Unconditional Surrender Truman
Harry S Truman
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Posts: 14,139
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« Reply #1 on: December 13, 2018, 04:22:32 AM » |
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It's extremely difficult to have a productive dialogue around inactivity, in part because the word itself has been cheapened by years of partisan warfare to where it becomes shorthand for the opposition party, in part because it's difficult to have a productive dialogue around anything when the well of public discourse has been poisoned by the hateful, dehumanizing rhetoric currently in vogue.
I'll preface this by saying I basically agree with everything Yankee said, so this is intended as an addendum, not a rebuttal.
I've been involved in this game, in one capacity or another, for almost four years. In that time, I don't think we have ever been in a place where the entire system has experienced sustained activity for more than a few weeks. Part of that is systemic, part of it is cultural, and sometimes simply dumb luck that grinds the gears to a halt. At this point, I frankly no longer trust the 'traditional' remedies for inactivity, because they simply have not produced sustained results. If your patient needs an emergency operation every month to keep him alive, it's time to ask what is wrong with the treatment plan, and maybe time as well to take a step back and assess whether your expectations for 'recovery' are reasonable.
From my time in the Mideast Assembly, to the Senate, to the ConCon, and most recently as prime minister in Fremont, we have always had legislators who inhabit a middle ground between the truly inactive (the Fairbols and Roy Barneses who just disappear and leave everyone in the lurch) and the super-human posters who hold down a cabinet position, a seat in the Senate, two or three regional offices, and manage to church out 40-some bills in an afternoon. They may not be prolific bill writers, and they may not have an expert's knowledge of the finer points of policy, but they consistently show up for votes, contribute feedback, and are at least a regular presence in debates. I don't think RFayette authored a bill the entire time he was in the Fremont legislature —but he rarely missed a vote, he ran in the elections, and he did his job. Shaming these legislators as inactive is not helpful, and does nothing to encourage sustainable activity. If someone is actually neglecting their duties, that's one thing —but if they just don't have a lot to say, we need to understand that not everyone is a policy wonk, but may still have something to offer.
We need to understand that the majority of those who play this game are not here to write a doctoral thesis on the finer points of the U.S. tax code. Wonkishness in this game often functions as a kind of elitism, with a small circle of posters who care very deeply about policy insisting that everyone share their pet obsession and denigrating the hoi poloi as ignorant and their contributions not worth entertaining. This attitude drives people away, and is frankly unrealistic in its conception of activity. That's not to say we shouldn't strive to be thorough or more nuanced in our approach to policy questions; but we do need to be reasonably accommodating of those whose knowledge of a particular area is more basic.
The Lechausseur recall affair actually concerns me quite a bit, because it seems to represent an uncompromising definition of activity that turns on anyone who falters even for a moment. I don't know what discussions may have taken place behinds the scenes before the recall petition was introduced, but frankly, nine days seems a very short time to be calling for someone's dismissal from office. I'm not saying we should give someone the benefit of the doubt indefinitely—eventually, if someone is not able to be present, something needs to be done—but I do think we need to retool our expectations, understand that sometimes outside circumstances prevent a player from being present, and assess whether action is really necessary before plunging ahead with something as serious as a recall.
To change tack somewhat abruptly, I don't think you can talk about inactivity without also taking into consideration the tone of the game. Yankee made the point in his first presidential campaign almost two years ago now, and it bears repeating: this game is fueled by voluntary participation, and if people are made to feel unwelcome, they are not going to stick around. I don't know what people who throw around phrases like "human scum" and others I can't repeat without violating the TOS think they are achieving, but if the goal is to drive people away from the game, it's working.
These are more musings than anything—I've no idea what they imply as far as a course of action, and anyways somebody else is going to have to do it, because I've no more energy to keep throwing myself at the same problems over and over as I would have a couple of years ago. That won't stop people from reading a nefarious partisan agenda into it, but so it goes.
So yeah, in addition to Yankee's list (which is spot-on), I'd include
• don't be an *ssh*le
• learn to work with and combine the strengths of different kinds of active players
• don't be an *ssh*le
No-one will listen, of course, and in fairness my thoughts are disorganized and probably unintelligible at this hour; but that's my two cents. Those who disagree violently, as they inevitably will, can take comfort in the knowledge that I have every intention to never run for office again, at least not before the very distant future, and so these ramblings of a weary citizen can be safely ignored.
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