imperial Majesty were to use his considerable authority and fiat to reduce the rights of one person, the rights he has guaranteed to them, Kalistan would descend into a tyranny. As it is right now, nobody can legitimately charge us with tyranny because the rights of the people are always in his mind as the foundation of his fiat. The people may not have the right to change our government as they do in a democracy, but what they receive in exchange is virulent and tenacious defense of their rights, to live as they wish, to be with who they wish, and to see themselves as they wish.

The same rights you enjoy daily. The same right I take for granted. The same rights His Imperial Majesty, and his Government, protect steadfastly and resolutely. And no bare majority, conservative or otherwise, has the right to determine that these rights may be dispensed with, on any level. Because Kalistan is indeed an Empire of Rights. I would say: We are an empire of Right. In all senses of that word. And it is a matter that I am particularly proud of. You should be too. Thank you Ladies of the Garden Club for allowing me to share my comments with you today and I wish you a Happy and pleasurable rest of your Winter."

The Princess of the Empire was given a standing ovation by those present at the Party, and she later donated a Million Imperial pesos to the work of the Eveari Garden Club, both in Eveari and in Ananto, encouraging those present to similarly open their pocketbooks and follow suit. Nearly everyone there treated the invitation as if it were still imperial fiat.

@LaModa