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Congressional Debate: Impeachment of the President
Earlier today, I was willing to bypass this proposal and allow Jack Roberts to step down from his position as president. However, after posting on his article stating just this, Jack Roberts instructed me to go ahead with the impeachment (either because he may not step down or because he is simply curious to see the results, I’m not sure). In accordance with that statement, I am offering this up for the usual 24 hour debate before proposing this for a vote in congress.
Most of those that will be involved with the debate have probably kept up to date on the proceedings over the last week or so. I would say that the whole situation is self explanatory, but that would defeat the purpose of setting up a debate so I will go ahead and lay out things out one more time.
A Brief Summary of the Events:
Approximately seven days ago, Jack Roberts asked the congress members and citizens of eThailand to lend their support to war games between eThailand and eIndonesia. These war games were to be a friendly training exercise that would consist of a variety of battles in the southern region of eThailand. The congress and the general body of eThai citizens supported these games as they seemed a good way to increase good relations with eIndonesia and gain experience with absolutely no drawbacks.
The bill was proposed in congress a day later and the war with eIndonesia was voted in at a 19 to 0. Unanimous. After eThailand retreated from the southern region, however, eIndonesia invaded eIndia through the open door. At first it was unclear whether eThailand had simply been mislead or whether the president had known of this plan all along.
Sadly, it seems he had known and only shared this plan with four other eThai individuals. So only five of the 19 votes were actually informed votes. The rest of those congressmen were mislead.
Essentially, Jack Roberts proposed a false bill and presented congressmen with a decision that they could not make because they were not properly informed. There were a variety of reasons given for this course of action, and they can all be found in the articles I have listed below, but one of the biggest was a lack of trust in the congress. The president decided to bypass the process of informed congressional votes because he did not trust certain members of congress. The question we must ask ourselves is, is this a good enough reason? Is it okay to make decisions for the country because the president doesn’t trust the congress? This sets a dangerous precedence that should not be tolerated because the president may never trust congress and then may, according to this reasoning, lie to achieve whatever goals he or she wishes to achieve without repercussion.
We must draw a line here and now.
REMINDER: This is not a debate over whether or not it was okay to let eIndonesia invade eIndia. Although this has been part of the discussion, this is not the reason I am calling for impeachment. I am calling for impeachment because Jack Roberts lied to congress to conduct affairs in the way he saw fit with a blatant disregard for the democratic process.
Further, this will be my only post on the matter. I have made my point clear and I don't wish to continue to debate the matter because I believe it will be unproductive. I hope we all can accept any decision that is made and move on.
Articles on this Subject:
http://www.erepublik.com/en/article/the-truth-about-our-war-games-thailand-has-been-used-736353/1/20
http://www.erepublik.com/en/article/a-response-is-needed-about-the-invasion-of-india-736693/1/20
http://www.erepublik.com/en/article/who-s-here-for-thailand--736887/1/20
http://www.erepublik.com/en/article/india-indonesia-and-thailand-an-explanation-of-administration-reasoning-736985/1/20
http://www.erepublik.com/en/article/my-explanation-and-bit-more-737691/1/20
Most of those that will be involved with the debate have probably kept up to date on the proceedings over the last week or so. I would say that the whole situation is self explanatory, but that would defeat the purpose of setting up a debate so I will go ahead and lay out things out one more time.
A Brief Summary of the Events:
Approximately seven days ago, Jack Roberts asked the congress members and citizens of eThailand to lend their support to war games between eThailand and eIndonesia. These war games were to be a friendly training exercise that would consist of a variety of battles in the southern region of eThailand. The congress and the general body of eThai citizens supported these games as they seemed a good way to increase good relations with eIndonesia and gain experience with absolutely no drawbacks.
The bill was proposed in congress a day later and the war with eIndonesia was voted in at a 19 to 0. Unanimous. After eThailand retreated from the southern region, however, eIndonesia invaded eIndia through the open door. At first it was unclear whether eThailand had simply been mislead or whether the president had known of this plan all along.
