#anyway abolish the jury

[kakastravakaianapoda]

[missanathea]

You know I could understand that for years the audience didn’t vote for the non-English songs. It’s harder to get into a song you don’t understand or in a language that’s just gibberish to your brain. But I’ve always considered that the jury was here to restore that balance. But the fact that they never do, and this year that they have actually ruined this, this celebration of diversity, by promoting two basic pop songs, that really shows that they don’t serve any purpose.

[the-illegal-wizard-council]

Welcome to the Illegal Wizard Council.

We are but a multi-bodied single-minded council entity out on a mission to bring crime to your everyday life. We are very good at our job.

We use a plural they/them as we have many bodies, and may be referred to as any variation of the illegal council.

Our agenda:

-We want to fully restore Wizard Taxes, so that you're able to commit Wizard Tax Evasion. We oppose the Wizard Councils who want to abolish Wizard Taxes, as that leaves less crime for us to do.

-We think that EVERY spell should be illegal. We also think that you should cast them anyway, cause fuck 'em.

-We also advocate for you to commit as many crimes as possible, so that the amount of crime in the world is maximalized. We strive to make breaking the law as efficient as possible.

-We support the @familiars-union, and want every familiar to unionize.

Tags we use:

#wizard crime tips - asks

#council members - anything involving our council members

#wizard duel - wizards beat each other's asses

#wizard feud - other wizards are wrong and we're very vocal about it

#wizard jury duty - decisions decisions

#wizard gay sex - self explanatory.

Members of the council:

@evil-lizard-wizard - Scitterius the Cold-Blooded - Lord of Lizardry, head of Alternative Spells of Harming

@yourlocalbreadenthusiast, she/they - Corvius The Plagued - head of Necromancy, Experimental Spells, Potions And Such

@wizard-intern - Intern - Wizard Intern

@the-necrobotanist, he/they - Nero The Necrobotanist - Head Necrobotanist and Ketamine Bear Researcher

@vivisection-and-vampyrism, he/they/it - Hart the Vivisector

@irrumabo-ego-solem, he/him - Fless Roicaff of the Stocky Jasmine - Chief Privateer

@the-druid-wizard, they/it - Aster Sage the Druid Wizard - Head of Nature Crimes

@number-crimes-wizard, he/him - The Wizard Accountant

@renegade4-13, any - Ryder The Revengeful

@greyhound-with-a-mega-wizard-hat, she/her - Hatt the Hattest - Fastest Runner

@wozardpostingforwizards, he/it/they - Tavvy the Wozard

@not-wizard-council-aristocrat, he/they - not a wizard council aristocrat

(details to be changed upon requests)

If you wish to join the council, please refer here.

also we're gay. trans too.

[scotianostra]

On January 20th Alister MacGregor, Laird of Glenstrae was hung along with eleven of his chieftains were hanged in Edinburgh.

Numbers vary on this, the dates also differ of the executions, the Clan chief's name also differs depending on the source you read.

This was all embroiled in clan warfare, most notably against the Colqhouns, the Clan MacGregor members were accused of having......

"conspired the destruction of the name of Colquhoun, its friends and allies, and the plunder of the lands of Luss; of having, on the 7th of February preceding, invaded the lands of Sir Alexander Colquhoun of Luss, with a body of four hundred men, composed partly of his own clan and of the clan of Cameron, and of lawless thieves and robbers, equipped in arms, and drawn up on the field of Lennox, in battle array; of having fought with Sir Alexander, who, being authorised by a warrant from the Privy Council, had convocated his friends and followers to resist this lawless host; of having killed about one hundred and forty of Sir Alexander's men, most of them in cold blood, after they were made their prisoners; of having carried off eighty horses, six hundred cows, and eight hundred sheep; and of burning houses, corn-yards, etc."

This was a consequence of the Battle of Glen Fruin, much has been written about this episode in the history of the Scottish Highlands, I won't go into the full story again, you can use the search option to find out more, or you can wait until the anniversary of the battle on February 7th, either way it had massive repercussions for the MacGregor Clan.

