Join the new world

My name is SledDog and I intend to run for Congress. I have some ideas that I will be discussing in later statements. Some of these things are ideas that may not be entirely in accord with what party policy or conventional wisdom. I don’t care. Nothing was ever harmed by legitimate discussion of the issues, or by people putting forward ideas that didn’t entirely conform with the norm.

But that isn’t what I want to talk about right now. What I plan on discussing now is Commitment. I like committed people, the ones who put forward the effort to get things done, who see their duty and try to the best of their ability to do it. Mostly I like people who are loyal. I like them in real life and I like them in the game. In this game it is a point of pride for me that I follow through on the commitments that I make, whether it is as a member of a military unit, a poster on the forums, or as a member of Congress. I like to believe that even when I’m not in the majority I am at least contributing to the debate. I may not influence people and I may not win friends, but at least I make the effort to contribute. It is a point of pride for me that I have provided a presentation every time but one that I have run for Congress (I fell seriously ill a day or so after I I put my name up to run during that election cycle and was so rarely on the computer after than that I forgot to take my name off). It is a point of pride that on those occasions when I have been elected – and even when I haven’t been elected – I try to read everything about what’s going on in Congress that’s available to me and to contribute when I can. Most importantly I have never, ever resigned from Congress before the end of my term.

In the first New Zealand Congressional elections I participated in the primaries on the forums, and was duly selected as a one of forty “official candidates” who were all supposed to run as candidates for the New Zealand Unity Party, except for the leaders of the other parties. I pointed out that no party could run more than nine candidates in a region and therefore that one other person would have to run with another party, preferably in Auckland (the largest population center). I was asked to run for the PnPP. I made the move to the PnPP reluctantly because it was apparent in every in game article that the only candidates for ATO supports to vote for were the party leaders and the NZUP candidates. I apparently had fallen through the cracks of the system. I received two votes. Neither of them was my own because I was committed - in part by my own sense of duty and in part because of a promise I made - to vote strategically.

Here’s where I have a problem with what has been going on lately in New Zealand. In recent days we’ve seen several members of Congress resigning. Our Congress now consists of 32 members because of resignations. Seven of the eight members who have resigned have left New Zealand – the eighth is our President Calbe (so I’ll cut him a break) – and thereby shown both a lack of commitment. They were in it for the money or the experience or some other motivation that I’m not privy to and having achieved whatever it was they sought to achieve have gone away.

As my fellow New Zealanders who were once my fellow Canadians might recall, this question of Congress members who leave before the completion of their duties is a pet peeve of mine. In running for Congress you have effectively established a contract with those who have voted for you, a contract that for your part requires you to work in the national interest to make this a better place for its citizens, both those who voted for you and those who didn’t. You breech that contract when you quit.

When I came to New Zealand, and in the weeks since the Congressional elections there is something that I have noticed that has caused me a certain amount of irritation. It is the tendency of some New Zealand citizens to not be fully committed to the country. About a week ago, while reading an article, I noted an exchange between two commenters. One asked the other why he was working outside the country. The other replied that he had to work in a company owned by his military unit. In this particular case the person responding was working for a company owned by a Serbian military unit. It seemed clear to me at the time that this individual’s true loyalty was not to the country of which he was a citizen – New Zealand – but to the country to which he originally came. To me, when I became a New Zealand citizen I ceased to be a Canadian. My loyalty is to New Zealand. My primary interest in Canada is as a place where my two companies are based, and so the place where I make money, and that doesn’t have an effect on my feelings for New Zealand. I feel a certain amount of disdain for anyone, no matter where they came from, who puts their loyalty to their original country before their loyalty to the country where they are a citizen.

There are a lot of things I believe in, and a lot of things I believe in within the context of this game. I believe that when you say you are going to do something you should do the absolute most that you can to do it. I believe that when you take up citizenship in a country within this game you owe your loyalty to that country. I believe that legitimate dissent is exactly that; legitimate, and I believe that you lose something when you fail to recognize and acknowledge that dissent can come from a legitimate place. I may object to what you have to say but I will defend to the death your right to say it. It may be naive of me, but I want to believe that my fellow citizens – regardless of where they come from in real life or within the game – who are committed to New Zealand feel the same way. What I don’t feel is legitimate is the cynical attitude of what I hope is a minority who come here to get what they can and whose loyalty is elsewhere or to themselves.

My name is SledDog, and I’m running for Congress, and I make this pledge: If I am elected to Congress, I will participate to the best of my abilities and will do all I can to make this a better place at the end of my term than it was at the beginning.