Northeast Senate Election Candidates forum

[bore]

Welcome.

Me and matt have decided instead of having a formal debate to instead answer any questions posed by citizens of our great region. (Though if other atlasians have questions we're more than willing to answer them as well)

So, fire away

[bore]

Lumine, like TNF and Yankee before him, has been a very good PPT. He's been active, has shown a very good grasp of the senate rules and has always been responsive any time I've contacted him.

With regard to the DemPGH question, very few people think dempgh's term was successful and I doubt even he thinks that. I acknowledge this, and this is proved by the fact that there were many moments when I strongly disagreed with him, for instance, over hifly, over the Thursday night massacre and on a not insignificant number of bills. But I'm not divine. I, (along with, lest we forget, conservatives like hagrid, clarence and tmth) could not predict how his presidency would work it. Frankly, everybody who's been in atlasia has made votes for either inactive or just plain unsuccessful candidates, for instance, the entire mideast region recently voted overwhelmingly for a governor who then disappeared for a month.

During the campaign, dempgh had a record of being a moderate centre left governor, with similar views to mine, in the same party as me. It would have been strange for me not to vote for him, even though I consider sirnick a good friend. In retrospect though, yes, atlasia would have been better off with a sirnick presidency.

[bore]

The Energy Nationalisation bill has probably been my biggest mistake as a senator (although in the end I was a Nay, and at one point during the debate I was called the senate's 6th rightwinger). This mistake, it's worth noting, was not due to my seeing the public's reaction and changing my mind, but because, with there being 15 or so bills on the floor, it being really difficult to follow each one with the care they deserve. To an extent, you're reliant on other senators to do their job as well.

I will also note that, maybe because I'm british, and see things like the NHS and the difference between a state controlled railway and a private one, and the huge subsidies the government has to pay to private firms for them to build power plants, I'm much less afraid of state ownership of key industries. In principle, I would not be opposed to some form of energy nationalisation, as in common in so many european countries. In practice, that particular bill was a bad bill, and I should never have supported it.

The other thing I'll point is out is I was the deciding vote against nationalisation of all energy and transport companies in May.

[bore]

Well, first of all, I thank Bore for his approval, although I honestly feel that Yankee should definitely be the one leading the Senate right now, xD

For Matt: What are your views on the proposed change to the Senate rules and the current amendment to secure the independence of the Game Moderator?

For both candidates: Both of you have already been on the Senate, what would you say was your proudest accomplishment while serving there?

I'd say my proudest accomplishment would be the repeal of useless laws, because I think that one of the biggest problems we face as a game is the inaccessibility of our laws, and that bill went a good way to alleviating that, although there is still a long way to go.

Runners up would be many of the reform amendments I've passed through the senate, such as the amendment handing control of the amendment process to the SoFE, the amendment reducing the lame duck period to a shorter length of time, the amendment changing the number of people needed for a party back to 5 and the amendment changing the amount of time needed to move states to put it into line with the regions. Those being runners up because though they all passed the senate, none have yet been ratified.

I'm also very proud of my work on the end the doctors shortage act, which provided critcal new doctors, on the public means public act where I helped to pass the redraft that duke proposed giving more funding to regions to help homelessness (and, as most citizens will know, homelessness has always been an important issue to me- I authored the bill that provided everybody in the northeast with shelter) and, on a regional level, a bill clearing up the SOAP and a bill making sure the ludicrously short campaign of the special election me and matt fought last time doesn't happen again.

My question is to both candidates:

It is my personal opinion that the current position of Game Moderator is unworkable.  This isn't intended as a slight to any officeholder past or present, but I think that the way the post works simply hasn't proven to be effective and is in need of larger reform than simply a revolving door of GMs.

Do you agree with this assessment, and if so, what do you think should be done to reform the position and role of the GM?

I think that the problem the GM has always had is that it's difficult to get people to follow the story provided, because there are no consequences. (And also because the GM could easily be dismissed by the president. A fact that I disagreed with before it was cool () as can be shown by the fact that only me and lumine voted to change that before the thursday night massacre) Now, there was a clear backlash recently about dempgh ignoring the GM's story, so maybe that's beginning to change. I think we should give sirnick a chance to see if that change can continue.

If that change doesn't continue, then, given that very capable atlasians, who have excelled in other areas of the game, like sirnick and griffin and nix couldn't get it to work, I think it's fair to say there are sever structural issues.

In that case, seeing as enforcement of any type of storyline is impossible to avoid making in some way biased, and with people not being willing to follow the story, I think we should just scrap the position, maybe replacing it with some very limited God figure, who can tell people like snowstalker that they're talking crap.

Bore: Why are you so awesome?

My fabulous locks.

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Your majesterial presence.

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His smile of eternal reassurance.

[bore]

Bump

[bore]

Obviously all candidates, including lief, are invited to this debate.

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This post is utterly ridiculous. As an atlas forum member I have obviously never even been close to having sex.

 

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I've repeatedly pointed out that I oppose incest and have done everything I can to oppose it (which, as it's a regional matter, isn't much). If the so called champion of the people Lief was really concerned about incest he would drop the campaign for this office, which has as little effect on marriage laws in the northeast as the president of Argentina does, and run instead for either governor or ( a better choice since there are already three candidates for governor) the assembly. That he refuses to do so suggest he himself is actually a tool of the nefarious pro incest lobby, trying to distract the public from were marriage laws are really decided.

[bore]

I intend to introduce and pass a constitutional amendment that would outlaw incest in the entire country as soon as I am sworn in as Senator.

Well, you would say that, wouldn't you?

Not only is taking the right to produce marriage legislation away from the regions a bad idea anyway (I may disagree strongly with the bill, but no one can doubt it has provoked a lot of activity in the region), it will also never pass the senate or the regions. That amendment which you claim you would introduce would never, ever, pass- and the pro incest lobby that you allege that you're not a part of knows this.

Now, obviously I would never say that you're a pro incest plant, but it would be very convenient for the incest cause if a senate bill that could never pass was introduced, as it would naturally suck the energy out of regional efforts, which could actually pass.