Was the seizure of the treasury for security illegal?
Brian Boru
With the recent nonsense, citizens may wonder what sort of country we have. We have no constitution to guide us on how to deal with political, economic and military problems except the game mechanics. We have no written laws regulating behaviour of players in office or citizens in general, except for the eRepublik Rules themselves, and they're not enforced by the players. More often than not, it seems that chaos rules the day.
So, is Ireland a country without laws?
The answer is no. Ireland has laws, and everyone generally obeys them. The President, his Cabinet, the Dáil (Congress), the Army, political parties and the people. Together, these laws form our constitution. They have yet to be written down in a single place, something I hope to correct soon.
What are these laws?
They are the actions of every government, army chief of staff, party president, and finance minister during pretty much every one of their actions, as judged correct by the people via their consent, often as reactions to a crisis or a political problem. Generally, our people follow the precedents set by previous governments in order to keep some consistency in governing our country.
People who break the precedents for no good reason are often punished legitimately by the people at elections, by congress through impeachments and even via action of the civil service. Some are even more or less permanently ostracised from public office for a wide variety of offences. Not only does the law exist, but it clearly has the power that the law should have.
Which laws used and breached during the recent trouble?
The main piece of law that was used is perhaps our oldest one: When a President is elected illegitimately or goes rogue, the major factions have the right to defend the sovereignty of the country by seizing the treasury for security purposes.
This law was created in 2008 when Victor Petrescu took control of the country with the help of a large group of foreign infiltrators. The main political factions immediately secured the treasury, keeping it from the hands of the usurper, and organised resistance against the regime. If all of this is legitimate the first time, it must be legitimate in the same circumstances later. So the Finance people acted perfectly legally in securing the treasury from the President's hands.
By contrast, Daniel Plainview broke the rules set by precedent about Presidents interfering in the business of political parties. He parachuted into the Labour Party election for PP. There was no legitimate reason for him to do so, and what he did was impeachable on its own. The only legitimate reason under Irish law to interfere in the workings of a party's internal leadership is if there are attempts by non-members to take it over. That law was created when the Patriots were PTOed, and I intervened as President to cool down the situation by ordering that the illegitimate PP of the Patriots select no candidate for President. The Bremen Clubhouse incident could also be considered a precursor, though that was a foreign attempt and so is a slightly different circumstance.
Over the course of the next while, I hope to collect the various laws that we have created by our common experience in this game, and submit them for examination in another article.
In the mean time, we should all rest assured that we don't live in a chaotic mess of a country, that we have laws, that those laws are generally obeyed, and those that don't follow them are punished appropriately.
Comments
Miau!
boated
I look forward to reading the ensuing discussions here.
Voted!
Good read 🙂
We had a written constitution when I signed up. A fine hobby if you have nothing better to do. Always trumped by game mechanics and factionalism when it comes to the crunch.
Which is why understanding precedents is a better way for us to organise how we regard actions as legitimate or illegitimate. It's far more flexible but still allows for order to exist. Furthermore, outlawing things that aren't a problem doesn't happen and the roleplaying is kept to a minimum, because the law only deals with issues that are actually worth talking about.
How we organise ourselves still matters, written constitution or not.
For completeness you should add that Imm Comm (again unwritten) law that Congressmen should await approval prior to passing people in...broken by one Political Party. Admittedly that Law is now dead, killed by those who would not upload it's (sensible goals).
I only mention it so you article on recent event is complete and not to restart the (flaming) discussions on it. Once added I'll delete this comment
Believe it was broken by the ILP a year ago.
You mean before we signed up to it? Or do you mean by player who were members and passed in people without prior approval since we joined up. If it is the later be assured we did apply sanctions. If it is the former then (like now) you cannot apply the law to us.
I mean when Congress approved an immigration law that put restrictions on people entering the country without clearance. The big reason this law was passed was because a month after your stint as CP it was leaked that the President of Argentina warned you that a PTO attempt against our country was a possibility.
Upon hearing this information a month late Congress approved tighter restrictions on immigration & the ILP refused to obey this law granting citizenship to anybody that would join their party.
I enjoyed the 2 days of peace this country had...
