Atlasia v. Antonio V

[Marokai Backbeat]

If the Court would permit me to speak:

Libertas, I hardly think that proves something "malicious." That's a rather serious term. In fact, what you leave out shortly before the bottom of that photo you snipped is this:



Antonio felt he had valid reasons for editing the color, and his clear intent was to make the color distinctive for wiki editing purposes, and the clearing up any confusion that people may have when reading the wiki.

Antonio then went on your Wiki user page and commented repeatedly to try and get your attention on July 17th, July 21st, and August 6th to try and discuss the issue, and you did not respond to him in any way:



Wiktionary defines "malicious" as being "deliberately harmful." Tell me, does someone who is clearly trying to reach out to explain his reasoning and explain his actions in a way that shows he is trying to help distinguish the Populares color from other colors on the wiki demonstrate someone who is trying to be "deliberately harmful"?

The Wiki is used for organizational purposes, and when parties use similar (or exactly the same) colors, it makes it very difficult to distinguish between different parties for the purposes of wiki work. Antonio was not only trying to distinguish your party from other parties for your own sake, but also trying to reduce confusion in wiki organization the best he could by very slightly altering the color, a color that is already vague enough as it is.

Antonio very clearly was not on a crusade to pester the Populares and his actions can't possibly be labeled "deliberately harmful" in spirit. If anything, Libertas and the Populares exacerbated this issue by refusing to discuss the issue with him in any way and choosing a color change several months back that, in my opinion, was basically chosen just to irritate the JCP anyway, but that's neither here nor there. Antonio has a history of good wiki work, and his actions here are in no way "malicious."

[Marokai Backbeat]

You have yet to prove how anything he did here is actively malicious. He listed his reasons rather clearly. Someone trying to cause chaos doesn't explain their reasons perfectly rationally. "Malicious" is not at all present in his actions. Maybe he was wrong to keep editing them, and maybe he should be prevented from editing party colors in the future. However, there was no malice here that I see and I believe people will be smart enough to see that.

[Marokai Backbeat]

Hello everyone!

I've put a great deal of thought into my handling of this case, and I've decided to move forward with the following action:

In order to accommodate Libertas, along with my personal belief that ongoing cases should at least be respected to some degree, I will personally appoint anyone Libertas desires to argue the case on his behalf.

If Libertas does not, however, respond with any sort of recommendation, I will refuse to argue this case myself, and will drop this case. I do not believe in this case myself, but I want to give Libertas an opportunity to continue this case himself.

If Libertas hasn't responded within 24 hours-ish, I'll proceed with the latter action.

Thanks for your patience, everyone.

[Marokai Backbeat]

I'm certainly not going to argue a case that I don't support.

If someone wants this case to proceed then find me someone who's interested in arguing the case on the government's behalf.

Unless of course everyone involved in this case just wants it to go straight to the jury from here, in which case I'll just stand here and look pretty in the meantime while everyone else deliberates, but if it's a guilty verdict and Antonio appeals, don't expect me to participate in the case a second time.

[Marokai Backbeat]

I'm certainly not going to argue a case that I don't support.

If someone wants this case to proceed then find me someone who's interested in arguing the case on the government's behalf.

Unless of course everyone involved in this case just wants it to go straight to the jury from here, in which case I'll just stand here and look pretty in the meantime while everyone else deliberates, but if it's a guilty verdict and Antonio appeals, don't expect me to participate in the case a second time.

This case was brought against Antonio V by your own administration, in which you had served as VP. It's not like this was some partisan witch hunt started by an opposing party administration. There's really no justification for dropping this case. Rather, there is a clear basis for charging the defendant here with criminal misconduct; this was recognized as such by members of both the Purple State and Fritz administrations, under which you've served.

Are you really going to be so shamelessly partisan and biased in your role so as to blatantly refuse to prosecute Antonio V? Why did you become AG if you're not going to enforce the laws of Atlasia? You're supposed to disregard your own personal beliefs and instead give your all into arguing on behalf of the Atlasian government and its laws. It's part of the job description.

