Marokai Blue for Senator: Re-election time is-a comin'

[Vepres]

But tonight, I know. I know the Senate all too often passes important legislation with literally no debate! Is this really activity? I don't believe you can achieve real activity in the Senate by pushing pieces of legislation forward, and passing them with no debate. It gives the illusion of activity, to be sure, but we're supposed to be governing here, folks! I want an on-the-issues approach in every way, and I want to pay a close eye to legislation we're proposing.

I agree with this. The senators seem to be too respectful towards each other. It gets to the point where they fear even criticizing a bill beyond a, I don't agree.

Unfortunately, I won't be supporting you in this election, but if you do win I believe you will be a fine addition to the senate.

[Vepres]

In order to have true balance wouldn't we need a conservative to win?

As far as I can tell, the current senate is 8 conservatives and moderates, and only 1 liberal (though I still want tmthforu94 to win).

[Vepres]

In order to have true balance wouldn't we need a conservative to win?

As far as I can tell, the current senate is 8 conservatives and moderates, and only 1 liberal (though I still want tmthforu94 to win).

No, We have:

Four Libertarians: Franzl, DWTL, Afleitch and PiT
Four Liberals: BaconKing, Purple State, Happy Warrior and realisticidealis
Two Conservatives: Master Jedi and Smid.

It's hard to tell though because many bills pass with 7-9 senators voting for them, with little debate. As Marokai said, this is boring and bad for Atlasian elections and activity.

[Vepres]

I would like to take the time to address a couple things here at my campaign office..

Another idea I can throw out there would be a weekly recap of what went on in the senate, written and published in the Atlas Fantasy Election forum so everyone can see which bill was voted on and who voted nay or yay. For the year and a half I've been in Atlas, I never knew for the life of me what was going on in the Senate. Sure, I was lazy, but I don't expect everyone to read through pages and pages of jibber jabber to find out answers.

Unfortunately that is the responsibility of the people who have newspapers, but they seem to have fallen behind through all the important events.

I think, though, that this could end up making the current problem worse, which is that the Senate is a little too hand-holdy and conciliatory all in an effort to pass as much legislation as possible and it results in minimal discussion and minimal debate. Truthfully, I don't care if each Senate only passes a half a dozen or so pieces of legislation if those bills were actually debated and discussed. We need activity, but we need to stop the cycle of "Make law -> Repeal law -> Repeal the repeal of the law -> ...etc" and actually focus on getting it right the first time.

The people have to know that they're not electing robots (some Senators aside!) that just offer the occasional suggestion and vote yea or nay along with the majority.

You have alot of neat ideas, but where were you all this time to follow through on all these wonderful gimmicks? When I tried to bring Atlasia together in a collective effort to work on our Wiki, where was your solution to that problem? When I was introducing legislation to Senators in private and lobbying President Bgwah to allow me to take the reigns on a new Introduction thread, were you try to make new threads to inform the people of Atlasia?

We need a Senator that has a track-record of following through on their ideas, not someone who comes up with grand ideas around election time..

It's hard to tell though because many bills pass with 7-9 senators voting for them, with little debate. As Marokai said, this is boring and bad for Atlasian elections and activity.

That is a key problem, as I said above, the Senate seems to try and come together all to often to form some broad support for a compromised bill just to get it to pass. We rarely seem to have dissenting/opposition voices that come from within the Senate. Some of the more recent arguments over bills have actually come from Ebowed or myself interfering with Senate business!

I'm not running to oppose everything, obviously, but I am running to represent an ideology that is underrepresented in Atlasian politics, and to hope to spark debate that is sorely, sorely lacking.

Fantastic ideas. All three candidates, at least on this issue, are really good. Yeah, I think they take their "I will compromise" positions in the campaign to heart, and then go overboard. A more active GM would help create debate as well.

Which brings me to something else. Do you support the senate or Ebowed in the current supreme court case over the removal of the GM act (think that's the name)?