Hank, no point talking to him about the incident, both of our factions will disagree on it.
I'm compiling a list of all precedents right now, immigration was far from forgotten.
Leave the comment though, we need to have a discussion about immigration clearly, as it represents a clear ideological difference between all major factions that can and should be ironed out.
With respect Brian there was no ideological difference. All parties for the year or two agreed and implemented the rule until recently when one quite suddenly broke it.
If that party submits itself the implication of the rule again I'm sure the system can be rebuilt.
If not then the us no point having such a rule.
QED
Winston need I remind you a second time that you have no credibility in lecturing any other party on the importance of obeying any laws set about by the congress.
Your party broke the law repeatedly a year ago to illegally increase the size of the ILP.
With respect, there is an ideological difference.
Moomoohead was let in without fuss, without dissolving the Immigration committee, and without pre-approval. The fact he was a former CP was made an excuse for that at some point along the line.
Many in my party believe that isn't a bad rule, and every single one of those who were returned were ex-CPs. Most were RL Irish, another factor which many in my party believe should grant one access to citizenship. The possibility of the committee stonewalling ex-CPs and RL Irish players from receiving Irish citizenship, on the basis of personal and political disputes, was just as galling to us as the subsequent approvals of their citizenship were to you. The committee having let in former eIrish citizens without pre-approval in some cases and quick approvals in others, can hardly claim to have been greatly wronged when the same thing happened again.
That said, the approvals weren't made in good faith either, something we'll have to acknowledge going forward to setting up more clear rules as to who is allowed into our country. Previously, the committee's purpose was only to vet foreign PTO and similar threats and nothing more, granting more power to the committee to decide based on desirability and character requires clearly marked boundaries for use of that power.
That is, if the committee can hold that power at all: the power to approve still remains in the hands of congresspeople, and tighter oversight would have to be justified as well.
Moomoohead wasn't given a free pass. He was subject to the same practices as anyone else would be.
I reject the idea of former citizens or Cps getting a free pass, and will not support any constitution that would give them one.
I agree, Ian.
I have heard a lot of ideas about "new immigration rules" that would parse language in order to make certain players immune from being held accountable for their own actions and behavior. Such rules turn an immigration policy into a farce.
Now that the ICA has disbanded the ImmComm, we have no border protections. It's an unfortunate situation. I will be ready to represent the IFP again, when a new committee can be established. Maybe in a few months the country will be ready for an ImmComm again... I hope.
Imm Comm did not have any serious hitches last year because the Imm Comm did not know the great majority of players applying. There have been plenty of unauthorized players let into the country, yet the recent outcry has only occurred since letting in a few known exIrish players.
Since taking on CC, I've counted just under half of all citizenship passes given weren't approved by Imm Comm. Yet the committee becoming 'obsolete' according to ILP has been a result of Labour's actions.
The situation highlights everything I've been saying is wrong with the way the Imm Comm has been operating in my last Dail term, like a social engineer attempting to weed out players it considers 'bad' to the community for a number of reasons. If the sole focus of Imm Comm was to investigate foreign PTO threats, as originally intended, then the difference of treatment between known and unknown players would not be so blatantly due to personal relationships.
If Imm Comm was truly investigating with any due diligence on PTO threats, the dozen or so unapproved citizenship passes given to unknown players would be making headlines due to an undefined threat being let in - rather players we consider 'bad' natives.
That's for that valuable input Seanan.
Is their a record kept of people the Imm Comm has granted & refused entry?
No one but NO ONE could believe that OJ, Chewie & Padraig are anything but a threat to this eState Thieves scammers and extreme trolls. I have no issue with political foes etc. getting passed. If fact I passed in myself the person I considered the best political challenger to my way of thinking.
If you believe that those 3 should be welcome in here then yes we disagree dramatically.
The common denominator here, Winston, is 'threat'. Unfortunately, I've found having this discussion to be so overly politicized that its nearly impossible to truly discuss the reasoning behind what is considered a 'threat' without an ultimatum being put forward or having my argument dictated to me through an other individual's perceptive.