Purple State ordered Kalwejt to prosecute Antonio. I was part of the Administration, but I certainly wasn't in charge, there was nothing I could do. I was Vice President, not Supreme Ruler of the Cosmos.

I'm perfectly willing to appoint anyone to take on the case aside from me or let the case go straight to the jury. If I wanted to be "shamelessly partisan" I couldn't just waltzed right in here and done my damnedest to derail the entire process. I didn't. I offered you the choice of anyone you wanted to pursue the case in my stead, as I don't believe in the case, and publicly argued in Antonio's favor before I became Attorney General.

I became AG to pursue what I considered to be breaches of the law and uphold our statute, as well as keep the regions in line. I didn't become AG to play a part in any petty squabbling. But instead of taking my offer that I was under no obligation to give you, you're here bitching at me instead of being mature and letting the case continue with someone else at the helm. You certainly have no moral highground here.

I have no desire to pursue this case because I do not believe there is any breaking of the law here, and I've already publicly argued against the government's position before I became AG. Therefore, I've done the responsible thing and backed out. You once complained to me when I served on the Court for refusing to back out of a case, and now you're complaining that I'm offering you full control over the prosecution while I step back out of it.

This case will continue if you decide to make it do so, Libertas. I don't want to hear any complaints.

[Marokai Backbeat]

Marokai, I don't feel it's right for you to say, as AG, "ok, find me someone to prosecute or I'll quit". Libertas is the one who brought a complain, not a member of prosecution team. And you're a head of the prosecution stuff.

Ok, I'll fully understand if you'd want to excuse yourself because you argued in Antonio favor before becoming AG. That's a perfectly valid argument. But as AG, you really shouldn't drop or let the case die. Want to excuse yourself, appoint an impartian special prosecutor.

Dude, what about this are you not understanding? I think the case is complete and utter BS and I've personally argued against it before I even took this office. It's perfectly within my rights to back out of this case.

My job is to prosecute what I consider to be breaches of the law. I'm not going to handle a case that I don't think it's appropriate for me to handle or that I think has no legitimacy. I wouldn't want any AG to do that. And I'll sooner resign than I will be forced into handling a court case that I feel the complete opposite about.

California didn't offer any defense of Prop 8 because they didn't believe in the cause, and instead, they handed off the defense to a pro-Prop 8 group. There are of course differences, I'm the prosecution instead of the defense here, but if a government doesn't believe in a case, they've backed out of them before and they hand off the case to an interested party. I'm doing the exact same here.

Anyone who wants to step forward and take this case, since Libertas likes a good controversy as opposed to a good legal system, I will happily hand it off to you.

[Marokai Backbeat]

Marokai, I don't feel it's right for you to say, as AG, "ok, find me someone to prosecute or I'll quit". Libertas is the one who brought a complain, not a member of prosecution team. And you're a head of the prosecution stuff.

Ok, I'll fully understand if you'd want to excuse yourself because you argued in Antonio favor before becoming AG. That's a perfectly valid argument. But as AG, you really shouldn't drop or let the case die. Want to excuse yourself, appoint an impartian special prosecutor.

Dude, what about this are you not understanding? I think the case is complete and utter BS and I've personally argued against it before I even took this office. It's perfectly within my rights to back out of this case.

Why is it "complete and utter BS"? Oh, that's right. The defendant Antonio is your JCP buddy, whereas the victims are the evil Populares, including myself. We don't deserve justice.

The law says "maliciously editing" is against the law. I don't believe there was any "malicious" intent on behalf of Antonio and also believe you've failed to prove that intent exists. I have reasons why I believe this case is a waste of the court's time, none of them have anything to do with my friendship with Antonio.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Do you honestly believe this BS, or are you just shamelessly spouting off nonsense that you know to be false? YOU are the weakest link in the Atlasian justice system right now. If you really cared about justice, you would have either gone ahead with this case, or else resigned out of principle. You shouldn't have ever even agreed to become AG if you can't be impartial enough to do your job.
[/quote]

Two things:

1. I'm perfectly able to be impartial, but I don't think this case is valid or a good use of this court's time. (Or mine, frankly.) As I said earlier, this is a personal squabble between you and Antonio (you have bickered with him in Atlasia for months) and there is no "malicious" intent that I can see in his edits, especially after his reaching out to you and his effort at explaining his actions.

