The Porcupine: Special Election Debate Commentary Thread

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

I remember when Atlasia was divided between the left-wing JCP and the centre-right RPP. Their dominance and machine politics stifled civil society, and in an unprecedented move they both agreed to disband themselves.

BS.

We never sought a two-party system. It developed in response to the decline of the UDL and Populares. To the extent that the RPP operated at all like a machine, it was in opposing the machine nature of the JCP. I maintained open forum, I encouraged diversity of opinion and we worked together as a community of regionalists and reformers to advance each other. At the end, it was so wonderful in that we basically had one of the largest parties in the game, operating as a team even when we disagree or had diverse membership ranging from Marokai and Afleitch to JCL and Zuwo.

The JCP was a one man outfit, where bgwah did everything. The RPP was the exact opposite.  It sickens me that the JCP had to drag us down with them because we happened to have the misfortune of success, of surviving the unsurvivable in 2009 and early 2010 and outlasting the Populares only to end up in the JCP's dance of death. What is even more galling is to hear the RPP being tarnished in this fashion and equated with JCP as has been done here as if there was no difference. I am not bgwah, I never was bgwah, and I never wanted to be bgwah (maybe DWTL did, but I couldn't say, I only knew him for a few months). Maybe if I had, perhaps I could have gotten Duke elected in October 2011 (but considering I had people litteraly go ape sh**t fing crazy just for asking for their votes I don't see how that would have worked) and the stupid dissolution crap never would have happened. Considering less than a year later, the IB and Whigs merged and the Liberal and Labor chugged on with the former slowly melting away, the continuance of the RPP would not have produced the kind of lopsided game people so feared and supposedly necessitated us paying the price for bgwah's dominance. The moderates who joined us to oppose bgwah, would have left, and things would have worked much the same as they ended up.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

The only good policy Labour has supported in the past year is reforming Senate procedure. Here's some Atlasian history for you all: the original Senate rules were imposed by Sam Spade and deliberately designed to confuse Senators. Yankee, as far as I know, is the only one who took it seriously. This is not to disrespect the former Senator, but it's about time the rules changed.

Not only will I study the Senate rules, but I will make an active effort to strip the rules to the essence of what it should be. Many of what's needed for the Senate to function is a Robert's Rules system, and that makes up much of Article IV of the Rules. Much of Article III and VII, on the other hand, are superfluous and requires cutting. The fewer needless clauses we have, the more we can prevent abuses of power (such as TNF's borderline criminal passage of electricity nationalization).

As I recall, the rules were changed and though I had some disagreements with Nix, I would say I was very cooperative. I formulated my own alternative that was just slightly larger then his but still a massive 62% reduction in the size of the text. I then worked to make sure that my priorities were maintained and the final product was quite good though some problems have come about as is to be expected. I should note that I did this whilst lacking internet access and having to walk down a busy road to the neighbors just to get access.. I spent years tussling with the rules, but I applaud you for crediting the original author. A year and a half ago, a rumor got started probably from the IRC that I had had written them intentionally to confuse Senators when I spent years trying to improve them. I was able to kill that bs, but unfortunately I wasn't able to kill similar falsehoods in the last part of last year.

I think you have the right idea, but applied in the wrong way. The very clauses you will strip in Article III could potentially spell the ability for a Speaker to shut out minority voices and move us towards a partisan SEnate administration. This is the very thing that TNF has been seeking for the past two years and you will impose it in the name of preventing his excesses from occuring again?

As for Article VII, it is the last remnant of a section I added back in August of 2009 to bring accountabiltiy to incompetent and inactive officeholders. However, it wasn't until Kalwejt and Nappy got on board in 2012 that it took off and we created the committees. I don't regret this attempt to bring greater interaction within our gov't, and ironically it was NAppy that they ended up being used to go after. They failed because aside from myself others lacked the imagination to put them to use and I could not run them all.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

I'll request for some time to reply.

It would embarrass to try to contend Yankee's post point by point, but let me be clear that I did not try to personally attack anyone during the debate. The only time I even addressed Adam was to counter his statements on the Atlasia economy. I know enough about the JCP and Bgwah's micromanagement, though it would only be fair to have him rebut the characterization.

But let's be clear on what I mean by civil society here. I'm talking about discussion and debate outside political parties. And I understand that Yankee and Adam are party insiders through and through, but that's why I'm running! I'm running to be different, to transcend a politics of cliquishness.

bgwah would most likely agree with most of what I said, since he gets angry when people don't credit him with having done all the work.

For a Party insider, I sure have felt pretty alone since February 1st, 2012. I was fairly isolated within the IB, and 2013 in the Feds wasn't much better. I got the chairmanship because virtually everyone else who would have desired it had checked out by then and was once again left alone at the top trying desperately to keep the party alive. If losing my Senate seat did anything good, it means that I am no longer alone in the Federalist Party. I don't see how the Federalist Party has ever been much of a clique.