[CS] CP debate between Jordic and Tonie

Day 2,752, 11:49 • Published in Netherlands Netherlands • by Mattio


It was late on a Tuesday, just 3 days before the upcoming Presidential elections, that the cranky old debate moderator got a phone call. It took some effort to understand what the uproar on the other side of the line meant. Clearly, two drunk college boys were screaming at their phone, but they knew the moderator’s name and what they said actually made sense. In a drunk way.
‘We wanna debate!’ the boys screamed. Now that was something the moderator hadn’t heard in a long time. It had been years since he last organized monthly CP debates, that had been less and less attended every time. There surely was no time for a well organized IRC debate, let the people send in questions, make sure a lot of them attended the show etcetera.
‘Sounds great,’ the moderator replied, immediately regretting his answer. ‘But it’ll have to be a little different.’
The next day, the moderator began sending out questions to the electable participants. And boy, did they get it tough!


First of all, I want to welcome the debaters of today. Had I known about this earlier, I would have bought a better suit or let this one be patched up. One really gains weight without knowing it… I wish you both the best of luck and I’m sure you’ll amaze us with your rhetorical skills. The rules are simple:

1. The candidates will speak one at the time.
2. After both candidates answered the question, one of them gets the opportunity to respond to his opponent’s answer.
3. The candidates will make use of their words, not their bodies (at least not while I’m around).


I want to start off by asking both of you one personal questions. Tonie, I begin with you. In an earlier interview, you said you want to see our country as “part of a greater international cooperation/community, which we currently severely lack”. Are you referring to an actual alliance? Do you want to keep trying to revive NSPP or is it another alliance your eyes are on?

Tonie: ‘In my recent announcement I tried to put stress on us being in a supporting role, the only area where we can really excell in. For years we have fooled ourselves into believing we’re a big fish wanting to be caught by a major alliance, but it’s obvious that’s not where our future is in our current circumstances. Conclusively I refer to a position in the international world where we are respected, which is most likely to be achieved by small pacts/alliances (like NSPP - although that didn’t turn out exactly the way it was foreseen) and supportive of greater nations/alliances.’


Jordic, you moved to the Netherlands from Spain about 9 months ago. Now, you want to have a strict immigration policy where RL Dutch have more chance to get in. Do you think you would have passed the Security Council for Immigrants (SCI) with the rules that you suggest? Also: do you think it is an advantage or a disadvantage for you to not be RL Dutch?

Jordic: ‘With strict I don’t mean impossible, every one who have shown interest in our country or have people who could vouch for him will be able to join our community if he wants. I would have passed because I was the Spanish ambassador in the NL for two months, so I had demonstrated my interest in the community and most of them already knew me as I was very active in the chat. I don’t think that non being dutch plays a big role here, maybe for someone it’s important, but I’m sure that most part of the people will judge me for what I did for the country and the loyalty I have shown and for my skills rather than for my RL passport.’


The next Country President will inherit a broken country that is occupied by our treacherous eastern neighbours. They have already promised to try to keep Northern Netherlands at all cost. Why would you be the leader to free our regions?

Tonie: ‘My previous experiences as Country President, MoFA and MoD come in very useful here. I’ve in the past fought two wars with Norway - which for better or worse were ‘’won’’. I know what is it like to be to be in a stressful war situation. We’ve been severely underestimating ourselves. Germany ain’t Poland or Hungary; in fact we could have easily fended them off with some hefty investment in time and recourses. But what’s happened, happened. If I turn out to be Country President I’ll make them leave our borders with every mean possible. It’s time to show ourselves off, both for our pride and for our international standing. How could one ever take our nation serious if we don’t stand up?’
Jordic: ‘We need to demonstrate to Germany and the world that we can fight them and that they won’t take our regions easily. Our citizens have to fight hard and try to gather as much support as possible, and once the germans have clear that we won’t surrender, we can try to look further and look for some stability.’
Tonie: ‘I like Jordic’s intention to fight the Germans. We’re on the same page in that sense. I do however think it’s contradicting with his ‘’stiffness’’ regarding the changing foreign policy of our country. On the one hand we’ve seen statements to cling onto previous allegiances, but on the other hand we’re faced with the situation in which one of these old allies actually attacked us and where most of our other alliances stood by and did nothing. To defeat Germany we will need to act and think progressively and out of the box. Not only that, it will also require a hefty investment of our resources, not just our citizens fighting hard.’


Last month we discovered that our country is quite vulnerable in case of a direct attack. We cherish our allies, but they proved to be of not much help. What do you think is the reason for this? Have we been pleased with our position for too long, without actually helping our friends?

Jordic: ‘If the allies didn’t appear last month was mainly for two resons, first of all, they were also very busy with their own campaigns, I know and I hope that once they don’t have all their damage focused on it’s own campaign they will help us to be free again. The second reason I could give is that we didn’t ask properly and we didn’t coordinate it well enough. About the help we could provide, we are a small country, we can’t win wars by ourselves, but I’m sure we can do a lot more, and this is something we need to improve and that I will try to stimulate.’
Tonie: ‘Alliances and loyalties are mostly dictacted by convenience. We’ve proven ourselves to be an inconvenient partner, only ‘receiving’ and never ‘giving’. This is mostly dictacted by the fact we just can’t bring too much on the table. But we’re dismissing the efforts we should take in maintaining friendships by just hiding behind out weaknesses. We are capable of ‘giving’ as well. A great example which I’m thinking of is the loosely cooperated actions against Scandinavia together with Poland and NSPP last year. However, I don’t want to shed a deceiving and utopist image of the situation. We will always be hard-pressing for foreign support as long as we stay as weak as we currently are.’
Jordic: ‘I don’t think we’re an inconvenient partner, we have our tools and our strenght point and we should be able to demonstrate our friends and allies that we can be very useful. It’s also very important to know which doors to knock.’


