The Public White House: Constitutional Convention at FINAL VOTE!

[Marokai Backbeat]

For everyone that's interested in a position, it would perhaps be easier if you simply PMed me (even if you've already expressed interest to one of us or said it publicly) with some basic questions and then I can just follow up on my own as I desire.

Tell me why you want the position.

Tell me specific thoughts you have for the position, as in, if you're applying for SoIA, tell me what you think of certain domestic policies, if you're applying for SoEA, tell my thoughts on certain foreign affairs events you have knowledge on, if AG, tell me your legal philosophy on regional vs federal rights, the enforcement of certain laws like impersonation, etc. Just give me a general rundown of your philosophies on things if that applies.

Tell me what you think you can do to make the position better, more active, or more noticed.

Add whatever you like. I'll follow up however I can.

And we're off!

[Marokai Backbeat]

Reappointments don't actually get confirmation hearings, FWIW.

Sometimes it's happened for some reason or another, but of course you're technically right.

[Marokai Backbeat]

Hey all.

I want it stated that I just went back and bookmarked all our campaign promises and some of our smaller campaign brainstorming. I will do my damnedest to make sure we take action on everything we can once we take office.

[Marokai Backbeat]

Announcement: Constitutional Convention

Calling all regional governors, lt. governors, speakers, legislatures and citizens,

The main plank in the Purple State/Marokai Blue platform was a constitutional convention to consolidate the constitution and refresh the game. The size and nature of this reform is such that I would like to begin almost immediately upon taking office and so I ask each region to consider and pass the following resolution as quickly as possible:

Third Constitutional Convention Petition

The (insert region name) Region formally petitions the President of Atlasia to call a Constitutional Convention for the purposes of consolidation of the constitution and/or legislative reboot of the game.

Your help with this is greatly appreciated.

~PS

So, is this done through referendum, or simply signatures?

For the Midwest it would probably be done by a referendum since you don't have a legislature. For everyone else, I would imagine it be done through the respective legislatures, unless the regions specify it go to referendum themselves.

[Marokai Backbeat]

So let me get this straight... You win with about 62% of the vote. You beat Afleitch. And now you're trying to start a constitutional convention.

Why does this sound familiar?

We can do it right this time.

[Marokai Backbeat]

Hey all.

I want it stated that I just went back and bookmarked all our campaign promises and some of our smaller campaign brainstorming. I will do my damnedest to make sure we take action on everything we can once we take office.

Oh so you actually plan to follow through on your campaign promises? Where did you get a bold and innovative idea. Everyone knows politicians are supposed to lie to get elected then do nothing or the complete opposite of what they promised.

My biggest criticism of the current Administration, aside from general inactivity, is the fact that they failed to live up to their promises. I want to have a checklist by me to make sure we take action on everything we possibly can. A simple gesture, but an important one.

[Marokai Backbeat]

The decision to pick Winston for SoIA was an interesting one and one PS and I both agreed from the start on; Winston is an interesting personality who will breathe a different sort of life into the SoIA position which is desperately needed. He's Winston, afterall

So if anyone could make that position interesting and well known, it'd be him.

Ben is a fresh face who, believe it or not, was VERY passionate about wanting the position and actually knew his stuff. I'm sure he will be more moderate in an official capacity, but he deserves a chance to give the SoEA line some new blood.

I have confidence in all our picks.

[Marokai Backbeat]

I'll settle for activity and purpose.

Anyway, I just wanted to thank all the other applicants for the positions. Kalwejt, Hash, and Xahar were all possible choices for SoEA. Hash was amazing and has done exemplary work, and this decision shouldn't be a reflection of our feelings on him at all.

Ben really wanted this position. He knows his stuff (he could cite figures from GM reports with ease) and he had a great passion for the position.

The truth of the matter is that these two choices were choices with game reform on the mind, with of course competence and a willingness to do the job. Ben is a fresh face, Winston is an interesting and active personality. We want to make the SoIA position worth a damn and bring new blood into the SoEA line. It shouldn't be taken as "Oh, Purple State supports communism" or "Oh, Marokai supports warmongering" because it's nothing like that. These are two fresh faces, two competent people, two very nice people, two active people, and two passionate people. It's nothing more or less than that, really.

Oh and Meeker's good too.

[Marokai Backbeat]

People, can we have this discussion elsewhere?

[Marokai Backbeat]

I just wiki'd all the laws that had their titles in red on the Statute page.

I now have a headache.

[Marokai Backbeat]

Once appointments are settled, I will open up a legislative agenda thread for Purple State and I to introduce things at our leisure. I have eight bills lined up, and Purple State has a draft of an executive order concerning Wiki-editing responsibility for as soon as he takes office.

