The Imperial Dominion of the South's Legislature

[John Dibble]

I'd like to add this as the next bill for consideration:

Southeastern Educational Incentive Act

1. The Southeast shall provide a $1,000 tax credit per student to all households who have a member enrolled in an institute of higher learning full-time, and a $500 tax credit to a member enrolled part-time.
2. The credit provided shall not exceed the total value of the income tax assessed. (i.e. taxation cannot be less than $0)
3. A full-time student shall be deemed any student who successfully completes a total of 24 credit hours per year, or completes 12 credit hours per semester.
4. A part-time student  shall be deemed any student who successfully completes at least 6, but no more than 23 credit hours per year, or who completes at least 3, but no more than 11, credit hours per semester.
5. This law shall take effect starting for students enrolled within institutes of higher learning during the semester starting in the Fall of 2010.

You dare put a bill about education before my bill to make the region more evil? Clearly you have a warped sense of priorities.

[John Dibble]

PiT and I came up with this what do you guys think of this as an amendment to vote on in the regional voting booth?

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We should be the Southeastern Empire. Republics are for the non-evil.

amended

If I may interject, I would say that an Empire is not necessarily an evil form of government. It also suggests a desire for conquest and a degree of sovereignty that I think the federal government may object to, and the last thing we want is them getting in our business about this.

I would suggest the Southeastern Dominion. I think it's sufficiently threatening without suggesting we're starting a rebellion or anything. For the same reasons I suggest the title of Chancellor for the Governor.

[John Dibble]

Ok, but I still like "Dominion" better - I think it has more style.

[John Dibble]

 How about "Imperial Dominion of the Southeast"? That way we get both options in.

why not drop the "east" in it. 

I'm fine with that either way. It's a fair compromise.

Or maybe we should just not make the change effective on the federal level, because "Imperial Dominion of the South(east)" would be a ridiculously long name to stick on that map.

They should be required to conform to our standards - if it's difficult for them to stick our glory on a map then so be it! We shall not be stopped by such petty concerns.

[John Dibble]

So...what now?

Now you look at the legislation thread to see what the next bills up for consideration are of course. Currently there's an education bill and a suggestion of changing our flag to something more glorious. EDIT - actually, now that I think about it, we already did the education bill.

[John Dibble]

The flag is nice and evil, but we need some sort of villainous motto for it.

Cherish liberty. Destroy the Jedi.

Three things:

1. Villains don't tend to tout liberty, so I'm not sure it's villainous for our motto to contain "cherish liberty".
2. While I'm all for destroying the Jedi, I don't think the Imperial Dominion should overly reflect a singular evil philosophy. Destroying the Jedi is primarily a Sith goal. I think we need a motto that reflects a more generic evil sentiment.
3. The Jedi are technically a religion, albeit a highly misguided one, and as such I don't think having such a motto on our flag would be constitutional - you know, separation of church and state and whatnot.

[John Dibble]

Having made a trip to Wookieepedia, I think that it out to be the following:

Governor: Emperor
Lt. Governor: Shadow Hand
Speaker: Grand Moff
Assemblyman: Moff

We've already done the names and passed the amendment, so we're not likely to change them again any time soon.

[John Dibble]

The flag is nice and evil, but we need some sort of villainous motto for it.

Cherish liberty. Destroy the Jedi.

Three things:

1. Villains don't tend to tout liberty, so I'm not sure it's villainous for our motto to contain "cherish liberty".
2. While I'm all for destroying the Jedi, I don't think the Imperial Dominion should overly reflect a singular evil philosophy. Destroying the Jedi is primarily a Sith goal. I think we need a motto that reflects a more generic evil sentiment.
3. The Jedi are technically a religion, albeit a highly misguided one, and as such I don't think having such a motto on our flag would be constitutional - you know, separation of church and state and whatnot.

How about a Vader quote "...Join us or Die..."

Maybe, but again we're getting stuck on Star Wars. As the founder of the Atlasian Association for the Advancement of Evil People, I want the region to reflect a wide variety of types of evil.

