Talk Elections

What is the administration's top foreign policy objectives going to be and if confirmed, how do you plan on working to advance those interests as Secretary of External Affairs?

The President ran on a very optimistic foreign policy agenda. The Administration's main point during the campaign was there is a positive role for Atlasia to play in the world. That is a guiding principle the President wishes to instill in his State Department.

The objective of this administration is that of every administration preceding it. A more peaceful and prosperous world is in the best interests of this and every country.

The State Department can further this goal through building up more effective means of international communication, by strengthening the way our alliances work, and by adopting a comprehensive approach to foreign aid.

During my service under Secretary Nix, the Department proposed the Lebanese Initiative. This project would include an international surge in both military and humanitarian presence in Lebanon in order to neutralize the threat Hezbollah poses to the Israeli-Palestinian peace deal. The modus operandi of the Lebanese Initiative was that it would remove the "need" for Hezbollah among the populace. In many places, those who hope to harm us win favor of the local population by providing schools, roads, hospitals, etc. The surge in humanitarian assistance would eliminate the need to rely on terrorist organizations.

I believe I can bring to the table a creative, cooperative, competent mindset when dealing with foreign affairs. I believe in this President and where he wants to take this country. I will support the administration and work around the globe to advance Atlasia's objectives abroad.

What is contained in this "surged military presence" as part of this Lebanese Initiative?

The plan, which was and is publicly available, called for an increased international commitment to the existing UNIFIL presence in Lebanon. It operated within existing international structures and trained the Lebanese government how to actually run their country and protect their border.

I like you Riley and I don't think you would be a bad SoEA,  but as I already told you, I cannot vote for someone who basically asked people to invalidate their votes in the last MW Gubernational election.

I share the concerns of my colleague from the Mideast. If the nominee is willing to encourage the use of illegal methods to win an election at home, what is he willing to do abroad? Beyond that, the former Governor of the Mideast has shown a tendency to become inactive in just about every position that he's held. In times such as these, do we really need an SoEA asleep behind the wheel?

While I am in no way a fan of the current Midwest Governor Mr. LeBron, out of region lobbying against any political official is in my point of view not really at place in a democratic process. However, since I see this is another case, I am willing to let persuade me to oversee this, if the nominee is willing to commit himself from now on transparent and democratic processes.

That aside, far more important for me is here the political point of view. Folks who know me know that I am an non-interventionist, that believes diplomacy and non-violent, non-troop based ways to solve a conflict, and if there is need of interventions, this in most cases just after an UN resolution and in cooperation with our allies abroad. This nominee however seems not to be on many similar foreign policy points with me. Furthermore, I note quite an aggressive rhetoric with the nominee, who states his wish to "train the Lebanese government how to run their country" and "neutralize the thread Hezbollah [a legitimate, democratic, party; democratically and justly elected by many people in Lebanon!] poses".

I feel it would be wrong for me, given my position to state that I would vote against you, but the concerns I have over your conduct in the  regard raised by my colleagues just strikes me as bad form and I think you should probably express some contrition over it.

I will point out to the Senator from the Midwest, no law was broken and the entire campaign was in the name of hilarity. LeBron was never going to lose that election. There was no violation of the law and no malicious intent.

Senator Cranberry, it is my duty as SoEA to execute the will and goals of the President's foreign policy. The President is not a non-interventionist type and he ran on that. His campaign pledged to support Atlasia's role in the world. My job is to implement the goals of the president.

Charles Darwin ran a legitimate campaign for Midwest Governor, backed by concerned citizens who demanded change. The fact that some out of region officials backed him is not cause for alarm.

I can agree with that, it seems the people of Atlasia want no non-interventionist "type" in the office. Okay with that. Still, there is a slight difference between interventionism and blatant aggressive rhetoric. You will be Atlasia's chief diplomat, the one person that represents our country on the diplomatic parquet. This person should in my humble opinion have a slightly different rhetoric, starting from talking about "types" to saying "to show the Lebanese government how to run their country".

