Join the new world

Well, as you know, I am going for re-election this month. I am sorry that this platform is much later than it normally is for me, but RL has really been serving me seconds this month. I promise that I will be even more active and attentive in the month of March.

Since I have finally served a term in congress, I am going to write a different style of platform. There will be two main sections, what I’ve done, and what I will do pending my re-election. I apologize beforehand if I begin to rant, but I feel very strongly about how congress needs to change in order to be successful.

If you want to hear the whole spiel about what powers congress has in-game, see one of my other platforms.

Okay, let’s do it to it:

What I’ve Noticed And Done

For the first week or so of my term, I sat back, observed, read, and learned about how congress works and what happens. For the most part, I liked what I saw. I believe congress has been organized in a way that sets our country up for success. What holds us back as a productive establishment, however, is the MASS inactivity that plagues the senators. Us congress people have a few simple duties. We must record our votes on proposals on the eusforums. The majority of congress members, unfortunately, have not been doing this. We also must debate and vote on proposals to amend practices or to add new ones. There was a great proposal on the floor, and it only needed a few more approvals to move to the official vote. It was rejected before even being voted on SOLELY because not enough people had even looked at it. This is a gigantic problem. Congress cannot function correctly if half of its members are not even participating. I urge every voter to think carefully about who they are going to vote for and educate themselves on the candidates. It does not matter if your party told you to vote for Candidate X (unless you’re helping to block against PTOers, that’s a different story), anyone who votes blindly is hurting this nation. If congress is as inactive in March as it was in February, I hereby swear that I will NOT run again in April.

On a lighter note, I’d like to talk about the things I got involved in and the things that interest me. I was assigned to the citizen affairs subcommittee. This committee basically sits and talks about ways to get more people into the eus, and more people STAYING in the eus. It addresses the citizen retention and baby boom issues. In the beginning, we had some nice ideas floating around, ones that could have gotten somewhere had they been acted on. Unfortunately (again), inactivity caused us to let our ideas die and nothing got done. It is a shame, because this is an issue that we really need to address, and because of this, it is something I will stick with when re-elected. I also did work with the IES. This is the subcommittee that overseas the acceptance and rejection of citizenship requests. Getting players back into the eUS has always been an interest of mine, and now that I’ve become familiar with the process, I would be more than happy working with the IES in future congress terms. The IES is a great subcommittee because it is the only place that I see concrete evidence of things getting done. I like the feeling of accomplishing something, and it is a rare feeling considering February congress.

What I Plan To Do

As I have said, I plan to become even more active in congress, since much more free time will be opening up for me soon. I will focus my efforts into the two places I have planted my congressional roots, citizen affairs and IES. In IES, I plan to admit/reject at least 10 players. I know this doesn’t seem a lot, but the system for reviewing a citizenship request is very uptight and requires much attention. Think airport security after 9/11. As for the whole Zoli thing…I had nothing to do with that. The work I do in IES isn’t a joke, it is important to our nation and I will not abuse it “fur t3h lulz.” In citizen affairs, I plan to really get the ball rolling and ACT on the ideas people create. I came up with the idea to make a CitAff director. This person will organize the many ideas floating around about ways to solve citizen retention, find people to help him/her write them up into an article, and GET THE PUBLIC ON BOARD!!! I will appoint my self forcefully if need be. I would PM the other senators in the domestic affairs committee at least once a week in order to ask about ideas and to promote any writing that we come up with. Next month, not a single idea will go to waste under my watch. The only way to find a solution is to actually TRY something.

Hmmm…try….what an interesting thought….

While most of congress’ inaction this month was due to, well, inactivity, much of it can also be attributed to stubbornness. Most notably, the B&F big shots are stubborn (that’s Budget&Finance). Every single time somebody tries to come up with an idea to TRY to help alleviate our economic issues, somebody throws out the phrase “stuff > gold” and then withdraws from discussion. It used to not bother me because I certainly don’t understand economics. But the problem is, if we never try a solution, the problem will never be solved. Eventually, we are all going to get tired of waiting for “equilibrium” or some other economic jargon that involves me sitting on my ass, waiting for my wage to increase.

While I understand that we have tried raising import taxes before, and it didn’t work in a similar situation some time ago, why should we not try it now? There is a SIGNIFICANT difference in the economy that says stuff is NOT great than gold. Yes, that’s right, I said it. Stuff is not greater than gold, sometimes. And that time is when Lana is standing at your front door. People value strength increase more than guns. They aren’t a necessity any more. I remember when we would make fun of people for fighting without guns on the forums. Now the excuse, “I lost all my money to Lana,” is acceptable. Bull shit. Spend money, stimulate the economy, stop being selfish.

I suppose my point is that I’m tired of seeing people debate and then say “well that was a great debate!” without ever acting on the what we argued about. Every debate I’ve seen has ended with a, “well, both sides presented great cases, but in the end, we’ve decided to not do anything and expect our country to fix itself.”

I praise Josh Frost for sticking with the war in the eUK, but being smart enough to end it when it became a waste of time and money. He is the most proactive, productive president I have had the privilege to play the game with.

I short, I promise to fight for action. I will not sit by and watch debates and ideas float idly by. I will vote yes on every proposal in-game and out of game that presents a positive and new change to the economy (besides they’re reversible in a mere 24 hours). I will get more hard working citizens back into the country, and keep our enemies out. I will create a web of ideas and articles that help spread knowledge about citizen retention. I will be active and astute, knowledgeable and aware. I need your vote to help the eUS get things done.

I am Patches O’Houlihan and I am running for re-election in Kentucky.


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