Labor Party Fall 2014 Convention - San Francisco, CA - ENDORSEMENTS/PLATFORM

[Adam Griffin]

Commune one, commune all to the Fall 2014 Labor Party Convention in eternally-condemned and phallicly-situated San Francisco, CA!

Atlasia's most fabulous political party gathers at the moist and wanting Bay by the City to do the same thing as it did four months ago. We come to revise our methods of operation. We come to draft our ideals into a concrete, concise platform. We come to communicate with one another and become a more cohesive force. Perhaps most importantly, however: we come to once again to secure the future of our country and our Party.

There are a number of items that we will address in the coming days – each of which are important and require your attention as a Laborite. These items include:

• Adoption of Party By-Laws
• Adoption of Party Platform (COMPLETED)
• Labor Party Presidential Endorsement (COMPLETED)
• Labor Party Senatorial Endorsements (COMPLETED)
• Winter 2015 Convention Location Selection (COMPLETED; BUFFALO)
• Open Floor Discussions

As with any convention, it is important to have an orderly process. By my calculations, it could take the better part of a month to complete all of these tasks if we only do one at a time. For this reason, we will be conducting business side-by-side; not every aspect of this convention will be conducted at once, but if a particular item is taking too long we will begin working on another subject concurrently. Non-Laborites who persistently disturb this Convention will be tased, hauled off by Governor Varavour's Armed People's Republican Guards and awake in the nearest Tender Branson's So Deep So Deep Dungeon franchise.

Due to all of this, I ask that all posts made by Party members within this thread use the following coded system when it pertains to your specific comment at the beginning of each post:

[BYL] - By-laws
[PLA] – Party Platform
[END] – Presidential Endorsement
[SEN] – Senatorial Endorsement
[CON] – Convention Location Selection

This will make record-keeping and reference for all much easier.


Radicalized bretzels, bread and roses - along with our convention's favorite of canine con carne - will be served by our supple San Friskyservants this evening as our guests check in, with formal activities beginning sometime tomorrow. In the meantime, please sign in and feel free to go out and get foggy!

[Adam Griffin]

x Griff

[Adam Griffin]

[CON] We'll start off with the easy stuff first! For those who haven't signed in yet, you'll still be able to get your radicalized bretzels and join the convention as we proceed.

Pursuant to Labor Party By-laws Section III-1 & 2, we will now begin the process of selecting the location for our next convention, to be held in the Northeast Region:

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Each member has 24 hours to nominate/second a Northeastern city, starting now! The top three nominations (in terms of suggestions) will be placed on the ballot for a vote, which will also last 24 hours.

[Adam Griffin]

[CON] I believe we had a situation similarly before where we had a "tie" of sorts with convention suggestions, so in order to break it, we'll go in chronological order of submission.

The voting for the February 2015 Labor Party Convention will commence, and will last for 24 hours.


Winter 2015 Labor Party Convention Location:

[ ] Buffalo, NY
[ ] Fort Lee, NJ
[ ] Scranton, PA

[Adam Griffin]

[CON] During the voting period and by a vote of 5-4, Buffalo, NY shall be the location of the Winter 2015 Labor Party Convention!

[Adam Griffin]

Will Labor include a plank in it's platform condemning the President's nomination of noted-anti gay rights activist Hifly as SoEA?  I'm not trying to make trouble or anything, I'm just trying to figure out what to make of this.  I haven't been here in awhile so maybe things have changed, but I seem to recall a number of Laborites being well to even my left on marriage-related issues.  So I hope you'll forgive me if I'm rather perplexed by the current Labor President, DemPGH, nominating Atlasia's most infamous opponent of marriage equality (my apologies to Senator JCL ) to the cabinet shortly after the latter rammed through the Mideast Assembly a bill that would've forced public schools to indoctrinate our children with reprehensible homophobic propaganda.  

Anyway, I was just hoping someone could clarify the Labor Party's position on marriage equality for me.  Was there some seismic shift while I was gone that caused Labor to become an anti-gay rights party?  It seems kind of weird that a party that includes prominent supporters of legalizing group marriage, polygamy, and incest would decide same-sex marriage is the issue where they decide to tack in a more socially conservative direction, but there you go, I guess.  Or do you guys still support marriage equality for our nation's LGBT community?  I'm sorry to have to ask this if the Labor Party does still supports marriage equality, but I just want to make sure I don't have to worry about Senator JCL filling a Supreme Court vacancy or something

Labor was the party that, you know, actually noticed what hifly was doing in the Mideast, and a leading force behind the scenes and publicly to take care of that issue. With that being said, if someone's actions precluded them from ever being able to do anything else in this game, then half the population would have ceased to exist. I personally don't care much for the guy, but the same could be said regarding the position of SoEA among the population. If you or someone you know would make a better SoEA, then by all means, apply. If not, then you really don't get to complain about any of this. Stop trying to stir up nonsense, as it's not going to make you cool in the eyes of anyone who you think it will.