There are basic human capital issues with the majority of governments in the Middle East. Plenty of passionate people who want to improve their country, but are not trained or informed in how to do so. I'd hardly say that's aggressive.

On the Darwin Campaign, Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. Once said the concept of the "outside agitator" no longer exists. Injustice anywhere, is a threat to justice everywhere. The policies of the Midwest government were unjust and I participated in a protest campaign. Without malicious intent or violation of the law.

I don't necessarily have to like what Riley did in the midwest, but given LeBron could not have lost he didn't actually break the law and this position has nothing to do with electoral issues I'll be voting for this nominee.

My concern is your activity levels. As someone who served as a President with a foreign policy focus and in the office you wish to be placed in, I am deeply concerned about your quite considerable and unannounced absences.

What pledge will you make to either ensure regular activity, and what you will do in the event that you cannot satisfy activity requirements.

What is your general opinion of Atlasia's foreign military presence? Are there any foreign bases you believe should be shut down, or foreign troop deployments you believe should be shutdown?

What is your general opinion of the United Nations? What do you believe is the proper role of the UN, and are there any specific causes you believe it ought to take greater action on? What is your opinion of UN Agenda 21?

What is your general opinion of foreign aid, both military and economic? Should we take steps to aid the development of third world nations, and if so what should those steps be?

What criteria would you sufficient for Atlasian military intervention in a foreign country? Other than Lebanon, are there any other countries you anticipate engaging in military intervention in during your tenure? Why do you believe it is Atlasia's responsibility engage in the aforementioned interventionist activities in Lebanon?

Do you believe Atlasia should maintain its current membership in NATO, despite the fact that we fund by far the greatest share of its budget while deriving the least benefit?

So why capitalise this issue just on the Lebanese government, which is by the standards of their environment, very akin to what we call "Western Democracy". I would guess just humanitarian aid, for example in form of education aid, would be a more straightforward solution to this problem you are taking of, and which I do not deny surely exists, also in Lebanon. But then again, this does not seem like "showing them how to run their country" to me, which in turn sounds pretty aggressive to me.

Senator, nothing I can say will excuse the inactivity in the Mideast. There is nothing I will be able to tell you that will make you think it was any less of a bad thing than it was. All I can tell you is that I will be an active Secretary.


Lebanon has a very specific set of issues, such as border security in regards to the Hezbollah issue. UNIFIL is the mechanism through which we launched training and involvement in mitigating the risk to the Israeli-Palestinian Peace Agreement. We are teaching them to address their issues. That's clear in the initiative.


Deus I can answer your questions at length when I'm no longer on my phone. I'll try to make that as soon as possible.

My vote either for or against the nominee is contingent upon his responses to the questions posed by my colleague, Senator Deus.

I'm fascinated by the potential answer on Agenda 21, lol.

So what do you have to say about being MIA from the Pacific Council since November 1st?

I've tried to keep things active, but the broader region wasn't and isn't interested in debate or involvement. I brought up a bill on abortion, one of the most divisive issues, and the only discussion on it were the opening statements I gave.

Mr. Griffin, I understand it's a great, quick way to score cheap political points in this hearing. But let's not misrepresent the issue. I am not responsible for the region's inactivity. I've attempted to bring up lightning rod, hot topic issues, and no one will engage with me. Where is the Pacific Labor party when I'm proposing a law to ban polygamy and incest? Or when I'm fighting for the right to life? Where is the opposition?

You're not responsible for the region's inactivity at all? So you're telling the Senate that two of the pending pieces of legislation that had been up for a vote for almost two weeks - Amendment to the Revised Rules of Order (https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=201686.0) and More Governing, Less Campaigning Amendment (https://uselectionatlas.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=201687.0) - were not your responsibility at all? It most certainly was your responsibility to vote on these two items; you can't say that "nobody wanted to engage me with me" is a sufficient excuse for you not to at least provide two, one-word responses to indicate your stance. In fact, one of those two pieces of legislation would have likely passed, depending on your own vote.