Back to a personal question for each of you. This time, I’m going to be bitchy. Jordic, I begin with you now. You are in your fifth month of Congress in the Netherlands and you’re on a three month spree now. However, you never posted anything in the Congress Debate section. Can you explain this?*

Jordic: ‘I understand that you mean I’ve never started a topic, because I replied to some of them.I’m not a big fan of forums, I join almost every day and i read the congress, private gov and party sections, but most part of the times, if I need to say something, I prefer to do it on IRC, face by face or sending a PM ingame.’


Tonie, I’m going to be bitchy on purpose here. You claim that you want to unite our country in our patriotic love and step over our shadows. However, I happen to know that your candidacy is based on your party’s deep rooted discontent with one of Jordic’s government members. How do you justify representing your party?

Tonie: ‘I think people wondering about this are blinded by party politics. Many citizens know I’m far past the stage of being a party politician, which is one of the advantages that comes with being an old citizen. When I’m President I’m not representing just my party, but the whole country. That is completely justifiable with representing my party, as I dare to say the differences between us and the other parties are negliable and our goals the same. I’m personally not involved into any personal disconent with any eNL citizens. Stating my party is, is also massively simplyfing the dynamics between ReL and the other parties.’


During Kordak II, the MoI worked on a University model. It proves to be a lot of work, but it is promising as well. Will the MoI have full freedom to continue this plan, even when it would only help a couple of people?

Tonie: ‘I don’t see why I would discard an excellent iniative by my precedessor Kordak. If there’s one thing I learned from other games is that the best way to strengthen your community is to do everything possible to pro-actively involve new citizens, as one involved citizens is worth 10 quitting ones. The MoI will have full freedom to continue this plan and will receive additional support and recourses when desired.’
Jordic: ‘Sure I will, I talked with Kordak about the idea and also with some DemNL members and we all agree that this is very interesting to help people to understand the game better. I’ve been dean in the spanish one, so I know what would work and what won’t.’
Tonie: ‘In order to properly support and continue this iniative, I’ve decided to enact full consistency on this matter. I’ve kept the Ministry of Information - led by the same Minister Konnes - merged with the Ministry of Recruitment and Coaching, in order to ensure the continued success of this very topic. The Ministry of Information has been one of the most interesting and succesful ministries the last couple months, even if we forget the recently introduced University. I’m therefore surprised that Jordic has decided to not continue this ministry, instead opting to replace it with the ‘’skeleton ministry’’ of Recruitment and Coaching, which has always been an abundent and inefficient Ministry.’


We saw a drastic change in Foreign Affairs / Defense policy this month with the Australian MPP. A lot has been said about it and there is quite some disagreement. First of all, do you think that this MPP was a wise thing? And do you think that this is a sign of inconsistency or flexibility (being able to go with the flow) and should we expect such unpredictable actions to happen in your presidential term?

Jordic: ‘It’s not that I don’t like this MPP, but I didn’t like how was done. They didn’t ask the congress to sign it, and it really seems very desesperate. With the dictator, the congress can’t block an MPP, which is very dangerous in my opinion, as a CP could sign whatever he wants, because of that, I think there need to be a minial discussion between the CP and the congress, it’s not that everything has to be done via referndum, but congress has the right to speak.’
Tonie: ‘I’m not disagreeing with the MPP with Australia. However, I do think it should have been approved in cooperation with Congress. A task for the next presidents and Congresses are to finally define what needs to be discussed and what doesn’t in our new system with a Dictator. Legally, nothing wrong happened last month, in fact. I do think it’s a sign of flexibility. We’re only adjusting the wheel somewhat, seeking better waters while not forgetting about the grounds we’ve already reached. You can certainly expect ‘’surprising’’ [but not reckless or irrational] actions to happen during my term, but they won’t be unpredictable: They will be approved in a consensual relation between Congress and the Government.’
Jordic: ‘I don’t think this is a sign of flexibility, there are some people in Australia who are already considering us as a “prospect member” of their alliance and this wasn’t approved by the congress at all.’


Now, to close this up, you will both get one last chance to convince the Dutch voters that you would make the best President of the Netherlands.

Jordic: ‘This month was a completely disaster, specially the last week, and something even worse could have happened, We need to change some important things and I thing I have the skills and the team to do it.’
Tonie: ‘I think I’m the excellent candidate to continue the progressive changes we’ve enjoyed in the last few months. My previous experience will ensure that these changes will continue in a good, rational and orderly fashion with respect of our democratic values.’


We’ll leave it with those two great statements. I thank both CP candidates and wish them the best of luck in the elections next Friday!

Thanks for reading, don’t forget to vote, I salute,


*I was mistaken here. A Congress Debate search for Jordic gave no results. I falsely believed Jordic was inactive, which he is not. 😛 (Shows how active I am myself... XD