[Vepres]

Ebowed's intial posts indicated the economy was declining but the dearth of info since then means we could be in a Great Depression and not even know it. Even what he did post lacked enough info to gives us a broad economic picture.

Well, you would rather expect so, given the Senate's propensity to ignore the majority of my articles when I was writing them.  I never did see any response by the Senate to address the failing automobile industries.  And there's no point making the situation worse if no one is going to bother addressing it.

You should still do it. If you did it every day, they would pay attention.

[Vepres]

Ebowed's intial posts indicated the economy was declining but the dearth of info since then means we could be in a Great Depression and not even know it. Even what he did post lacked enough info to gives us a broad economic picture.

Well, you would rather expect so, given the Senate's propensity to ignore the majority of my articles when I was writing them.  I never did see any response by the Senate to address the failing automobile industries.  And there's no point making the situation worse if no one is going to bother addressing it.

You should still do it. If you did it every day, they would pay attention.

Some of the information he is asking for would be basically impossible to provide.  I mean, tax revenues?  Most of the legislation passed by the Senate doesn't even indicate how it will be funded.

Again, if you posted more often and alerted the senators of your activity, they may start doing things like allocating funds and such. Though yes, precise economic figures would be difficult.

[Vepres]

AG Marokai, you've said you want to bring debate back to the senate, yet the only debate you have engaged in in this campaign is flaming your opponents, can you give examples of where you, in recent times, have actually added substantive debate to the discussion?

[Vepres]

Sorry to hear that.

[Vepres]

I'm having some family tragedy/crisis issues right now, just so everyone knows. It's gotten me stressed out and emotionally exhausted, so I may be come-and-go for a day or two. I'm sorry.

I am sorry to hear that. Don't let the stress get to you, a similar situation happened to me. Beleive me stress related illnesses are no fun and everyone reacts differently to stress so be carefull.

Had my maternal grandmother's house burn down on us last night, so i've been rather busy. Again, I'm sorry to everyone.

To Vepres: I do have some ideas, but I'll have to get back to you on articulating them.

Of course, real life trumps Atlasia.

[Vepres]

Dude! Take a few days off from here.  Everything will continue to function as normal, I assure you.

I'm going through a personal crisis myself (but I'm not sharing what it is).

Fritz is right, Marokai, RL problems are much more important than this dumb highly complex, intricate game for intellectuals.

[Vepres]

Gratz III

[Vepres]

Gratz III

Since I have a "III" at the end of my name, I take that as a very caring and thoughtful gesture.

Really!?! It was just the third "Gratz" I gave today.

[Vepres]

I'd like to take this time to direct you all to a lengthy post explaining my progressive record as one of Atlasia's at-large Senators.

I'd also like to take a moment and just let everyone know something. I wasn't sure if I should tell you all or not, but as it could impact my campaign for Senator, you deserve to know. I have privately expressed interest to Lief in the position on the Supreme Court. I don't know if I'll be picked, there are plenty of other prime candidates for the position, but the Supreme Court is always a body I've respected, yet wanted to improve, and yet, I love the Senate as well.

If I'm taken to that position though, I will not be abandoning progressives, I will still remain, and still support my preferred candidates in all my usual fiery style. And if I am not chosen, I will fight to the death to win my re-election and continue my progressive record in the Senate, a body I feel at home in, maintaining my fierce attitude for the legislation I think will be the best for Atlasia.

Regardless, thank you all for listening.

Though we disagree on many issues, I must say that I liked most of the bills you listed in your link. Honestly, we need people like you to keep debate alive. I arrived in Atlasia shortly before you became a Senator, and I was annoyed by the Senate just "compromising" on everything. Most votes weren't close at all, but your election for the Senate changed that for the better (though we could use more people with your "style"). You are also a competent PPT.

So, I can't really endorse you because of the discrepancy between our economic views, but I can say that I would be glad to see you stay in the Senate.