Frequently Asked Questions About the USWP

Day 516, 08:05 • Published in USA USA • by ProggyPop

It seems lately that there's been a lot of questions about Ananias, the USWP, and the 52 State Strategy. As I've answered some of these questions on IRC and the forums, I've heard multiple questions repeated. So I figured it would help everyone out if I created a list of frequently asked question (FAQ's!) to help facilitate the transfer of information. Plus I won't have to answer any other questions after this!

Isn't the USWP trying to turn the US into a Communist wonderland?

Uhhh, no. The USWP is constantly chided by other leftist parties in the world precisely because we HAVEN'T rejected the market apparatus. USWP supported the PANEC tax plan (the “A” is for Ananias, after all) because we wanted to increase revenues for military expenditures and because we also believe that an income tax is a more equitable way to tax citizens than the VAT. However, nothing about the PANEC taxes is “communist”. The tax plan doesn't support state control of the means of production.

USWP supports some government run industries, but never for the purpose of owning the means of production. When we supported government owned gun companies, it was solely to supply our military. When we supported government run hospital and defense companies, it was because we were worried that industry would die out and then we'd have no supply in a time of emergency. As it is, I was a leader in promoting the contract system with hospital and defense companies just to avoid government ownership!

Most importantly, USWP is not doing anything actively at this point to support “communism”. Neither Scrabman's agenda nor the USWP congressional plurality supports any new “communist” system. For that, you'll have to take it up with other parties.

But like, doesn't USWP want to PTO the country?

Listen guy, there's nothing PTO about the USWP's congressional plan. Simply put, Ananias issued a call to USWP membership to come to our forums and put in their intention to run for office. USWP has 1400 members. The fact is that there's probably 50 or so people who WANT to run for office. What the USWP leadership is concerned about is whether or not these people will be credible individuals ready to run, or a bunch of goober two-clickers.

Every month USWP runs 30-40 candidates regardless. Lots of times we end up running terrible candidates. Is that because we're a terrible party? No, silly! It's because we can't stop people from running for office. The game mechanics don't allow it unless multiple candidates are running for a seat, in which case the Party President can chose who runs of the options. But we can't stop a goober zombie moron from running if they're unopposed, and we can't simply block every idiot out there.

So let me lay some truth on you; the Ananias 52 State Strategy plan seeks to channel all the people that WOULD run for office to our forums so they can be exposed to some knowledge, talk to experienced Congressional reps, and organize themselves. It seeks to prevent internal conflict when multiple people run for the same seat. It seeks to set a goal for USWP membership, something to strive for. Considering that Ananias's main job is to be accountable to our general membership and to empower them, there's nothing wrong with that.

But, um, like, shouldn't you make sure good incumbents from other party's stay in office?

Do other parties make sure our good incumbents stay in office? Should they? I understand the desire for goodwill among the parties, and USWP certainly tries to maintain that goodwill. We don't intentionally place candidates against other good incumbents. In fact I did my best to create a list that guided USWP members interested in running to seats with weaker incumbents precisely to avoid that problem.

However, the fact is that it's not the USWP's job to “avoid” these sorts of conflicts. If a strong and well known USWP member wants to run against a well-known incumbent, it's not our job to protect that incumbent from a different party. If anything, these strong incumbents should be willing to do the campaigning necessary to win. After all, if we won every seat just because of our large membership, we would hold 30-40 seats every month (something we've never, ever done). The fact is that great incumbents often dominate their seats regardless of our involvement. Kyle321N owns Indiana. Aren Perry owns Illinois. In the same way, Inwegen owned Washington and Tdwester owned Idaho. When you build a large name for yourself in your state, you end up winning anyway. So why should the USWP be “protecting” incumbents by guaranteeing cakewalks every month?

Listen jackass, we know you're moving voters around. What gives?

Uh, not really, no. Every party and many candidates end up trying to move a few voters around here and there. USWP has been no exception over the past few months, as we've moved around 5-10 votes per month depending on the race. That's full disclosure right there. Try getting full disclosure from the CVP about how many votes they're moving. What about someone like Robert S. Miller, who ends up winning Utah every month even though he's absurdly inactive (and his 5 votes seem to happen at the same minute every month like clockwork). The fact is that vote-moving is prolific among this game and USWP can't simply unilaterally disengage from the strategy.

However, we're not pursuing vote moving on a large scale basis. I've fought against this for months and for the most part, USWP doesn't do it. That doesn't mean people don't WANT to do it, because everyone wants to win. But the USWP does NOT have a massive plan to move votes around to kick out incumbents for the sake of “party glory”. Sorry guys, that one is a big urban myth made up in the minds of #Congress.

So...aren't you guys evil?

Contrary to popular belief, we are not evil. We are not the sons of satan, wearwolves, or vampires. In fact we're not even zombies, though there are certainly some zombies in our ranks. USWP is just the largest party in the world, that's all. We have a ton of members and a ton of ideas. When people hear one USWP member say something, they automatically assume that represents the views of the party. Contrary to popular belief, however, we don't push a central “dogma” on anyone. The only person who can actually speak for the party on the whole is the Party President, which is Ananias.

So the next time you hear that USWP is evil, think long and hard about the source. Unfortunately we have a lot of enemies, but I think that if you try to get to know us, you'll see we're pretty similar to everyone else in this game.

Aren't you really lame?

You got me there.