[Opinion]Why I am SFP

Day 2,654, 00:10 • Published in USA USA • by MaryamQ

SFP membership has received a lot of public attention in recent days, much of it positive, but some negative, as well. Artela, a new SFP member raised a Congress debate about whether the IES Director and PotUS ought to be the same person, a legitimate question, in my opinion, regardless of how well Wild Owl may be doing with both functions. While many Congress members do feel he is handling both well, and I personally have no reason to think he isn’t, the question of separation of powers seems relevant. Is this really a good precedent to set?

As part of that debate, Wild Owl presented an interesting spreadsheet detailing current party affiliations of 66 recent immigrants. Interestingly, 11 of these are now members of SFP. As I am one of those 11, I would like to examine whether this means anything at all in terms of the debate.


Immigration screening – bound to make someone unhappy no matter what you do.

Although this has little relevance in game, I am a RL American with roots in American soil going back to the 1630s. I was eBorn in my home state of Maine, and I originally left the eUS for Europe on a mission for Strategic Air Command. Having found a community I liked, I stayed until I came back to the eUS briefly in 2012 to work as a supply officer for the Belgian National Army. I had long been an admirer of Phoenix Quinn, and also consider myself more leftist than most Americans, so I decided to join SFP, where I was welcomed and made to feel at home, not only by PQ, but also by such great citizens as Samuel Seabury, shiloh13, WhydoIbother, and TheNorm. When the eUS started letting go of bonuses shortly after this, all BNA SO’s were transferred out to ePL, and that was the end of my direct association with SFP at that time; however, it has always been a party I remembered fondly, and intermittent late-night conversations with TheNorm, who shares my penchant for staying up until odd hours, kept it in my memory.


A (not so) little bird told me I would like SFP.

Moving forward, I eventually returned to eBelgium, not once but twice, with an intervening stop in the eUK. I ultimately served more terms in government and Congress, including several terms as vCP, one as “co”CP with Elynea, and my own third term as CP. After months of frustration with local politics, I moved to the eUK, and then again to ePL when Unity was formed. From time to time, TheNorm would contact me to suggest that I should join EZC, but loyalty, first to Green Militia, which I commanded for a time, and later to Unity, prevented me from making the move. As it became more and more apparent that the Unity experiment was failing and that ePL was becoming a very different place, I finally decided to accept his invitation, and several other Unity friends decided to come along. TheNorm was able to help me regain citizenship, and also helped shepherd some of the others through the process, although there are some ex-Unity and eBelgian friends in EZC now, at least partly due to my influence, who are still not eUS citizens, either because they did not apply, or because they were not accepted.


Maryam and Norm plot an SFP invasionchat into the night

Now let’s take another look at that list. I see five names on it, including my own, that were a direct result of that wave of Unity players I mentioned. One has no party affiliation. The rest of us are in SFP. Does that mean that our immigration was part of some great SFP plot? Of course not! That should be clear from the fact that we are all still members of EZC, rather than Bear Cavalry, and we are proud and grateful to be there. Additionally, while I think at least some of these players would naturally gravitate to SFP eventually, I suspect that knowing TheNorm and I were already members helped make that choice easier. That accounts for more than a third of the SFP players on the list. As I’m sure many of you have noticed, several of the others came over to SFP from the Feds, so exactly what was the relevance of publishing the list in the first place? The immigration was clearly not party driven, and that renders that whole part of the debate moot. Whether or not Artela’s debate question was valid (I happen to think it was, but know at least one SFP member who disagrees), to attack it with meaningless statistics is merely to fog the issue with personalities rather than to promote an honest review of the present laws.


Seems logical

That being said, I join the several others who have posted recent articles describing SFP as a great place to be. It was home to me 3 years ago, and it is now. If you want a place to feel welcomed, look no further. If you want to develop as a writer, we have a group to support you in that. Fancy a military career? You might want to check out Bear Cavalry. Do you see yourself as a politician? Our current members have a total of 7 CP medals from 3 different countries, dozens of Congress medals, and experience in almost every phase of government, and are ready to share their knowledge with you. And if you want great representatives in Congress, don’t forget to vote for BSP, who are running two of our candidates this time around!