Join the new world

I don’t really intend this as an explanation of why you should vote for me. I want you to vote for me of course, and if I have any friends out there who aren’t running for Congress themselves, I would really like them to come to Manitoba to help me, but I’m not sure that I can really expect this. No, what I want to talk to you about right now is the sort of candidate that you should vote for (as it happens it is the sort of Member that I believe myself to be but that is beside the point). We don’t need a two-clicker Congress, we need to elect people to Congress who are willing to go onto the Forums and do the work that needs to be done in the forums. We don’t have that now, and I can’t remember when we have had a Congress like that.

I’d like to illustrate this by pointing to some recent Forum votes. The four most recent votes in Congress, on issues concerning modifications to the Rules of Order and Rules of Decorum drew a grand total of nine votes. Nine! That’s two votes each on three issues and three votes on the fourth. Now admittedly Rules of Order and Decorum don’t touch most people, but it is indicative of something and that something is lack of involvement. The March Budget, which is a big thing, got a total of fourteen votes. The final poll on the Special Congressional Award got 14 votes. A vote on Congressional Rules of Order got ten votes. Two amendments to the Congressional Transparency Act got 14 votes each. If the rules for in-forum Congressional votes required a simple majority of all members of Congress had to cast a vote for a bill to succeed, not one of these measures would have passed. The only vote which would have passed would have been the vote for the Speaker of the House, which earned 32 votes. This is not a performance to be pleased with, and re-electing those who haven't done their duty in this way is just compounding the situation.

This does have an effect. You might recall an in-game vote a week ago to reduce the minimum wage to $1 from $1.50. It passed by a vote of 24-15. The next day a proposal was passed to increase the minimum wage from $1 to $1.50. It passed 28-11. I am less concerned with why the second vote was necessary – the original proposal had not been approved for an in-game vote by the Speaker and thus was considered illegal – than I am with the fact that both motions passed. How many members of Congress who voted for the reduction on the minimum wage were aware of the illegal nature of the proposal and just didn’t care because they believed in the measure, and how many voted for it because it had been posted. My guess is that eleven members voted their conscience in the second vote even knowing why the second vote was necessary.

Look, it is easy to get in-game votes – you are notified both on the home page and with an alert – but as anyone who has really put in the time being a member of Congress will tell you the big decisions are made in the forums. The decision on whether to rent one of our titanium regions to an ally is being made in the Forums. Decisions on the role of government in the transition to V2 will be made in Congress. In my view we need to reach out and consult with existing weapons manufacturers about how they will transition their companies to the new types of weapons companies that will emerge from V2 so that our weapons industry doesn’t end up overbalanced in one direction or another. We need to fully examine the implications of the new military rules when we decide on strategy and the location of structures. We need to emerge from the transition to V2 as strong if not stronger than we are right now. And where those decisions will be made is not in the Country Administration screens but in the eCanada forums.

Now more than ever we need to elect Members of Congress who are not just in it for the gold and the XPs and come up with platforms that promise a lot. We need Members who have passion about issues that they support and are willing to express that passion and defend their position on issues in the Congressional forums. We need to elect active members of Congress, members to take part in the debate and try to make a difference. Don’t elect a two clicker Congress, vote for members who realize that participation in the political process means more than finding the right part of the Country Administration screen to click on.