National Liberal Coalition Policy Discussion

[Colin]

Well I think my opinion on electoral reform is rather clear. I am for proportional representation and I have supported the expansion of the Senate in the past. Beyond the reforms proposed by Jas and myself through the Proportional Representation bill and the Ending the Districts Amendment I don't see much else that you could do under the current system electorally. Personally I've always thought that Atlasia has a choice between empowering the President further to turn this into a full presidential system or get rid of the presidential elements and becoming what we basically are now, a parliamentary system.

[Colin]

Two-member Districts are too small for reasonable STV elections, and there aren't yet enough Atlasians for three-member Districts.

Also you have to consider that most districts now have trouble finding two candidates to run in an election. With DWDL's exit from the race no district in this election had more than two candidates.

As for the by-election method I don't really care as long as some form of proportional representation is put in place.

[Colin]

Well I don't really agree with the Labor section of the platform. I think our regional minimum wages have worked fine and allows for the great flexibility in the labour market between the different regions. It allows each region to set its minimum wage at the level that it deems to be appropriate. Often a federal minimum wage is either inefficient at protecting wages in high wage areas, because going wages for even unskilled jobs are above the minimum, and hurts areas were the prevailing wages would come in under the federally set minimum.

I mean I don't really care whether you take it out or anything, I've never agreed with any party platform in Atlasian history, but I'm just throwing my opinion out there.

[Colin]

Northeast: No law recorded, but, then again, no laws after October 2005 are recorded

There is no minimum wage law in the Northeast. One was proposed but was voted down by the voters of the Northeast.

[Colin]

I am very much for independence though. As the minority opinion in this, I guess, I would suggest we not have a plank on that as such.

[Colin]

We can add that in though it looks as if this referendum will establish the "anti-independence" position as the national consensus and close the issue.

I'd personally agree to a "Nay" plank on the Atlasian-US relations for obvious reasons, as would all other Nay voters in the NLC/GLP/BDP

Well it's not like I've ever given a sh**t about a party platform. While I wouldn't consider it a closed issue, I've heard many people state that they would be more willing to agree to something of this sort if it was discussed further before being put to a vote and Atlasia's place in the world is a constant debate stretching back to the beginnings of this country, I would consider it a bad choice if we included this in our platform.

Verily, when it comes to the GM the position is not coming back. No one, even if they want the position, would be capable of doing the amount of things that the GM is supposed to do. Even if we had a GM team made up of Tom Clancy, Alan Greenspan, and Zbigniew Brzezinski that we paid millions of dollars a year to do nothing but be Atlasia's GMs I doubt they would be able to do everything that is asked of the GM.

Getting back on the subject at hand though I think the only forum affairs issue on which the NLC is rather unanimous is the subject of proportional representation and the End to Districts Amendment, which I think almost all NLC members were for. However this also runs into the same issue that once its passed its a dead issue and if it fails a new way would have to be tried anyway.

[Colin]

Verily, when it comes to the GM the position is not coming back. No one, even if they want the position, would be capable of doing the amount of things that the GM is supposed to do. Even if we had a GM team made up of Tom Clancy, Alan Greenspan, and Zbigniew Brzezinski that we paid millions of dollars a year to do nothing but be Atlasia's GMs I doubt they would be able to do everything that is asked of the GM.

USGS

Are they still around? I thought they collapsed like many other of these "gov sims". Plus you can't really compare it. USGS is a straight US Government analogue, same parties, same government structure, I think the only thing they have different is that they have a region structure similar to ours rather than states. Atlasia has always been a rather more free flowing country. I don't think we've tried to recreate the workings of the US government since we drafted our first consitution.

[Colin]

Verily, when it comes to the GM the position is not coming back. No one, even if they want the position, would be capable of doing the amount of things that the GM is supposed to do. Even if we had a GM team made up of Tom Clancy, Alan Greenspan, and Zbigniew Brzezinski that we paid millions of dollars a year to do nothing but be Atlasia's GMs I doubt they would be able to do everything that is asked of the GM.

USGS

Are they still around? I thought they collapsed like many other of these "gov sims". Plus you can't really compare it. USGS is a straight US Government analogue, same parties, same government structure, I think the only thing they have different is that they have a region structure similar to ours rather than states. Atlasia has always been a rather more free flowing country. I don't think we've tried to recreate the workings of the US government since we drafted our first consitution.

Around and thriving.  They have been very sucessful at projecting at least a decade into the future, encompasing foreign policy, economics...everything necessary to a good government sim.  Certainly we don't have the man-power to go the depth they do, but do have the talent to cover that kind of scope, especially considering we don't move at a accelerated time pace like USGS.

Well we've never set the time pace that we are going at. Considering that our terms are four months long instead of four years it could easily be the 22nd century by now for all we know. I think my prior objections still stand. They work as a straight government simulation without the permutations and excentricities that Atlasia has always had, parties forming and dieing constantly, unicameral legislature, Senatorial domination of the political system, strong independent streak among politicians, etc.