Because of this, I'm offering the case to someone else so it can continue without me, since there is no way I can actually argue something that I don't believe is the case. It's not an issue of impartiality, you are asking be to argue in favor of something that I do not believe and have publicly argued against. It's an impossibility.

2. You once accused me of bias when I was a Supreme Court member because I wouldn't pull back out of a case and let the others deal with it. Make up your f-ing mind, Libertas. Do you want me to retreat from cases that I don't believe in or have personal feelings on, or do you want me to "buck up and do my job" like you're espousing here?

I think we could play the "conflict of interest" game for just about every person who is a justice and every person who could become a Justice, especially considering how long others have been around.

No, but you should have definitely recused yourself from my case considering the clear conflict of interest there.

Of course I wouldn't expect something so mature from you.

You're contradicting yourself, and it's only to cause trouble and get a bunch of readers in your crackpot paper. You want attention, and that's why you continue to not even acknowledge the fact that I offered you the choice of who you wanted to prosecute the case.

[Marokai Backbeat]

I will ask you one more time before I take this to the presiding Justice to deal with himself:

I will appoint anyone you desire in my place to prosecute this case against Antonio. Do you accept my offer or not, and if you do, pick someone for me to appoint.

[Marokai Backbeat]

Much appreciated, Junkie.

[Marokai Backbeat]

I was pondering on this myself.

Do we necessarily need to go to jury if finding members is this difficult? I'm certainly fine going without one but it's really up to Antonio.

[Marokai Backbeat]

Well then, if that's procedurally possible, I've no problem with that course of action.

[Marokai Backbeat]

Wow is this what the Atlasian legal system has come to... no complete jury to actually judge the case, an attorney general who refuses to put forward the case and who doesn't appoint someone to do it for him. I'm not a fan of Libertas of any sorts, but this is quite an unfair handling of the case.

You should read a thread or two, dude. I offered to appoint anyone Libertas wanted to pursue the case for me. I was willing to let him completely control the case with my approval if he wanted to. He refused, and completely disappeared from everything revolving around this case. Like Ebowed said, he practically abandoned this thread entirely and just stopped even trying to argue, and refused to take anything on offer to keep the case going.

Also, I am under NO obligation to pursue ANY case that I don't want to. You do know that, don't you? I'm not your little legal puppet, I have my own mind and pursue cases on my own. Junkie said so and Ebowed said so, and I gave real-world examples for that sort of behavior when I brought up my offer to let Libertas have total control over this case.

This is on no one but Libertas for refusing to take any control in this case. If he really wanted this case to go on, he would've taken my offer and my stand-in could've demanded a jury. Libertas didn't do that because he would rather throw a fit than have this case go forward. He didn't want this case to be solved, he wanted a good scandal to scream about and shed his crocodile tears.

Take your fragile sensibilities elsewhere and read up on what actually happened.

[Marokai Backbeat]

Also, I am under NO obligation to pursue ANY case that I don't want to.

I really wanted to abstain from incoming bitching fest but...

Well, I didn't really want to brought those charges as your predecessor, giving the fact Antonio is my oldest, along with Barnes, forum friend. Yet I did because those were my duties.

And I completely disagreed with what you were doing. Quite frankly, you had no earthly clue how to handle legal affairs, and you were doing this only because Purple State told you to.

Some of your arguments were completely ridiculous, too:

Also, I have a firm beflief that intentions are not important here. The results are.

That is possibly the dumbest thing the ATTORNEY GENERAL could have ever said in a case that is quite literally all about intent. The entire case revolves around trying to prove intent, and you just casually say "well, intent doesn't matter at all." It does because the entire law is about intent. You completely mishandled this case from the beginning, and Libertas totally abandoned the case after I made him the offer of appointing anyone he wanted.

This was never a case about the law. You prosecuted Antonio because you were under order to and wanted to look like you were nonpartisan by going after a member of your own party and Libertas didn't care about the law, he only cared about trying to have as little to do with the case as possible, so he could bitch about the outcome even if he totally abandoned the arguments. This case was a personal and partisan circus.

