A Months Plans, & Issues
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by Sasha KammakitzJen
This is my first session in congress, and I have already cought on well. Here I will explain my plans up till Febuary 25.
I am the offical MDP policy developer for the 15th January- 15th Febuary session. I have already set out base plans for policy development in the MDP forums (home page here) under the policy section in party discussions. I hope to do as much policy development as possible. This will allow a more guided approach for MDP congress members.
As for my term in Congress, I hope to be able to get quickly to discussing solutions to issues, rather than debating the issue itself which I have already witnessed one time. This will be better for all effected by such issues as solutions should come faster. Even if solutions aren't faster it will still mean more efficency in congess as we would be addressing what we need to address, solutions.
Now is not the time to push MDP policy into congress & law. Such a time will come hopefully only in the following few months. However last presidential election and this presidential election the MDP has candidates. If we win & eCanada having a MDP president then things will go much quicker for the party with little extra effort needed. As for the country, things would improve drastically, assuming the MDP presdient is kept right by the party dictator & the inner sanctrum (in other words, there will be no problems).
On to the issues:
Currently in congress there is a big issue regarding immigration into eCanada. Citizenship requests are flooded with players with the reason of wanting citizenship only to buy buildings in the eCanadian economy. Such citizenship requests will not be considered. There are several players who have been accepted numerous times in the last few months only for this purpose. only requests from players planning to stay a considerable amount of time & intregrate into eCanadian life & contribute so to eCanadia, are considered for approval.
A more important issue however is the abusive behavoir of the congress members who exploit citizenship requests by asking for gold payment from the requestee to be accepted. Such a fee is not legal and the honest majority members of congress are doing all they can to expose congress members who take part in this illigal act. I myself have already exposed one other congress member, Rolo Tahmasee (see here). I have also suggested to set out a list of simple requirement needed for a citizenship request to be accepted in the congessional eCanada forums. So far no one has related back to that, I think either I was ignored or (more prefered) congress members are thinking themselves before saying what they think.
That's everything for now & I hope the topics for me to write about will only get better.
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GL in there man glad u got in. Congress can always use new blood.
≈hyuu≈
great to have you in congress!
Nice work Sasha
Nice to see new people involves.
Sasha, with regard to charging fees for citizenship applications, you may like to consider one reason for any lack of traction being simply that our leadership explicitly supports the practice, and those who engage in it. See Addy Lawrence's comments at the bottom of this article:
http://www.erepublik.com/en/article/the-ezstreet-scandal-aka-how-to-get-ezmoney--1951048/1/20#comments
If this is something deemed "trivial in the grand scheme of things" by a well-respected thought leader (let alone actual leader), then why would things change?
With that being said, I find that in our community when presented with examples of malfeasance, we tend to go after those engaged directly in it, yet we often do not bother to question those who lay the moral groundwork for such things to occur. Perhaps our collective reluctance to speak frankly about leadership does us an equal disservice.
Could it be? saltydog talking sense? Has the world gone topsy turvy?
I think the problem is that because there are no in game sanctions we can apply that people adopt the attitude of "why bother?". There is nothing we can really do to completely wipe it out, all we can try is to have a policy of opposing such behaviour and encourage our congressmen to have higher standards.
They keep talk about legalizing pot to take out of the hands of the criminals. Could opening the doors to citizenship fees offer the same solution?
Most likely not. However, the increased competition would bring the price of a CS down somewhat due to more congressmen being available to sell CS freely. However, is undercutting the likes of Rolo worth sacrificing some PTO prevention measures. Also most likely not.
btw, Homer ~ the "higher standards" of not selling CS is because it damages national security, right? Not because it is ungentlemanly to engage in the sale of illicit materials, correct? Some people will forget that the sale of CS has consequences other than being vaguely unethical. (in other words, I need a practical reminder why it is bad so I can be confident in why it should be opposed)
Selling CS is not illegal
@ saltydog & homer: with an officval legistration on immigration we can do what homer has just wrote, which is all we can do. Although it will still probably improve it a bit, even thoughnot entirely, it is somthing.