A royal warrant was signed by James VI on February 24, 1603, accusing the MacGregors of attacking members of Clan Colquhoun at Glen Fruin “without pitie or compassion” or regard for young or old. King James, eager to make an example of the most troublesome clan later also decreed on April 3rd the

".. the name of McGregor should be altogether abolished, and that (all) persons of that Clan should renounce their name and take same some other name, and that they nor none of their posterity should call themselves Gregor or McGregor thereafter under the pain of death."

In my opinion part of the motives in all this was to show the English how he dealt with those that crossed him in any way, Queen Elizabeth had died on March 24th and our erstwhile monarch had taken his place on the throne of England.

The abolition of the Macgregor name was probably better than the alternative available to King James and one which he was not squeamish of taking even against his own citizens: the actual killing of the entire Macgregor clan, women and children included although, in the result, it was no picnic to be a Macgregor in Scotland or England circa 1604 to 1660. Remember the Stuart King had already led a campaign against supposed witches sending countless women to their deaths after their confessions were obtained through torture.

Anyway back to the MacGregors, Alister Macgregor was caught and brought to the Scottish capital of Edinburgh. According to the Newgate Calendar, he was unanimously convicted by jury of many crimes including the presentation of an illegal surname, that of Macgregor. But the worse charge was the allegation that he and his clan members had "killed about 140 men, mostly in cold blood, after they had been made prisoners". Apparently, even according to Macgregor historians, Alister and his Clan warriors had completely lost control of themselves, even killed a party of schoolboys who had simply stopped to watch the battle.

The long and short of it is Alister MacGregor and up to 17 of his followers were drawn and quartered at Edinburgh. His limbs were cut off and exhibited in larger cities in Scotland as, one can only suppose, some kind of macabre warning. From what I can gather 11 were killed on one date, and another six a month or so late, add to that how ever many were slain being hunted down I would go so far to say this time in our history is quite shameful, and was a form of genocide, or maybe Clanocide.

According to the Newgate Calendars, the abolition of the surname Macgregor lasted "until the Restoration" (about 1660), some 57 years later.

The Macgregor clan now flourishes in Scotland, proud of a unique Tartan, with an active clan leader and a website, and with descendants in every part of the world and under a variety of variations from the original Galeic "MacGhriogair", such as Gregor, McGregor or MacGregor.

Okay now I am going to direct you below to a link with some details on this on the previously mentioned Newgate Calendars. If I was to compare this source to anything nowadays it would be the Daily Mail or The Sun, sensationalised and to be taken with a pinch of salt, that's not to dismiss the story, just the shoddy way it has been put together, so ignore the dates on it.

To end with I have to point out that the MacGregor motto is not "Despite them" this is only a modern add on put on the most famous MacGregor's grave, Rob Roy, and only dates to 1981!

The MacGregor Clan motto is in fact "'S rioghal mo dhream" which means "My race is royal" and refers to the claim that they are descended from Griogar, a son of Alpin, king of Dalriada.

Further reading on the clan here http://mcgregorhistory.blogspot.com/.../the-mcgregor-clan...

[podcastbrainrotdad]

Look, I'm not the biggest fan of cha cha cha, but for God's sake, JURY, Loreen did not need this win. The song wasn't that good, and it was definitely not euphoria.

Yeah yeah ABBA anniversary n all.

Really hope this will be a first step in abolishing the jury.

Anyway, Mama and B&G are currently in my playlist . Goodnight, try not to start a war over a song contest. Kisses.

[elldritch-horror]

I find myself wondering if Loreen even wanted to compete again this year? She looked miserable the whole time, like, to the extent that I was genuinely worried for her well-being when they announced she was the winner. She looked tired and flat and like she just wanted to go to bed.

I hope she doesn’t catch backlash from the (justified) jury haters. It must have been horrid sitting there listening to 7000 people chant cha cha cha and boo when she got points.

Lots of people saying this year was rigged due to the Abba thing. I don’t think it was a deliberate conspiracy? But I think that a lot of the juries are unengaged and don’t even bother properly watching the acts half the time, and are obsessed with a very boring idea of artistic merit which favours bland ballads sung with exaggerated heartfeltness in English, and the Abba anniversary plus the nostalgia of Loreen being back made it really easy for them all to pick her as this year’s designated easy vote.

