Join the new world

This was the speech given by mjdiv, winner of the US TAMA primary for party president, on Tuesday, June 8, 2010:

(tl;dr version at bottom)

"Good evening to all of our guests and members of the great United States Trade And Military Alliance party! Most of you know me but, for those who don’t, I’d like to take you back through the history of this country and the history of this great party.

495 days ago, I began my life in eRepublik, long before we had been involved in World War IV or even World War III. From my earliest days, I looked at all of the political parties and knew that I would join this party as soon as I was able to. I wanted to join this party because it was a party that stood for something - for making sure our citizens could pursue individual freedoms. I have always been a member of this party, I have always been a citizen of this country and I have always been proud of that and have never looked back and thought I should have done anything different. I love this party and I love this country and I have always done everything to learn as much as I could and teach it to our newest citizens.

495 days ago, we were called the Libertarian party and Emerick had built us up to be one of the most powerful political parties in the world, routinely ranked as the No. 1 or No. 2 party in USA. 495 days ago, Emerick also would NEVER have called us the “Sexy Libs”. Emerick came to dislike the party he helped build up and he did not like the people who this party came to represent. For the past year, he’s wanted to destroy the same party he built up. Emerick left the party and with the leaving of Emerick, a lot of its direction left with him. The Libertarian party, while having many great people, eventually lost our way and had no common direction. We were 1000 souls going in 1000 different directions.

Although Emerick left, I did not! I remained and I worked with people such as Daphne Lilac and Publius and helped write the tenets of the Libertarian party which Emerick had left in the dust. We took a poll of party members to determine what our party stood for and, while these were all great, they ended up being buried in a board in the forums which few people took the time to read. These tenets of the party are now being brought into the open as TAMA: A party that stands for open markets, military strength, cooperation between nations and individual freedoms for our citizens.

Some people are nostalgic about our past and want to bring back the Libertarian name, but I will tell you why we should not: First of all, while some of us are real life Libertarians, most of us in this party are not and we are in many ways different than the RL party. Secondly, the great Libertarian party that people try to evoke memories of was the party of Emerick - the party he came to hate - the “Sexy Libs” he wanted to destroy and still does, regardless of what name we choose to call ourselves, so why should we bring back the memory of someone else who does not accept us now, did not accept us then and will not accept us in the future? It’s time to cut the ties! We are not Emerick. We are ourselves and we always have been and we need to place our marks and show the world that we have an identity that is not related to someone who has tried to tear us apart and who will not be happy if someone ELSE can grow this party beyond what he could. 495 days ago, we were Emerick’s children. Since he abandoned us, we’ve grown up and became ourselves. If we are to grow, we cannot keep looking into the past, staying in Emerick’s shadow - we need to progress into the future. We need to let the world know who we are and proudly state that fact. 495 days is long enough to live in the shadow of someone who despises us. None of you should ever believe that you can’t be part of something great without Emerick or any other self-righteous person in the world. We ARE a great party. We are not Emerick’s shadow. We are TAMA!

495 days ago, I soon got to understand that no one country could ever “win” in eRepublik without the help of many allies. Not even the most militarily strong, largest population countries could ever survive on their own without allies. No matter how many tanks you have, no matter how many highly trained soldiers you have, no one nation will ever be able to fight against 50 MPPs stacked up against it. That’s why I knew we needed to build good relations with other countries. Our government also needs to take interest in the economies of our allies if we expect them to care about ours. The same is true of political parties. We must relate to people in other parties and work together to help the nation, not isolate ourselves and alienate others who aren’t like us. Almost everything in eRepublik depends on cooperation and working as a team to succeed. Everyone who tries to do things alone here ultimately fails. I started writing about these things even before I was able to join any political parties and I quickly gained many !!. I joined the Libs and, before long, I was the highest-ranked Libertarian writer in the world, writing about the ideas which would become the foundation for TAMA. My service was sought by many and I made friendships in all of the major political parties and many of the smaller ones. I served in the Cabinets of 9 different administrations ranging from Secretary of Media throughout the entire invasion of North America all the way up to Deputy Chief of Staff and I am currently serving under President Chocolate McSkittles alongside our Secretary of State as Director of Economic Relations. My ideas were formed by working with great economists such as One Eye. My team in the Department involves people from TAMA as well as from other political parties and include great people such as AidenAstrup and Dr. Tango and we are taking important steps which will have huge impact on the world as we work toward improving the economies of USA as well as our allies through open markets which will never have high priced, unaffordable finished goods or dried up supplies of raw materials.

TAMA is not just a name; it’s much bigger than a political party. It is a worldwide movement that is gaining momentum. It was created by members of this party as a reflection of what we stand for and now provides our party, once again, with a direction to work for something we all can believe in.

So today I am asking for your nomination for party president of the US TAMA party, so that our party will not lose our direction and will once again be part of American history and the future of our allies. Electing me as your party president, you will have someone who will bring together the talents and leadership of the many great people we have in this party as well as recruit the talents of others outside the party. I will also work to increase the activity and find ways for all of our members to get involved in this important part of our history. We have great people such as Myles Robinson, Dennis McVicker, KrissyKat, LifesaverM, Charmader95 and on and on and on. TAMA is full of so many bright, talented people, perhaps the greatest group of players in any single party, just needing a leader who will allow you to reach your potentials. Every one of you has so much to offer and only needs a place to share your skills. We already have an amazing party and an incredible sea of leadership - all we needed was a direction to point our more than 500 sails to catch the wind and move us from mere existence to a powerful energetic group that is capable of achieving things the world has never seen. Whatever the future of our party brings, Dennis and I will work together and will continue to provide the wind for TAMA’s sails. There is still work to be done and it is our responsibility to make sure it gets done. Our President depends on it, our nation depends on it, and our allies depend on our continuing to blaze the path we’ve started.

(TL😉R version - just start here)
A vote for me is a vote to never look back and second-guess ourselves. A vote for me is a vote for a party president who will bring honor and respect to this party by improving inter-party relations. A vote for me is a vote to make sure that this party will never stand for isolationism and will help and earn the respect of the nations we must depend on who are our allies. We can’t go back and erase 495 days of our history that made us who we are today. A vote for me is a vote for progress and I invite you all to come on this journey with me to chart our own path as we learn from 495 days of history and move into the future.

Thank you all for listening. As I come to the end of my talk, I’d like to show you a video that was created by TAMA’s art director, oOoAMONoOo:"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W0c6ADZUUdw&feature=channel