A Response to "The Sensible Voice"
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by Jacobi
Sensible Voices has an interesting article here: http://www.erepublik.com/en/article/-wgc-in-retrospect-the-hungarian-to-attempt-evidence--764941/1/20 which attempts to justify the undemocratic efforts of the government in regards to the Hungarian takeover.
Now, in that article he mentions the dissenters of the government actions, of which I was probably the most vocal and says that those people did not present an alternative to the government list.
Well, as it happens, I did.
As it happens, the day before the election, I proposed that we simply say advise the Canadian populace through the media that the NC-BPQ members were Hungarian, not that we use official resources to promote some candidates and discredit others.
Maybe not as effective as the government plan, but it had the virtue of being constitutional, non-hysterical, and not a direct attack on our democratic values.
Speaking of the effectiveness of the government's list, obviously the 62 people who voted for Cleo in Ontario, or many of the others who over voted candidates didn't believe the threat was credible... which it turns out was to their credit.
I can't say that a document in english floating around the Hungarian irc channel makes a truck load of sense either. It would be as if I were to make a secret takeover plan only to write it in the language of my enemy for his easy translation.
The bottom line for me is that the possibility that tax payers money went into mobilizing the CAF to vote for some candidates is an affront to our democracy. The government's actions subverted our democracy and at best were the product of ill advised paranoia.
Now, I'm not attempting to portray myself completely in a black and white lens, as I think it makes perfect sense in the upcoming Party elections to make sure as a country that foreign elements do not gain control of any Canadian parties. We all, in the game, have a right to vote once in a party for its leader, and there is nothing preventing us from joining a party and stopping a take over.
However.
The government should not be paying canadians to run in parties, the government should not be using the CAF to vote in party elections, and the government should generally not be in the business of determining who should be leader of what party.
Let Canadians make their own decisions...that's what Democracy is all about.
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Comments
Good points Jacobi. On an ethical basis, you are very correct. On the basis of this being a wargame, your points may be weaker. An emergency response was deemed necessary to protect the strategic integrity of eCanada. Would we want to ruin ourselves with bad taxes and impeachments for one month just for the sake of following a code of ethics that works in RL because RL has proper citizenship rules and electoral lists? Canada is already vulnerable and we need to prevent any more weakness.
What I do think was unfortunate was that there was no prior legistlations dealing with this issue. TOs are not foreign to eRep. How is it possible that this kind of event could not be foreseen and already have proper procedures in place? If deploying the CAF was already an established procedure, why was there no transparency about it? I want to be on a winning team in any game, so why are we setting ourselves up to lose by either being unprepared or poor team communicators? And don't tell me to run for congress if I want these changes because I work and vote so that people in charge who have more time than me can make such decisions.
Plugson, I think "The Canadian Independent" had the answer. We need a War measures act that allows the government to act constitutionally and legitimately in a time of national crisis.
Your points are totally valid, Jacobi, speaking in a totally ethical basis. The constitution needs to be worked upon to include such issues as Joe Smith VI mentioned. This action by the government should be taken as an exception rather than a rule.
In this case, we hardly had any time to pass a legislation in congress and make it a law.
If we used your suggested strategy of just educating people about the NC-BPQ's intention, it would have resulted in votes being spread over many more Canadian candidates and lesser chances of Canadian candidates winning, and the insurgents who had the votes flown in would have a clear advantage. Thus there was a need to vote strategically.
Was the government effort to implement the 'list' totally successful? No, I never said it was. Nor will people like Cleo let it be successful. She is unseen on the forums, I wonder where she gets all the votes from? I personally was PMed by many candidates on the IRC to vote for them and they were bribing me Q4 weapons for a vote!! If it was implemented perfectly, it would have been possible to totally eliminate the Hungarian threat from the Congress.
Jacobi is a witch!
Burn the witch!
Gypsy Witch!