@ Cris: CS fees aren't official, and it is seen in bad taste. do you really want me to chage all "illigal" mentions to "in bad taste"? either way what I'm saying stays wit the same meaning. and I'm serious, if you want me to chage it I will.
all im saying is that a congressmen charging a fee isnt doing anything illegal in game or in our role play world. People may not like it but until someone changes something its not illegal.
It might be illegal. It's just that nobody's ever been charged.
plugson puts the question thus
"Some people will forget that the sale of CS has consequences other than being vaguely unethical. (in other words, I need a practical reminder why it is bad so I can be confident in why it should be opposed) "
a) enrichment of individual players -
b) notwithstanding contrary public interest
c) and notwithstanding a consensus that it is unfair to other players especially the young
d) and notwithstanding it teaches that dishonesty will be suffered in ecanada.
Unless it is in the public interest for officials to make immigration decisions based on their personal pecuniary benefit.
The public interest is likely better served by eCanada being "branded" as a community of honest citizens. Young players tend to stay, and know what to expect. Allies tend to cooperate more with the honest. eUSA had admitted canadians whose only purpose was to use increased bonuses to benefit canadians. eBulgaria could likely have been a prime candidate for a special raw materials deal which would have benefitted the canadian community.
Most important, however, is to keep on the path of honesty because you need bright lines to guide all future decisions and behaviours. When you depart from the path, all becomes grey. And then, all arguments become plausible.
Sasha: You may be aware that the basic "law" in eCanada is the duty of honesty and good faith. It is contained in an actual written down law of Congress. Chochi points out that sale of citizenships may already be contrary to that law. The question needs to be put to the Court, which is presently looking at a similar situation in the EZstreet prosecution.
eCanada has long wrestled with the issue of "specific" and "general" in its laws. The present solution is a broad based law that relies on a principle of general application. It might be interesting to consider "reversing" your stategy: find out if the Court considers these sales contrary to the existing law. If so, nothing more is needed. If not, congress can make the situation clearer with a further written down law focussed on this issue.
Thanks for the eAmerican point of view Oliver.
Feel free to go back to your country.
To answer those points beyond a "go away," let's suppose the SC or Congress or a clause in the laws of the country decides to permit the sale of CS:
a) enrichment of individual players - now more players than a few individuals would profit, instead of causing respectful Congressmen to lose out while others reap in more profit from a more limited resource. Increased supply will lower demand, bringing prices down and spreading out a smaller reward among more people. Win-win?
b) notwithstanding contrary public interest
I think this is the tricky one and where there is merit to banning/limiting/discouraging CS sales. It makes sense from an ethical standpoint, yet will have more legs if we could say explicitly why it is against our public interest. PTO prevention? Certain types of 'immigrants' provide more benefit than others? Charging for CS will give us a bad name in other countries/with allies? Probably the best reason is that it will give players the wrong motivation to enter Congress. Players wanting to make extra money will potentially displace players who just want to do country building stuff. Or, players already doing country building stuff will invest extra time/attention to selling CS for more Gold rather than focus on other work. Just a theory at this point.
c) and notwithstanding a consensus that it is unfair to other players especially the young
Agreed, older players do already have a better chance of receiving the 5 Gold for a Congress reward already. If we do seek to create a more even playing field to bring up the young, we should go back to encouraging Congress to donate their 5 Gold like in the past. Current MU funding programs do help the young now, yet restricting CS does not seem like the most effective way of adding to that goal (ie. a drop in the bucket). The game is not meant to be fair to newcomers, in my opinion, as a way of encouraging them to buy Gold to catch up. The economy module has grown steadily less new-user-friendly, too.
d) and notwithstanding it teaches that dishonesty will be suffered in ecanada.
At least by legalizing/permitting CS sales, then dishonesty would be removed within eCanada. Of course, visitors from other countries will not find it any less dishonest. Dishonesty is a good standpoint when we have solid reasons why we should block it in the first place. Might be good to go back to ‘b) public interest’ and continue on from there.
😁agreed