[Marokai Backbeat]

Thanks for saying I'm an idiot who conspired secretly with Libertas in order to make himself look bipartisian.

I'm sorry, I didn't mean to insult you, I just got a little heated here, you know that I like you personally. I'm a little tired of being the scapegoat here taking the fall for every single person that pops in this thread. I was trying to make the best out of a crappy situation that I didn't feel you handled very well, and that Libertas abandoned. For that, I've been called biased, lazy, unwilling to do my job, partisan, etc, etc. I'm a little tired of it all.

[Marokai Backbeat]

This is getting old. You had the opportunity to pursue this case with all force with my offer to appoint a special prosecutor in my place. I was under no obligation to do that, because I could've just done my best to derail the case and sit still, since I didn't believe in this case. I made it very clear to you during my confirmation hearing that I didn't believe the case, but, if you got in contact with me, we could work out something.

You refused. I brought it up to you multiple times on both Atlasia boards. I mentioned it to your party members. I practically screamed it at you everywhere you posted. You never acknowledged me anywhere I posted it because you didn't want this case to be prosecuted. You wanted to be right where you are now, bitching about a fake controversy you created by your own sloth.

It's amazing how you can act completely blindsided by everything and act as if everything is taking you with absolute astonishment. At any point in this case all you had to do was say "Marokai, appoint ____ in your place" and I would've done so. But everytime this case lurched forward you acted completely outraged. You've been more than well informed during this whole process and you said and did absolutely nothing but complained.

When PS and I were campaigning to be President, I mentioned several times the idea of giving the President and Vice President a Senate legislative slot for their own purposes. Everyone who paid attention to our campaign knew this. Everyone who talked to us knew this. Our more strident supporters knew this. But when it was mentioned here in one of the Senate threads, you acted like this was a big shocking secret I'd kept and I'd just whipped out after we got elected. It wasn't about the idea, it was about trying to stir up controversy and cause trouble for us, and try to pretend that there was something new and sinister that "just popped up."

You're doing the same garbage here. I've been in office for, like, three weeks, and since my confirmation hearing I offered you full control over this case. You ignored it. You then act stunned weeks later as if you never knew anything at all. I argued before I was appointed to be AG in defense of Antonio, yet the idea that I wouldn't go after Antonio myself came as some sort of big evil plot to you. You pretend not to pay any attention and then try to conjure up controversies, and it's about time you stop it. It's laughably transparent.

My arguments for Antonio were this simple: The law clearly references that "maliciously" editing the Wiki is illegal. Thus, "malice" needs to be proven. Antonio explained on a variety of times what he was doing and why he was doing it. He should stop editing that part of the wiki, absolutely, because what he was doing is obviously accomplishing nothing, but nothing in his perfectly reasonable explanations concerning party colors and wiki management demonstrate malice! Intent does matter, unlike my what predecessor may think of an intent based law.

If you wanted this case to go any differently, you had the power to change it by sending me a PM of one sentence. You refused to do so. You have no one to blame but yourself.

(And as for my "fairness" revolving around the law, you should get some stuff straight. As a Justice I was ruthless in my punishment of SewerSocialist and threw the near-maximum or maximum penalty at him and held him in contempt of court when he refused to appear before me. Who do you think Sewer usually votes for? I also ruled in agreement with Sam Spade that HAEV, the organization that Antonio created and proposed, was unconstitutional!)

[Marokai Backbeat]

Ebowed did nothing wrong here (although shame on the Pacific for not having enough members that apparently are willing to serve on a Jury, that's simply a disgrace). You abandoned this case when you had the ability to have full control over the prosecution. No one, except people who have no idea how the court system works in the slightest, expects someone to prosecute a person if they don't believe in the case, especially if that person previously publicly argued in that same person's defense.

You can only blame yourself.

[Marokai Backbeat]

I hate you

Aw, what a nice thing to say. For my part, I hardly even know who you are to come up with such strong emotions in response.

A classic Libertas post. Ignorance of the substance, implying everyone around him that disagrees with him is totally unreasonable. Truly Libertas perfection.