And in case you haven't noticed, I'm retired from party politics, so you can stop the whole "Labor = Griffin" shtick right now. To answer your rhetorical question, though: Labor seems to have 3 or 4 members left in the Pacific right now, almost all of whom are not active players and haven't been for ages. As it stands today, TPP is the "left-wing" party in the Pacific and the Federalist Party is the "right-wing" party, so you shouldn't be asking that question to me or my party.

I'd also like to hear the nominees response to Deus's question

I don't know, but your reason why we would need to intervene in any way particularly in Lebanon has now differed in every one of your posts - first it was because our President is interventionist, then because , quoting, "there are basic human capital issues with the majority of governments in the Middle East" (I still don't understand why in particular in response to Lebanon and not Saudi Arabia or Qatar or whatever) to a set of issue such as border security, the whole Hezbollah issue, which is if I am correctly already dealt well with by UNIFIL, of which I don't know if Atlasia is part (?). So, why bring this whole issue up in the first place? I see no reasoning for it, I'm sorry.


Also, I would very much like to see the responses to Senator Deus as well.

It is difficult to find any action ever taken in foreign policy that has one sole driving reason behind it. If  the question is more directly "Why Lebanon and not elsewhere?", then that can be explained differently.

I tend to believe in the concept of momentum in foreign affairs. One victory can lead to another victory. It is easier to create successes when you have other successes under your belt. Lebanon isn't an especially squeaky wheel, but it has issues that can be addressed and solved in the long term. Resolving the mission of UNIFIL will give us the wind in our sails needed to move to other regional issues.

I think the fundamental disconnect between us, Senator, is simple. I do not believe that the job of the Secretary of State should be to lurch from crisis to crisis, to keep foreign affairs well-managed enough to keep it off the news. I believe that the Department of State can lead positive, proactive efforts in the world. We do not require a crisis to act.


As I stated above, my personal opinions are of much less significance than the President's. I believe that we've done more than enough to reduce our defense spending. Our existing foreign deployments have been stretched to breaking point in terms of maintaining Atlasia's strength the world.

Agenda 21 seems like any other program or initiative the United Nations runs. I think the biggest driver of opposition is a broader suspicion of the UN rather than suspicion of this individual project. While I understand the concerns of UN opponents, I have say the supposed "threat" it represents to Atlasian sovereignty is vastly overstated.

In terms of the UN taking a broader role, I tend to personally favor more situation-based coalitions. The broader international community has a vested interest in the security of people and peaceful remediation of conflict. However, the vested interest or values-based concerns in certain situations may only matter to certain countries. Coalitions formed around a specific issue with a specific objective tend to be more effective.

I believe that Atlasia should intervene in a situation where Atlasian interests or fundamental human rights are threatened to a tremendous degree. While I understand that may not be what you wanted to hear, I can not accept the idea that the injustice of ethnic cleansing in one country is in some way disconnected from justice in other countries. When we allow forces in this world to erode the fundamentals of human rights, that is a very direct threat to those fundamentals around the world. Do you only deserve the right to life if you live in a NATO country? Absolutely not.

Addressing proactive efforts like the Lebanese Initiative, I believe that Atlasian leadership has proven itself in the past. Let's take the example of the Ebola outbreak in West Africa. Why is Ebola contained to West Africa and why hasn't it spread to the hotbed of disease that is Sub-Saharan Africa? I credit an unsung hero. PEPFAR was a program led by Atlasia and it trained doctors, built clinics, educated people, and otherwise enhanced the medical infrastructure of Sub-Saharan Africa. PEPFAR was launched to combat AIDS. But we have to ask ourselves, how many of those doctors that we trained are now treating Ebola patients? How many formerly PEPFAR clinics are offering care to those affected by Ebola? When Atlasia leads, we mitigate the risk posed by future crises.

