Marokai Blue/Purple State for Atlasia, Campaign HQ

[Fmr. Pres. Duke]

This is so confusing to me. PS, why didn't you just run for a second term?

[Fmr. Pres. Duke]

God, the term limit policy is threatening my job security, and I don't want to become unemployed during these economic times. How can this ticket support such a job killing measure, and what benefits will I receive when I'm forced to leave office? Did we extend unemployment?

[Fmr. Pres. Duke]

God, the term limit policy is threatening my job security, and I don't want to become unemployed during these economic times. How can this ticket support such a job killing measure, and what benefits will I receive when I'm forced to leave office? Did we extend unemployment?

If cushy unemployment packages for ex-Senators is the compromise we'll need to make, I'll consider it.

You'll see the pitchforks come out otherwise...

[Fmr. Pres. Duke]

I'll preface by saying I am trying to save my job, but the way I see it, term limits are impractical because we don't have enough people who are genuinely interested in holding office to have a turnover every two terms. If it is just two consecutive terms, then we'll have a lot of senators who are placeholders for one term until the former senator forced out of office is allowed to run again. That's harmful to the game if he start down that road. The system in place today is not a bad one. It isn't the fault of the senators that some inactive people are elected to office simply due to party affiliation while other active senators are kicked out for that very same reason. just food for thought.

[Fmr. Pres. Duke]

     As for the term limits proposal, there's a fifth-term Senator right now who happens to be the primary reason the Senate is even functioning at all at this point. Sounds great on paper, slightly less so in practice.

I think the point of the proposal is that if it were implemented, you wouldn't need someone like Yank to keep things going in the first place. The Senate as a whole would become more active because players wouldn't burn out. So while you may lose someone like Yank (for a few months), you also have no need for his ability to keep the Senate scraping along.

I can think of at least 2 regional senate elections where active candidates or incumbents were kicked out for less than active replacements. That certainly didn't help the game at all. Imagine if that happened everywhere, and Yankee also was barred from running, what would happen then? I don't think this proposal would work as flawlessly as it sounds.

[Fmr. Pres. Duke]

    As for the term limits proposal, there's a fifth-term Senator right now who happens to be the primary reason the Senate is even functioning at all at this point. Sounds great on paper, slightly less so in practice.

I think the point of the proposal is that if it were implemented, you wouldn't need someone like Yank to keep things going in the first place. The Senate as a whole would become more active because players wouldn't burn out. So while you may lose someone like Yank (for a few months), you also have no need for his ability to keep the Senate scraping along.

I can think of at least 2 regional senate elections where active candidates or incumbents were kicked out for less than active replacements. That certainly didn't help the game at all. Imagine if that happened everywhere, and Yankee also was barred from running, what would happen then? I don't think this proposal would work as flawlessly as it sounds.

There are a bunch of other possibilities we have locked up for discussion in the campaign that still address this problem, so highlighting the strong and weak points of each individual idea is exactly the sort of thing in a contest of ideas that we want to do.

Regardless, ignoring the merits of the idea entirely and just saying this generally, we just can't have it both ways here. At some point, something's gotta change, and people can't say that they wish new people were involved in the game and that we had more people doing things while at the same time trying to protect the job security of the old guard. If we actually want to solve problems, we need to make the tough and challenging decisions to actually solve them. We can't just always pay the idea of being newbie-friendly lip service without putting our money where our mouth is. (I never understood that saying.)

I think most people know I'm not exactly newbie friendly.

In all seriousness, how do we define a newbie-friendly environment? I sometimes love to tout the free market, and this is an area where I'd say the free-market would work more efficiently than a regulated one in the sense that we simply do not have enough active people in this game to have a turnover every two terms. Hell, look at this election. It isn't like there are many new faces running (and your own ticket is a flip of a previous administration), and this position has term limits!

At the end of the day, I think it's safe to say we'd see placeholders running for seats if parties could not have their preferred candidate run again to keep it warm for four months. We have to give voters the responsibility to keeping this game successful. If they elect inactive people over active ones, then they dug their own grave. We don't need any hand-holding, Marokai. I stopped doing that when I graduated high school!

Now you might say "well Duke, you're just shamelessly trying to save your job," and it's true, but I still hope I made some valid points!

[Fmr. Pres. Duke]

Why is deregistration so important? If you don't want to participate, just don't vote and you'll be removed in due time. Surely a PM here and there to go vote isn't THAT intrusive. If it is, those people need to chill out.

There just seem to be too many intangibles around it for it to work without causing the RG to go insane.

[Fmr. Pres. Duke]

How can we trust in PS if he takes two week leave of absences like this? At a time of war no less? What's going to happen to Marokai during these rough days?? The horror!

[Fmr. Pres. Duke]

I'd like to point out, now that the dust has settled, how crazy things got without Purple State. I think I called this before it happened. I will now accept my accolades.