Sadly, it seems he had known and only shared this plan with four other eThai individuals. So only five of the 19 votes were actually informed votes. The rest of those congressmen were mislead.
Essentially, Jack Roberts proposed a false bill and presented congressmen with a decision that they could not make because they were not properly informed. There were a variety of reasons given for this course of action, and they can all be found in the articles I have listed below, but one of the biggest was a lack of trust in the congress. The president decided to bypass the process of informed congressional votes because he did not trust certain members of congress. The question we must ask ourselves is, is this a good enough reason? Is it okay to make decisions for the country because the president doesn’t trust the congress? This sets a dangerous precedence that should not be tolerated because the president may never trust congress and then may, according to this reasoning, lie to achieve whatever goals he or she wishes to achieve without repercussion.
We must draw a line here and now.
REMINDER: This is not a debate over whether or not it was okay to let eIndonesia invade eIndia. Although this has been part of the discussion, this is not the reason I am calling for impeachment. I am calling for impeachment because Jack Roberts lied to congress to conduct affairs in the way he saw fit with a blatant disregard for the democratic process.
Further, this will be my only post on the matter. I have made my point clear and I don't wish to continue to debate the matter because I believe it will be unproductive. I hope we all can accept any decision that is made and move on.
Articles on this Subject:
http://www.erepublik.com/en/article/the-truth-about-our-war-games-thailand-has-been-used-736353/1/20
http://www.erepublik.com/en/article/a-response-is-needed-about-the-invasion-of-india-736693/1/20
http://www.erepublik.com/en/article/who-s-here-for-thailand--736887/1/20
http://www.erepublik.com/en/article/india-indonesia-and-thailand-an-explanation-of-administration-reasoning-736985/1/20
http://www.erepublik.com/en/article/my-explanation-and-bit-more-737691/1/20
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No. Jack Roberts should not be impeached, if for no other reason than that putting Defenestration in charge of eThailand is something I don't want to happen on my watch.
I am curious, did Jack Roberts distrust of the congress had to do with certain members, or did it have to do with party lines?
Pretty sure we've gotten over the party lines issues.
"Is it okay to make decisions for the country because the president doesn’t trust the congress?"
I think this is an unfair statement. The decision was made with a few congress members who were available at the time. I happened to be on the IRC when this was going down and I was included.
It came down to it being a time sensitive issue that needed an immediate response. We didn't have time for a) waiting for everyone to come online (since some members of congress do not even utter a peep) or b) after the fact announce it to everyone because it needed our holding of the plans in confidence as part of our pact with Indonesia.
This was a unique situation we did not have rule set up for ahead of time. Now You make up rules after the fact and want to enforce them through impeachment when no one has agreed to your so called "rules".
The others involved had as much if not more of a hand in this all than Jack in fact. Considering he had RL events preventing him from being a part of the talks. I cannot say whether things would have went different with him there.
Jack always has Thailand in mind and is an asset to our Country. Losing him would be a tremendous blow to the Country. His past doings far outweigh any sort of guilt you find in him for this situation.
In summary, Jack Roberts has done far more good for the Country of Thailand than any sort of bad that can be found in this situation.
When the vote comes up I will most certainly be voting against Impeachment.
Also consider that by impeaching that you are effectively voting in Defenestration, an absent party president with no experience or clear agenda.
While no longer a congress member, I oppose this for reasons, I don't feel the need to delve into.
@II:
I'm of the opinion it was basically a matter of "the few who knew, the less likely someone would publicize it", either intentionally or inadvertently. Hence, the only individuals told were members of the cabinet (this ended up being 3 PUP members, and 1 MLFC member).
I'm not going to make loud expositions here. I'll just re-raise two points I've touched on elsewhere. I am very willing to concede that a case can be made for all sides on these points.
1) Given our lack of a clear definition of executive authority, was concluding a secret protocol, one requiring secrecy even when proposing a bill on the matter to the eThai Congress, to the Thailand-Indonesia joint maneuvers treaty beyond the reasonable authority of the elected executive? Was this overreaching his implicit authority?