I will also start a thread soon in this board to work on creating our own neat little version of a wiki-editing guide or wiki basics without having to just link ourselves to Wikipedia.

And I also hope that Xahar and I can continue our work evaluating the statute, as I'm trying to work out in my head how renovating the statute and the way we Wiki laws can be done. As of now, I have an idea of several steps to make for the process, the first being identifying all useless (as in, laws that don't actively enforce anything) and repealed laws, creating a repealed laws archive, and trashing them all, striking them from the main statute page on the Wiki. This is unfortunately a time consuming process, but it'll have to be done.

Thanks everyone. We have quite the months ahead.

[Marokai Backbeat]

I see fairness, balance, and respectfulness weren't on the list of criteria when you were deciding who to appoint.

I chose those who I believed would be competent. I chose those who I knew would be active. I did not take ideology or personality into account because that has nothing to do with how I plan to run my administration. I think the number of Atlasian political parties represented in the Cabinet can attest to that.

If all people focus on is personality contests and false ideological lines in the sand, this game is doomed. We need reform and we need it now. My administration has no time for ego trips and left/right debates.

Mr President Spectator and Society; you have nominated a noted forum apologist for Maoism and the extreme left (and it's excesses) for the post of SoIA. Would you ever be willing in the future to nominate a Falangist or apologist of the extreme right for a similar role if they were proven to be competent?

This is a game, and the SoIA is unable to make any policy on it's own. Winston is powerless as a policy maker. He is at best an advisor. All these picks are not based on policy or attitude or personality, they are made on their ability to improve the offices and make them more interesting.

And hearing you of all people complain about something so trivial is far beneath you.

[Marokai Backbeat]

Afleitch likes playing a character, Vepres. To not expect the far right's pet moderate Tory to not play these stupid games probably would've been too much, I guess.

[Marokai Backbeat]

Afleitch likes playing a character, Vepres. To not expect the far right's pet moderate Tory to not play these stupid games probably would've been too much, I guess.

So questioning the appointment of a Maoist is now a "far right" position?

It is an unnecessary distraction that deliberately diverts discussion from 99% of everything we've done and everything we plan to do. It is a hollow attack given that Winston has no ability to make policy on his own, and it sidesteps any and all substance. It is a disingenuous effort to tear at an Administration without having to take on big arguments.

Afleitch may very well prove to be your best friend in future political endeavors. He has a pretty smile. Seems permanently in good stature with everyone no matter what he does or doesn't do. If anyone was the perfect toy for a right-wing political comeback (now with 55% less substance!) it will be him.

[Marokai Backbeat]

Just wanted to bump this thread with the announcement of another Administration proposal. I posted it over in the Legislative Agenda thread in the Senate.

The proposal itself is something I wanted to do awhile ago when I was looking over possible wiki reform efforts. Taking all our trade legislation, and making a larger trade document that can be continually updated itself, instead of passing trade law after trade law after trade law. One piece of legislation to hold all our trade policies with other nations, and to list trade regulations as we create them

The proposal I penned takes all our trade laws I could find in the statute and puts them all together nicely, and dumps all the ones that have been repealed, or trade laws that are obsolete. Putting all countries we have trade agreements with on a neater list, instead of having a couple dozen individual pieces of statute, and taking trade regulation on homosexuality and putting it in this as well, and pointing out each trade law I could find, and removing them from the statute page so the wiki is more easy to read and there is a convenient location for all our trade information.

Hopefully once the Senate has a PPT and gets moving they will pass a common sense Wiki Reform measure that will make everyone's life, when browsing statute, just a little easier.

[Marokai Backbeat]

I'd also like to state that I will be working on a couple proposals to boost the economy and create jobs, in the face of a stumbling employment rate. Careful consideration will we given and we will do the best we can to aid Atlasia's economy with business-oriented proposals hand-in-hand with greater infrastructure investment.

[Marokai Backbeat]

I've now proposed the following bill that expands a previously very successful policy:

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Some requirements, I ask, should be made by the Senate when it is under consideration to make sure that the money will not be wasted by giving it to businesses that do not need the money, and to make sure it will get to those that need it the most first, without restricting the overall impact of the bill. But this expands a previous policy passed a year ago this month. It was a good idea then, and it remains so.

I'd also like to applaud Senator Duke for the infrastructure proposal! Very good. More should always be done to aid our flailing infrastructure, but Duke should be commended for making this first step forward.

I will, of course, continue work on my other possible proposals to aid the economy that I've previously mentioned.

Thanks everyone.

[Marokai Backbeat]

As a community, we've turned Atlasia into a country we are all comfortable with.

The reason things get personal is that there is no more ideology left to debate.