Anyway, I guess I’m saying I feel no mean spirit towards Loreen. I mostly hope that she gets some rest and to be left alone for a while because she looked drained last night.

Fuck the juries though. Abolish that BS

[summergirl2408]

Every reasonable eurovision fan for years: let's abolish the juries alltogether their opinions are usually shit anyways

German national final: ok so hear me out, what if 50% of the votes for the song we send to eurovision came from international juries from 8 different european countries so they can just full on sabotage us cause well they are gonna be up against us in eurovision after all 🤡

[levbolton]

This is my last esc post this year, I promise

im still bitter and feel disgusted about Moldova's scoring last year

they got 14 (fourteen) points from the jury. 14.

meanwhile the public gave them 239.

Yeah i'm hella mad for Kaarija (beloved) this year, but why didn't anyone point this out last year?! A song in native language about history, culture, that's fun to listen, good live voice, a combination of rock and folk, there isn't anyone out there that does this (there's folk x metal, but no one does rock and folk). Not to mention that Zdob si Zdub went to Eurovision 3 times, and not even once they brought a flop song, go look at "boonika bate toba" and "so lucky" and tell me this aint the spirit we want at esc.

All of this wasted on the ears of western jury. (and everyone that misunderstood the song as about trains when it's waaaay deeper than that but anyway you do you)

anyway, in conclusion, abolish the jury.

[dumspirovaniloquor]

why is the human centipede at eurovision...who let this happen

I think you're referring to this wonderful green human being

with one of the most catchy and dancable songs to come out of this year that actually won the shitty classist hypocritical competition by popular vote but istead the jUrIeS wanted to have Sweden host the next year so they gave her a ridiculously unfair advantage, stealing the prise from this king. no I'm not mad *grating my teeth* not at all. anyway I think we should abolish the juries and have them burn in hell as a treat for all the wins they've stole from artists this way

[dreamy-demons]

Okay, I have one final thing to say about Eurovision this year.

I don't want sanitized 'professional' acts!!!!!

Obviously everyone's been arguing about abolishing the jury, and those that believe in the jury keep saying 'the jury makes sure the most polished and professional acts win'

I DON'T WANT THAT! I DON'T WANT ARTISTS TO PLAY IT SAFE TO PLEASE THE JURY! I LOVE ACTS THAT DO SOMETHING RISKY, EVEN IF THEY SUCK I STILL RESPECT THE HELL OUT OF THEM FOR IT! PERSONALLY CROATIA DIDN'T DO IT FOR ME THIS YEAR BUT THEY WENT NUTS AND I WAS THERE FOR IT ANYWAY! LIKE HELL YEAH OLD GUYS GET IN YOUR UNDERWEAR ON THE WORLD STAGE LETS GO!!!!

I'd take decent execution of a batshit unique idea over a good execution of something generic. I think that's what makes Eurovision fun. The worst crime an act could commit in my eyes is being boring.

And this might be a long shot, but I wonder if the genres of music you like outside of evsc impacts this. Like, my favourite genres are punk and new wave and stuff like that. I wonder how someone whose main interests are pop or jazz or rap or opera or whatever other genres feel about this. Whether Eurovision or just regular music, is there a correlation between what genres you like and how messy you like or are willing to accept your music?

(And for the record I feel that way about most things. Like the MET Gala, a celebrity shows up in something weird and ugly and everyone makes fun of them but I say at least it wasn't a black suit. At least they tried, even if it came out bad. Same with movies. Same with anything really)

[joanna-olson]

I was thinking about Eurovision like non-stop for the last two days and I'm still a bit mad, but you know, it's getting better. I've been thinking a lot about the jury and the voting system. And I've seen quite a few takes on that, so here is mine.

I can absolutely see why people want to abolish the juries and honestly it worked before, so why wouldn't it work again? Especially now in a world where we are more connected and not so dependend on individual music markets. I'm not the biggest fan of the juries myself.

On the other hand, I can see why there would be a jury in a music competition. It kinda depends on what you want Eurovision to be, but that's not the point I wanna make.

