First off, I'd like to thank President Napoleon for organizing and moderating this discussion, each of the other candidates for participating, and all Atlasian citizens who take the time to read our remarks.
I'm running for the Senate because I've decided to participate in Atlasia again, the Senate is my favorite part of the game by far, and I believe that my knowledge, expertise, and experience will allow me to be a considerable asset to the Senate- and Atlasia as a whole.
I can improve the quality of the Senate with the incredibly active and pragmatic approach I take towards participation and debate. I will always do my own independent research before voting; in the past I can remember spending hours at a time crafting responses for my fellow Senators to read. I'm also willing to set prior hostility and ideological differences aside to work with any of my colleagues on any legislation that I think will improve our nation. For example, I once worked alongside DownWithDaLeft, writing several amendments to his original bill (and also taking several passages from an earlier unsuccessful bill written by then-Senator Ebowed), to pass the first major easing of drug laws in Atlasian history. In addition, I once even partnered with the infamous Libertas (at the height of his "eye roll at everything" stage, no less), playing an instrumental role in retooling his "Break the Chains Act" which helps the Atlasian economy by providing unprecedented support for the creation of small businesses.
While I prefer not to give myself a label, I believe my ideology can be considered "social liberal," "radical," or maybe "left-libertarian"; I prefer not to use such terms because I'd rather allow my actions and words speak for themselves, instead of forcing others to assume and guess the extent a given label actually matches my own personal ideology. Ultimately, I am relatively pragmatic in governance; the only guiding principles that really impact my decision-making are:
A. If there's a problem, fix in the most efficient way possible.
B. If a policy can be improved, change it so it's better.
C. Don't hesitate to suggest massive reforms when they're needed, but note that incremental improvements are preferable to stagnation when the status quo is too heavily entrenched for the ideal solution to be implemented.
D. One's freedom from government intrusion into one's personal life should be sacrosanct if they're not doing anything that hurts another.
At this time I have no policy goals of my own, but I pledge to give my full attention to any request a constituent sends to me, to cooperate with my fellow Senators to improve their legislation, and introduce my own bills in any area where I see that the Senate is not adequately addressing a problem.
I'm curious about the Committee structure and cautious regarding its long term viability, but if they become a long-term fixture I think there are several ways they could be better integrated into the current rule structure of the Senate. I also believe the Senate could be more active, but I don't know if it's objectively a problem, or it just seems that way to me right now because it doesn't have any of my excessively long posts spamming up the debate.