Whatever the case there are many Conservatives who aren't comfortable with current policies but feal trapped. So I would have to disagree with your assessment there about everyone being comfortable where it is. Marokai is not comfortable, he wants to go more leftward, he has told me in the past. Yet he went negative and crossed the line the most.

You must be imagining things then, because the only thing Marokai "wants" is a proper running game. I merely just propose things I like or have an understanding of, because otherwise, I wouldn't be proposing anything at all.

[Marokai Backbeat]

You are viewing this game, bizarrely, through the eyes of the American political spectrum, which is warped beyond all belief and by no means the norm. Franzl has watered down many things I've proposed in the past. Afleitch too. They are moderates, they're just European moderates.

Atlasia is not America.

Besides, this constant talking about how Social Democracy is the status quo is asinine. Plenty of my proposals in the last few months have been rejected. Plenty of my past proposals were twisted beyond recognition. Of the JCP Senate delegation, a grand total of one is a self-proclaimed Social Democrat. The reason the healthcare bill passed so easily in the end was because you view things through the warped perspective of an American ideologue. The rest of the world enjoys a strong public healthcare system in some form or another.

And honestly, what's hilarious is that while you spend an entire post there complaining about how "moderates" aren't your specific American definition of "moderate" you talk about the "right wing" as if they're just some fair little group. The "right-wing" you speak of in Atlasia are borderline Anarchists.

It's also hilarious that you talk about how things are never close in the Senate. Do you pay any attention whatsoever?

One of Hans' proposals just failed by 4-5, even after being moderated to an almost unrecognizable degree.

The SEDZI Act that I penned scraped by passage 5-4 with one abstaining.

My regulatory proposals toward the Oil industry were rejected by a vote of something like 4-6.

The tax bill to bring internet sales in line with regional sales taxes barely passed with a vote of 5-4 and one abstaining.

Quite frankly you don't know what the hell you're talking about. This woe-is-me tripe from the "right-wing" (aka the anarchists) has been going on for months now. Your criticism of the Senate for passing or rejecting everything by large majorities is observably untrue (you seem to have a pattern of disagreeing with empirical evidence) and your whining about the evil Social Democratic status-quo (remember by bill to stop tax breaks to companies moving jobs overseas? yeah, failed) is also BS.

You can argue some sort of wonky academic point. You can argue theories until you turn blue in the face. But you cannot, and I stress again, cannot, argue with what actually happened.

[Marokai Backbeat]

Vepres, there is longstanding acceptance that Atlasia is more along the line of a European/Canadian political spectrum as opposed to the American one. You can deal with it or not, it's not my problem, but don't try to purport people like PiT or SPC as your charming examples of the poor beleaguered Atlasian right.

As for right-wing legislation, I couldn't care less. You would quibble over the definition of "right wing legislation" if I ever did get examples, anyway.

The only reason I'm responding is to point out the fact that you did a complete dodge of my biggest point, the idea that there is never close calls or rejected legislation in the Senate. It was one of the cruxes of your argument, and it is entirely unfounded. That is all.

[Marokai Backbeat]

I'd also like to point out that, if there's been no serious right-wing legislation, it's because people don't introduce anything. Libertas is no centrist or left-winger, and the two proposals from him that come to mind is an anti-war constitutional Amendment (that I voted for in the referendum), and a bill that taxes big business chains.

And honestly, if you'll excuse me just being blatantly obnoxious and partisan for this one: the right-wing has been defeated in the contest of ideas and debate over and over again. Look at the healthcare thread. If I remember correctly, we fought for nearly or just about 20 pages. That's why we won that bill. We didn't win because everyone was just some sort of social democrat in disguise, we won because we put forth powerful debate backed out by a multitude of sourced arguments. Purple State made it deficit neutral, we argued back and forth over it's effectiveness. It's worked just fine.

The simple fact of the matter is, the only motivation for your opposition is ideological, not factual. Yankee once tried to mount opposition to a small estate tax raise (which I believe was proposed by Afleitch) and I merely pointed out that it hits only a fraction of a percentage point of small enterprises. During the argument on taxes, we didn't win by sitting still, we won those tax rates in the Fiscal Responsibility Act because we stood up to the burden of proof on us and carefully balanced and demonstrated it's fairness and impact. (People can make up to 33k only being taxed at 14%, and the first 8k of income isn't taxes at all!) We won the stimulus because of the constant indepth arguments over it's effectiveness and direction. Yankee and I spent pages having a wonky back and forth!

I see nothing from the right that is that equivalent. Nothing at all. We won the smoking ban, why did we win that smoking ban with a veto-proof majority? Because tough arguments were brought forward by myself and Afleitch that won people over with our demonstrated fact.

As long as the root of your position is simple ideology, you will inherently be less successful.