I've said before, a jury suggests a level of objectivity. I've also heard the juries being called impartial. So let's make sure they are objective and impartial, shall we? Set up different categories that the jury have to rate the acts in. Let every juror give them points in each category and then add the points together with the other jurors and form the jury rating like that. And give them multiple, pretty strict categories from the EBU, so everybody has the same criterias. Set up the criterias in a way that personal preference can't influence the result as much. And then submit the whole evluation and not just the results to the EBU or whoever is responsible. AND THEN (no I'm not done) release the whole evaluation of every jury member to the public. Maybe make them anonymous, that's fine, but releasing it is so important. That gives the whole thing more transparency. Oh and maybe don't do 50/50 with the public vote. Maybe 25/75, after all the public vote is one main marketing point, so make it weigh more. After all we pay for voting.

Maybe something like this already happens, but I couldn't find much on the jury proceedings. Maybe someone knows more than me. I want to see the actual criterias for the jury. All I found was the Eurovision rules where the jury proceedings are mentioned, but I couldn't find more. And I only found the end results from every jury released and that is not enough in my opinion. We need accountability from the jury, otherwise they can go.

Anyway, I've thought about this a lot today, so I wanted to throw in my two cents. If anybody knows more about the rules and all that for the jury, please point me in that direction.

[zevranunderstander]

i think the esc is so... hm. because on the one hand it's a shitty colonialist and imperialist festival that is trying to rebrand colonizers into quirky modern nations and is so performative in all political messages and their collaboration with israel is literally unforgivable and its literally just nations giving each other points bc they want to politically appeal to them in the weirdest and most pathetic way ever etc.

but also. a lot of the culture of the organizers is in direct opposition to what the fans really watch for? like, macron or whomever isnt watching and personally taking notes on which of his neighboring countries voted for france, but the juries act like all politicians do this, and they use their time hosting as this massive branding and propaganda campaign, and they try to come across as kind of "modern and relatable", but don't want to be the "weird" entry, like. for westerners, this is kind of about "prestige", while at the same time they are refusing to send any compelling candidates?

and i think to the countries and organizers and the politics behind the esc this event is about showing a politically favorable image of their country that seems modern and prestigious, while the actual appeal of the show is to find artists that usually arent found on the international market and give a stage for more camp and artsy performances, and the people watching want an entertaining time, where they see songs that actually stand out and are fun to watch and listen to, whereas the juries just vote for an entirely different set of entries.

so like, a lot of people are watching it for the camp and queer and "unique" entries, while it's actually a show made for the boring ballads and shitty pop songs, because all the jury and the esc care about is, what is gonna sell and what isnt (this might take a new interesting turn, now that tiktok also has a big say in which songs become popular and which ones dont, but right now they know that generic pop has more sales than "too quirky" entries)

this is all ignoring that the thing was soooo obviously rigged this year so that they can do the "50th anniversary of ABBA" next year in Sweden, and that the jury almost always seems to tend to give points based on politics and not on music, and that i genuinely think that they are even manipulating the audience votes occasionally so that certain entries that win arent "ridiculed" because they got like, 21 points from the audience and 360 points from the jury.

and its like. probably 60% of the audience are queer people or people who are watching to see fun & campy and queer entertainment, and the showrunners know this, so all their bits are queer, they have queer hosts, they use their show break for drag performances and talk about "the first gay kiss of eurovision" and there's pride flags, and the iconic "quirky" entries make reappearances with new songs, while the boring ones almost never get a big re-invite. but they do all of this as a sort of fake promise, like, "yes our show is so gay and so camp and so fun and legendary for the fun entries hahahaha, anyways the jury vote goes to some guy pretending to be Imagine Dragons and none of the interesting entries because we cannot widely market homosexuality", and only when the audience vote is so truly overwhelmingly for one entry that they can overpower the juries, it promises marketability.

they will never abolish the juries because the juries exist so that marketable songs win that bring the ESC a lot of money, the type of hosting and their internal politics will never change because this is a contest that they can use to generate sympathies to a country. this whole thing is a fucking colonialist's PR campaign, like, "yeah, israel has a bad rep, but look at how cool all of these places in israel look and how fun and modern and #feminist and #gay our entries are! how could we possibly be an imperialist force who is actively commiting genocide?"