Also, Vader is a bit problematic. Certainly he committed great atrocities in the name of the Dark Side of the Force, and that is to be commended, but we mustn't forget that he was weak. He betrayed and killed his master, not out of greed and desire to take his power for himself as any proper evil would do, but out of compassion! He turned to good at the end! Can you really say that he is a proper role model for the next generation which will inevitably betray us and seize power from us?

[John Dibble]

True, you have any suggestions for an evil motto for the flag?

I'm thinking about them. I'll present a few candidates when I have some I'm happy with.

[John Dibble]

Here's a few possibles.

“Hell is empty and all the devils are here.” - Shakespeare  (I particularly like this one)
“Hope is the worst of evils, for it prolongs the torment of man” - Friedrich Nietzsche
“Our greatest evil flows from ourselves” - Jean-Jacques Rousseau
"There is no good or evil: only power and those too weak to seek it." - J. K. Rowling

Also, we could just go with "Greed, Power, Corruption" or something of that nature.

[John Dibble]

You have to remember that "Evil People" per se do not view themselves as such.

Only those who can't truly embrace evil don't recognize themselves as such. They are weak.

[John Dibble]

“Hell is empty and all the devils are here.” - Shakespeare  (I particularly like this one)

I like that one as well, but it lets add just 3 more teaspoons of evil, translate it into Latin.

Abyssus est cassus quod diabolus es hac

I like it! I'll make a few versions of the proposed flags with this later.

[John Dibble]

Here's a couple with red text. One with Daedric runes for the letters, and one with just a different font.

[John Dibble]

Pretty sure that's not actual Latin.

I found a few Latin translators online to check, and while they aren't necessarily 100% accurate they all give the translation "Abyssus est cassus quod totus diabolus es hic", so it's one missing word in there. If someone has a more accurate translation I'll put that on there, but in the mean time here's the updated runic one.



I'll do the plain English letters if someone wants me to, but I like these better.

[John Dibble]

     Sweet! So what is our next order of business? Another item of evil, or maybe something a little more tame?

How about someone with wiki access updating our flag on the wiki pages that need it?

[John Dibble]

     Sweet! So what is our next order of business? Another item of evil, or maybe something a little more tame?

How about someone with wiki access updating our flag on the wiki pages that need it?

     I could handle that. Does the picture need to be uploaded onto the Wiki, or is it fine as is?

Uploading it to the wiki would be better. Imageshack isn't 100% reliable.

[John Dibble]

     Sweet! So what is our next order of business? Another item of evil, or maybe something a little more tame?

How about someone with wiki access updating our flag on the wiki pages that need it?

     I could handle that. Does the picture need to be uploaded onto the Wiki, or is it fine as is?

Uploading it to the wiki would be better. Imageshack isn't 100% reliable.

     Alright, I can try to figure that out. As for official business, how about we deal with the budget bill now?

You're the Imperial Speaker, that's up to you isn't it? Stop being so damn deferential! Speak with the authority you know you have and are able to abuse at leisure.

[John Dibble]

     I've never been someone with a wealth of Lawful Neutral ideas for bills. I think I was principally responsible for the passage of three or four substantial bills in my eight months in the Senate.

The problem is we have nothing to pass bills about.

     Well we could try to address the high unemployment rate (at least, beyond the previous bill that reduced the business tax). Problem is, I'm not sure that we could come up with a bill to do that that would be satisfactory to everyone.

In the words of Lewis Black, build a big f**king thing. We need a monument to evil. Doesn't matter what it is too much, just so long as it's big, evil, and people will want to come and see it, thus bringing more tourism to the region.

[John Dibble]

     Anyway, how much would this cost? Perhaps we could contract a private company for this project, require that they hire Southerners for the construction & staffing, & encourage them to hold tours of the facility to help make money.

Sounds good.  I dunno about money matters.  Maybe we should consult His Eminence Ramsey?

     According to the last news we heard, the region was $2 billion in the black. However, that was a while ago, so it might have gone in the red since then.