2) Regardless of the appropriateness of Jack Robert's action in concluding the treaty, is Defenestration an acceptable replacement for the remaining two weeks of the Presidential term?
Please consider these two issues when deciding how to vote on the impeachment. The former is most pertinent to the narrow question cited by B.i.d. as motivating the impeachment proposal. The latter is a practical matter that should not fall out of sight none-the-less.
I must say possibly the most damaging thing about defenestration's credibility is the fact that he hasn't defended himself once from all the people citing him as a reason to not impeach Jack.
No to impeachment, but no to status quo as well. I think more reaching out needs to be done personally by Jack Roberts. I don't know how he will rebuild the damaged trust, because it has been damaged but not irreparably.
What am I still doing here lolol can't leave Thailand... poor elephants and Buddha statues.
Thank you for starting this butidigress. I will leave the fate of my presidency in the hands of the impeachment bill.
As I said in Callagan's article, I'll simply focus on our wellness/housing programs, military structure, and recruitment...everything else will be handled by Congress either in game voting or forum voting.
This will allow me to spend a limited time in game and this will allow Congress by voting on the impeachment to voice the will of the people, something Ive always been willing to adhere to in the past.
Regardless, of how congressmen vote, I have no hard feelings either way.
Also I would like those voting to vote based on my handling of the situation and your displeasure of the way I did the job. Do not vote based on who will be the next president if I am impeached...defensestration did garner a fair share of votes in the elections after all.
Jack - that's a very nice, high-minded attitude on your part, but if you are impeached, Defenestration WILL become president. This is a fact that needs considered, especially since I'm wanting to say there is a fairly long limit on how frequently impeachment can be proposed - unless it's changed, I remember back at the start of v1 statements being made that impeachments could only be proposed once every 7-10 days. If that's accurate, we're stuck with Defenestration for most of the rest of the term, with no recourse should he disappoint us. We should not take lightly placing him in office. I'm not saying we know for a fact he'd do badly, but he's not inspiring much confidence in me. This may be pragmatism talking, but even if we feel you're not fit to finish your term we need to consider if impeaching you would be springing from the frying pan to the fire.
Heres an ideal. Not so much an ideal on what happen, but how to play this off politically. eIndia is occupied for now, but they could always fight resistance wars and eventually become free. It may be months before that happens, but even if its months, they will point to eThailand as their enemies. At the same time, eThailand now has good relations with eIndoniesia, and we could play off those relations to benefit us military wise. Wether we should have went that route or not is too late to debate since it already happened, and now we are faced with posiable military assitance and cooperation with eIndoniesia, which would benefit us. So if eThailand impeached Jack Roberts, then eThailand could work off these new relations with eIndoniesia, at the same time, if eIndia ever becomes free, we could say that eThailand did not back the decision, and that they impeached the president of eThailand as an official sign of disapprovment. Then eThailand could be covered on both ends. At one hand, we benefit off of the improved relations with eIndoniesia, and at the same time, we have an official defense of eThailand not approving of the actions that lead to eIndias occupation. Just a thought, not really related to what this impeachment is about, but an ideal on how we could play this out politically.
Um... India hasn't been occupied any more in these last several days than it has been for a few months.
Regardless, why wouldnt they be mad at us? We worked with eIndoniesia.
My contacts with the Indian government suggest they're moreso disappointed with us than mad at us. They understand very well why we made the choice we did; it was not done of malice, but of self-preservation, and they know it.
Point taken Ealb.
Althoug jack roberts did lie to us other citizens and congressmen about eIndonesia attacking eIndia i wil be voting AGAINST the impeachment i think jack and any other future president should fullfill their duty as president and in the very limited space of time they have try thier best to override their previous mistakes.
I have decided to vote no for the impeachment of the President. I did not like how the situation was handled, but as a country we have no rules and no protocol on how much power the President, and how they should respond to extreme situations such as this one.
What a nice and healthy government you have.