[Adam Griffin]

Labor's chairman is gay. I'm gay. Our Midwest Governor is the most gay. You have nothing to worry about, X. I promise on all of my gayness.

Thank God we have all of these breeders here to inform us what's best for us!

[Adam Griffin]

[BYL] Here are the proposed by-laws for the Labor Party. Several modifications have been made to streamline the office; areas that are proposed to be eliminated have been stricken, while added areas are bolded/in red.

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[Adam Griffin]

Any and all Laborites are perfectly free to sign your blatant political stunt of a petition if they so choose; nobody is telling anyone to do otherwise. Perhaps it has more to do with the messenger than the message.

[Adam Griffin]

I don't really understand how you think that someone not signing your specific protest makes them a support of hifly, and as you quote "unnamed sources" it's of little relevance.  Anyway, as I'll say for the third time, our party's position on this issue is clear, my position on this issue is clear as a rainbow and I don't think anything can be gained by cluttering up the convention thread any further.

I'll put it bluntly, if you won't call out Hifly (of all people) for his homophobic and anti-semetic views, it's that much less likely you'll condemn it when it is someone who is credible expresses such sentiments.  Honestly, I don't know how much clearer I can be.  I realize some people don't want to risk angering party bosses.  However, leadership is about doing the right thing even when it is not the politically expedient thing.  It's a shame no one in Labor has, thus far been willing to show real leadership on this issue.

We were the ones who brought the original issue to the forefront in the first place and led the charge for the bill to be vetoed. Sometimes, a separation of situations is necessary in this game. Should we continue to hold against you the fact that you've rage-quit on at least one occasion, or assume that you'll be incapable of holding elected office in the future because you resigned from one in the past, or should all parties fear you because you changed your political affiliation no fewer than four times over the span of a few months? Something tells me you'd ask for immunity and reconsideration in such situations.

If you spent half as much time trying to contribute to the game as you did spinning one way or another in order to take advantage of what is seemingly most popular at the moment, I might be willing to indulge in what you're doing. Unfortunately, all I see is a messenger trying to take advantage of a situation for his own reasoning, much of which has nothing to do with the actual subject. In other words: get someone with some principle to do what you're doing, and I'll support it.

[Adam Griffin]

You went bananas, challenged Napoleon to a duel, then quit before it happened, so that's not a smear. And you (attempted?) to deregister twice, and you had 4 registration flips in 6.5 months (not 6 months; excuse my poor estimation skills).

Mr. X
The People's Party
Ohio

X
Ohio
Labor

X
Independent
Ohio

Mr. X
Deregistered

Mr. X
Ohio
Independent

Mr. X
Labor
Ohio

Mr. X
Labor
New York

Mr. X
The People's Party
New York

Malcolm X
Deregistered

I bring it up merely as an example and a reminder, so you may understand in your own perspective what it's like to be judged in one situation about things you did in another (for which I'm a bit sensitive; see my GM nominations). Also, I don't have principles but yet I adhere to them too strongly, according to your own words? Sorry for looking out for my family in this game, the bond of which is based on loyalty to our values and one another, rather than popularity with every external faction (perhaps that's why you never fit in). Though I have to say...had I taken the same constantly morphing path as you in managing Labor, we'd probably have 7-8 Senators right now - all of whom would be obsessed with how many people like them and how often they could appear contrarian to the voters that elected them.

And yes, Barnes is right:

[Adam Griffin]

...

Couldn't include Barnes' quote/proposed alterations; max character limit.

Section 1: I have no objections to that.
Section 2: Appears to just be rewording; no objections.
Section 3: No objections; mere clarification.
Section 5: No objections to the first part; in regards to the other officers, we actually tried this in the past to a degree while you were gone and the results were rather...paltry. I think it'd be best to keep officer creation centralized and conservatively used, but that's just my opinion.
Section 7: In regards to proposed 1-d: I think this would be redundant, as the option for the candidate in question to even run in a primary wouldn't be there.

[Adam Griffin]

We were the ones who brought the original issue to the forefront in the first place and led the charge for the bill to be vetoed.