Well, we are evil.  There's nothing on the books against forced labor.

     I think that's a pretty sure way to get an ass-kicking courtesy of the federal government. Evil does not necessarily mean self-destructive.

Besides, the whole premise of this is to put people to work so they can earn money and stimulate the economy.

If we were going to use forced labor though, the Constitution does allow it in the case of convicted criminals.


As far as the giant pentagram maze idea goes, I approve. I don't know about making it an asylum though - remember it has to be something for tourists. Also, we'll need a way to make it vertically imposing, so unless the walls are going to be really high we'll want to add some towers to it.

[John Dibble]

Also, where are we going to build it? I would think it would need to be near a major city with an airport, or at least near a major interstate that is well traveled.

[John Dibble]

As I alluded to above, I think an upper-limit would be counterproductive. Basically, what I am thinking is that whoever runs the place after it's completed gets 80% of ticket sales while the contractor gets 20%. However, we take 10%, which comes out of the contractor's 20%, until we have covered the cost of funding the contract. As such, there is no incentive for the contractor to try to gouge us, since whatever they get paid for the job itself is essentially an advance on the percentage of ticket sales they get after the job is done.

I was under the impression that this would be owned and run by the Imperial Dominion, seeing as we're paying to build it and all.

[John Dibble]

Ah, yes, that was sort of odd. We could always adopt that as a second name if we wanted to.

No. Absolutely not. The whole "Dirty South" thing was completely lacking in class and dignity to begin with. That era is over. It's dead. Keep it that way or I'll make furniture from your bones and coffee mugs from your skulls.

[John Dibble]

How about we elaborate it to "Slavery or involuntary servitude is forbidden in Atlasia, except as punishment for a crime, where it may only be administered within a penitentiary established for the purpose of holding convicted criminals"? A suggestion on the wording would be appreciated.

Wouldn't making it only applicable within the penitentiary take away using people who have been convicted of lower level crimes for doing community service type work like picking up trash on the side of the road?

[John Dibble]

How about we elaborate it to "Slavery or involuntary servitude is forbidden in Atlasia, except as punishment for a crime, where it may only be administered within a penitentiary established for the purpose of holding convicted criminals"? A suggestion on the wording would be appreciated.

Wouldn't making it only applicable within the penitentiary take away using people who have been convicted of lower level crimes for doing community service type work like picking up trash on the side of the road?

Well they couldn't be obligated to do community service, but it would exist as an option for them to avoid going to prison, which is what would happen otherwise.

Sometimes low flight risk convicts who are actually in prison are made to do such work. What about them?

[John Dibble]

How about we elaborate it to "Slavery or involuntary servitude is forbidden in Atlasia, except as punishment for a crime, where it may only be administered within a penitentiary established for the purpose of holding convicted criminals"? A suggestion on the wording would be appreciated.

Wouldn't making it only applicable within the penitentiary take away using people who have been convicted of lower level crimes for doing community service type work like picking up trash on the side of the road?

Well they couldn't be obligated to do community service, but it would exist as an option for them to avoid going to prison, which is what would happen otherwise.

Sometimes low flight risk convicts who are actually in prison are made to do such work. What about them?

Well my intent, & one that I think Darth Yelnoc agrees with, is that it should be possible to impose involuntary servitude on the convicts who are actually in prison.

Well, as I said there is the community service punishment, and it isn't always optional, and frankly I think it's more cost effective and practical than prison in many cases. Also, most people would rather have that punishment than go to prison.

I don't think we need to worry about making a person a literal slave in lieu of prison time for a couple of reasons:

1. If the person has committed a crime that warrants a long prison term, then it's not likely anyone would want to have them as a slave anyways because they'd likely consider them dangerous. Really only the state has the resources to watch over any significant number of convicts for use as labor with any degree of safety.
2. The constitutional prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment would probably apply. Community service punishments are measured in hours, not months or years, so anything warranting service in those amounts would likely just come with a prison term instead.