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I am tired. And I am sick. You might even say that I am sick and tired.

I am sick about the quality of members who have been elected to Congress of late.

I don't think that anyone is served by electing a member whose sole interest in getting into Congress seemed to be getting the 5 Gold for election and resigned his seat in Congress within hours of being elected to fight overseas.

I am sick that a member was elected who decided to make a proposal "for the lulz." This member, Maxxamo, proposed a massive Import Tax increase in the Defense System sector. No debate of course. When you propose a measure in-game there is an opportunity to link to the area in which it is debated. Maxxamo included a link in this section. It was a link to a photograph that most people would describe as pornographic and just about everyone would describe as disgusting. He then resigned his seat saying in a shout that, "Congress is as enjoyable as sniffing burning rubber."

I am tired of members being elected to Congress who are thoroughly clueless. A member named Dalton McGuinty made two proposals, one to increase the Income Tax for workers in the Hospital industry from 15% to 20%, and the other to increase the Minimum Wage from $1.50 to $2.00. Again there was no debate in the Forums. There is a punishment for not putting an in-game proposal up without debate in Congress is for that member to lose their in-Forum posting privileges for a period of time - I recall it being three days for the first offense with an increase for the second and a total ban for the session for a third offense. The only problem was that the member in question hadn't even bothered to join the eCanada Forums, and therefore could not be banned! Setting aside the breach of procedure, how can someone who doesn't even bother to find out about the issues function in Congress? Vote for whatever side of a proposal currently has the most votes?

I am sick of the fact that there are members elected who appear to do nothing except probably vote and maybe read the forum posts, but really have no opinions of their own. I see them vote for the in-game proposals - at least I assume those are their votes - and occasionally in the in-Forum votes - but they post nothing in the various debates express no opinions of their own on an issue and contribute nothing except their votes.

Most recently we have seen the proposal by Rylde to increase the Import Tax on Weapons, a proposal made without referring the issue in the Forums. I'll give Rylde props - he has been active in expressing his opinions in the Forums - but in his most recent newspaper posting, Congress is a Joke revealed his contempt for the body that he is a member of. He didn't propose his tax change in the Forums for debate because the members of Congress are corrupt, following official procedure would take too long, that giving Congressmen a chance to actually debate the issue would give Congress a chance to shoot him down to protect their own business ventures. Supposedly most senior members of Congress own weapons companies in "slave labour" countries like Poland and supporting Rylde's measure would hurt their businesses. But of course he didn't give procedure a chance so how would he know what would happen.

Look, I know that this is a game and that it's supposed to be fun and not work. I get that. For me, part of the fun is in trying to shape the game experience for other players through participating in Congress. If you look over my record during the three terms I spent in Congress you would discover that I was active in the Congressional forums, that I expressed opinions some of which disagreed with the prevailing standard. More to the point I enjoyed it because I legitimately like presenting a well reasoned argument in an effort to persuade others to my point of view. And guess what; a high percentage of the people who get elected to Congress every term feel the same way. That's part of what makes being in Congress so interesting to me.

I have issues that I'd like to have discussed. I think that if our stockpile of gifts is too great, maybe the government should see about giving them to players who are about to qualify to participate in their first fight. I think that when you have a region with over 600 citizens maybe it is time to say screw the Fortress mentality and ask the President to propose placing one of the three Q5 hospitals that we have in our inventory in British Columbia to replace the current Q4. Doesn't the region deserve it? I think there are ways to tweak the Import Tax system to reflect current realities; yes that includes an increase in the tax on weapons although probably not as big an increase as Rylde would prefer. Right now however the issue that most concerns me is getting people into Congress who want to be there; who won't resign hours after being elected, who won't make stupid proposals linked to pictures that could get users kicked off their networks for viewing porn, who actually bother to join the forums and participate in the function of Congress, and who don't view procedure with contempt.

My name is SledDog, and I'm running for Congress, and you bet I approve this message.