I believe in NATO. The reason we "derive the least benefit" from NATO is because we are in NATO. Geopolitical adversaries do not have as great an opportunity to threaten Atlasian interests because of our membership in NATO. The fact that we do not have to call on our NATO allies very often is a sign that NATO is working.

Of course I'm partially responsible for the way the region is. I share the blame with 23 other citizens of my region. I said I would accept write-in votes in the Council election because no one else filed to run. The citizens didn't even know there was an election in order to declare their intent. So, Mr. Griffin, before you attempt to paint me as some sort of reaper of regions, let us all remember that this problem runs deep and has been there for a while. I said I would fill a seat on the Council because no one else declared. That hardly comes with a mandate. I've attempted to bring up controversial legislation, at the expense the a hope of returning to electoral politics, in order to drum up activity. It's not popular being pro-life or pro-monogamy in this game. But that couldn't even attract the attention of the region.

Yeah, I never said you were a "reaper of regions"; please don't take your role in all of this so seriously or make it sound so grandiose. The point is that you were a member of the Council, and you were inactive for two weeks. You still are a member of the Council to my knowledge, and still did not weigh in on any of the pending pieces of legislation, even while you were addressing concerns in this thread.

This isn't about 23 other people. It's not about other regions. It's about the fact that there were two pieces of legislation up for a vote for two weeks and you as a Councillor did not even vote on those. It'd be a different story, all of this, had you simply cast votes on the pending legislation and then had nothing else to vote on or debate due to everyone else not doing their jobs, either. That's not the case. There were two pieces of legislation; all you had to do was say "Aye" or "Nay" and you didn't even do that. This is merely about a proven track record of you abandoning the basic functions of the jobs you sign up for in the game, and nothing else.

Thank God you don't buy into the Agenda 21/OWG nonsense. If you had, that would have been an automatic nay vote from me.

Fine,
I will probably vote to confirm him or Abstain, while his actions (asking people to invalidate their votes) aren't technically illegal, it should be.
And, I want to thank Adam Griffin for having spoken about Keaton's inactivity in the Pacific, in addition of having been inactive as Mideast Governor. While I believe Keaton will be active as SoEA because he seems to be genuinely interested by this position and to have some ideas, this is always good to see responsible citizens alerting the senate for inactivity issues!

Fair enough, I thank you for your answers. I still see we have fundamental differences regarding the role Atlasia should be in the world, what role the SoEA/SecState should have; but you outlined your positions thoroughly.
I will think of my final decision, my points however have all been adressed. Thank you.

I appreciate the Senator's possible support and consideration. If confirmed, I look forward to working closely.


Thank you for your consideration. If you have any other questions, I'd love to answer them.

Seeing little debate on the nominee for the past two days, I'll move this to a vote. Senators, please vote aye, nay, or abstain on the nominee.

Nay

Aye

Aye

After thorough and long consideration, and an assurance from the nominee that he will not repeat what he did in the Mideast, I can state my decision. The nominee is fundamentally different from me politically speaking, yet he seems to represent this administration's policies. In any way, provided he will be active, he will certainly tackle this office in a good way. Be a good representative of our nation, Mr Keaton.

AYE

Aye with many many reservations.

I'm looking forward to working with the administration.

Aye

I hope all of the Senators who voted Aye are fine with the inevitable public shaming that will come when this nominee drops out of sight for the third time in the span of just a few months as an officeholder.

Abstain.

I understand the reasoning behind those who have voted aye. I have changed my vote. I thought a lot about this.

As someone who has served in this position and believes what drives the success or failure is an active SoEA. I cannot in good conscience vote for this nominee, considering his troubling record of activity.

NAY

By a vote of 6-2-1 the nominee has the votes to pass. 24 hours to change votes.

Certified as confirmed.