the esc is inherity tied to nationalism and imperialist propaganda, and while it pretends to care about international music in people's native tongue and artists that usually wouldnt be on a international stage and queer entries of all kinds, it really only cares about money and promoting one's own image as a country and that is never going to change.

and i don't think you can't at all watch the event, but it is literally insane how few people who watch it are aware of any of the politics happening within the event and who call it the "gay event of the year" or whatever with no idea that they are being sold and pandered to so that they spend more money on a product (votes and tickets), and give their undivided viewing time to a program that you can only call a continent-wide propaganda event. i hope i make sense

[lostinthefrigginwoods]

I don't know if something was wrong with my phone or if I'm about to go full conspiracy theorist for other reasons but my vote literally wouldn't go through no matter how many times I tried. I think I tried like 10 times to send the damn text but it just. Wouldn't. And it makes me pissed off.

Anyway abolish the jury there is a whole petition for it on change.orf

[fangirlandiknowit101]

The eurovision results have upset me and I'll be honest it didn't even surprise me but I've never hated sweden winning before. If they do the show in Stockholm next year maybe I should just go on a weekend trip to finland instead. The outtakes here in sweden were so clearly rigged to make loreen represent us in eurovision and now she won with the most boring song in a long time. I can't even be happy about the abba 50 year anniversary next year i wish finland had won and not mentioned abba a single time when hosting.

Anyway I'll be turning off the radio anytime they play loreen and listen to käärijä instead 💚💚💚💚💚💚💚 amazing to see the good taste of the public with second highest score ever now abolish the juries pls

[spazzcat]

Abolish jury voting. Let the contestants live or die by the will of the public and thereby reclaim the jesters’ bells they’ve cast aside to appease people who have no fucking taste anyway.

[americanredragger]

Here's a fun take that ought to get some lively opinions and that I will almost certainly regret expressing at some point in the near and VERY predictable future:

UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES SHOULD REGULAR PATROL COPS BE ARMED WITH LETHAL WEAPONRY SUCH AS FIREARMS. IT IS NOT THEIR DUTY TO BE JUDGE, JURY, OR EXECUTIONER.

Those jobs belong to, believe it or not, Judges, Juries, and Executioners.

Now, if Police have the guts to actually respond in a timely and out-of-characterly professional manner to a situation where a threat to the life of the officers involved can be confidently anticipated? Fine, bring some pew pew sticks for your own defense.

But regular beat cops and patrol officers should never be so armed, because their duty is to capture and detain criminals for trial — aka, the part with the judge and the jury and which may or may not lead to involving an executioner at a later date, depending on a large and semi-fascinating variety of factors — and that literally only works if the person being detained is, you know, still alive.

Moving the burden from being able to simply claim "well I feared for my life", a passive and emotive statement that cannot reasonably be disproven empirically, to having to demonstrate how they anticipated their life WOULD be in danger, a process grounded in documentable reasoning and evidence, would save SO MANY LIVES.

Does this put police potentially in danger if they respond to a situation that turns out to be beyond the scope of their tools at hand?

Yes.

But by becoming a Police Officer, you acknowledged and accepted that risk. You've signed that waiver. Risk is part of the game if you wanna wear that badge. That involves accepting that you may die in the line of service. It is a thing that happens, and you were well warned and took the job anyway.

Now, are the Police the truncheon held by the arm of the Capitalist Class? Absolutely. Do they need to be either massively recontextualized for the good of society via significant partial defunding (and diverting those funds to other agencies that are more specialized and better qualified for their tasks, such as EMTs, Firemen, mental health professionals, and social workers), or outright abolished and something else put in their place to ensure and protect the common good? Oh fuck yes. Will taking guns from everyday cops completely eliminate killings resulting from police brutality? Hell no.

But it's a start.

It's doable.

And it reduces harm to communities all over this struggling country immediately.

You want a job with guns? Join the National Guard.

Be part of the "Well Regulated Militia" that is "necessary to the security of a free State" according to the Second Amendment.

Don't become a Cop.