Yet you still attacked me for calling DemPGH out on it. Quite frankly I'm disgusted that you would think that Hifly should be anywhere near any public office, let alone a Cabinet position.

You're late to the party, and have completely missed the target as to what I said, so whatever. I don't think most of the game should be anywhere near any public office, but if I lived by that creed, then I'd be SOL, now wouldn't I? I'm sensitive to the fact that people who are nominated for any position should have a fair trial in front of the Senate; perhaps you're not familiar with why I take such a stance. Maybe you should apply for the job (since no one else did, and that's why he was nominated at all) if you want to make a difference, because your grand-standing isn't going to change one god-damned thing as to whether the nominee is pulled or whether there's a confirmation hearing.

[Adam Griffin]

Uncle Aaron continues to miss the point again. If you actually paid a decent amount of attention to Northeastern politics,  you'll see the legislation I've proposed, and I have faith that Speaker SWE will introduce it to a vote soon. I'm just saying - I'd expect you, especially considering your preference, to flagrantly speak out against it. Not make lukewarm statements about how you helped kill the Mideast Hate Bill while dismissing valid concerns about his bigotry as "IRC derping and trololoing" (which seems to be a common theme of yours recently).

Yeah, my over-arching theme here is that the Senate, President and Vice-President get to decide hifly's fate, as they do with all confirmations. Your bill is quite irrelevant here, which is the point you're missing: these are two separate issues, and any connection between the two I trust will be resolved during the confirmation hearing, and not by your's or anyone else's grand-standing. That is, unless, we're deciding here and now that we're going to conduct ourselves by a completely different standard that was has been the status quo.

There are plenty of people in this game who have proposed and engaged in some pretty disqualifying behavior when it comes to holding public office - some known, some not - and the only real difference here is the amount of time that's elapsed between the two. If it's an issue (which almost always, is not when it comes to rehabilitating their political careers), then the amount of time in between the acts shouldn't matter, now should it? People have proposed and passed asinine legislation regarding abortions, made rape jokes, destroyed regions, attempted to secede entire regions from the game, served entire terms while being MIA and a litany of other shocking acts, yet they've all been given a pass because it was either kept hush-hush or enough time has passed for many to not know or remember. The fact that these two events in this case are only a week apart is the only reason this is getting attention and not the others, and I call bullshit on the inconsistencies and the fact that some shit-heads get a pass, while others do not.

And thanks for reminding me of my "preference": I'll be sure to take your completely-irrelevant life experience on the matter into account.

[Adam Griffin]

[BYL] Parts that have been proposed to be eliminated that were not contested have been removed from the below proposal. Proposed changes (additions/clarifications) are bolded. Items where there either was disagreement or that were newly-suggested are listed below in a line-item fashion (four in all), to be voted upon. This vote will last for 24 hours.

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Adding the following to Section 5:

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[  ] Yes
[  ] No

Adding the text in red to Section 7:

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Term Limits for Politburo:

[  ] One term
[  ] Two terms
[  ] No term limits

Composition of Politburo:

[  ] Have a Chair only
[  ] Have a Chair and VC
[  ] Have a Chair, VC & Gen Secretary
[  ] Keep as-is
[  ] Other (explain yourself)

[Adam Griffin]

Extended for another 24 hours.

[Adam Griffin]

[BYL] Section 5 addition is approved.

The Politburo will be limited to serving two terms.

The Politburo will be consolidated to a Chair and Vice-Chair.

The appropriate modifications will be handled and drafted into the by-laws for a final approval.
'

[PLA] Now, it's time to move along to the platform discussion! We'll be hearing from Vice-Chair TNF shortly.

[Adam Griffin]

[PLA] Pursuant to Section II of the Labor Party by-laws, the presented Labor Party platform, receiving no objections within the 24-hour period, has been adopted.

[END] Pursuant to Sections VI & VII of the Labor Party by-laws, the ticket of Marokai/Antonio, receiving no competition from the party, is hereby endorsed by the Labor Party!

[SEN] Pursuant to Section VI of the Labor Party by-laws, candidates for office Bore, TNF & Windjammer receive the endorsement of the Labor Party for Northeast, Midwest and Mideast Senator, respectively!

[Adam Griffin]

Sorry about falling behind here: we'll have a 48-hour period for candidate declaration as the by-laws state, which we'll say began at noon today. There'll then be 72 hours for campaigning, followed by a 48-hour election.

[Adam Griffin]

Chair
TNF

Vice-Chair
bore