Even now, I have just raised a concern over how the Imm Comm is operating by focusing on individual's "desirability" rather than screening for Foreign PTO groups (which I give priority) - and the response from you has been on individuals rather than Foreign PTO groups.. my valid concern has not been addressed.
There is a discussion here which can't be shut down by going "well you either agree with me or lalalalala ". Firstly, what SORT of threat should the Imm Comm be aiming to prevent? Tis my opinion the Imm Comm should focus on screening for Foreign PTO only as originally intended as Foreign PTO represent detrimental affect on -every- Irish citizen.
Certainly, I am implying OJ, Chewie & Padraig do not represent a "Foreign PTO threat". While a player may be classed under "Thieves scammers and extreme trolls", the classification does not automatically make them every classify under every other type of threat. They may represent a threat to the "community's well-being" among other things, but "Foreign PTO threat" is exclusively for agents of another nation.
When the Imm Comm was set up to screen for PTO threats, the "approval" system was simply to say "This player does not represent a Foreign PTO threat" - it was not to say "This player should be approved". Essentially, a player does not need to be a Foreign PTO threat to be unwanted. The responsibility of letting in "desired" players still fell to the Dail members themselves - of which opinions vary wildly, hence why the Imm Comm (which can never truly be anything other than an advisory body) focused on a "threat" which is common to all.
"When the ImmComm was set up to screen for PTO threats"
That's a mischaracterization of the ImmComm's directive. You have vastly narrowed the parameters in order to justify the recent violations by the ICA. The committee was never intended to ONLY defend the country from foreign PTOs. Internal threats were just as much of concern. Also enforcement of deportation is only possible if the ImmComm is in place. The process prevents naive young TDs from being conned by a guy who simply says "I was Irish before." The committee also avoids our very limited passes from being wasted on tourists, or newbie accounts that could just restart here. Plenty of other concerns have come up in the ImmComm that have been very justifiable reasons to reject citizenship approval, that have nothing to do with PTO defense.
The ImmComm is a border protection for the eIreland community from a myriad of threats. Your attempt to rewrite history that the ImmComm's only purview is PTO prevention is disappointing.
If you want to debate decisions that you disagree with, that's fine. But do not pretend that the ImmComm did anything untoward by rejecting genuine e-criminals that present a very real threat to eIrish national security. The committee was above board at all times, and not any sort of social engineering you are implying. IF Liam was running a corrupt ImmComm, then I don't think we would have seen so many ILP rivals come flooding across the border. There was the Cromeg migration which certainly did not help the ILP's political power base. Non-criminal Labour were certainly approved, and others would have been if they weren't backdoor'd before the committee had a chance to act.
Much of the argument you are crafting here is patently false. I know you have been drinking the ICA-villain koolaid, and have become an apologist for them lately. You are one of the most neutral, fair-minded individuals in eIreland... and someone I have always had the utmost respect for. Please come back.
Seanan those 3 constitute a group, a group we do not need here. Also as far as I, and the game was concerned they were citizens of the UK or elsewhere and thereby "Foreign" and we all know they constitute a threat... be it to the treasury, eIrish citizens or your run of the garden PTO but a treat they pose.
So even if we accept your narrow definition of the responsibilities of the Imm Comm, and I don't, these unsavory people would still be blocked.
No, Bhane. That is vastly unfair to say I've changed the definition to accommodate the breaches - unlike you, I am not responsible for the state of ImmComm and have no vested interest in portraying my (non-existent) actions as "above broad" by shifting parameters.
I am certainly criticizing the way the latest ImmComm has operated.
And I began criticizing in February 2014 when no breaches by the ICA had occurred (although certainly other ones!)
Not when the "recent violations by the ICA" happened, but 3 months ago.
And you are aware of that, because when I criticized the system, you strongly defended it.
And at that moment, my criticism that an ImmComm 1) cannot decide "desirability" on a 3-person consensus, 2) that they are forsaking their original and most important duty of Foreign PTO prevention and 3) display a notable bias between unknown & known applicants, calling into question if they are objectively screening anyone... and simply your response was not to address concerns but to call me an "apologist" or whatever.
That "narrow definition of the responsibilities" is not my definition. The ImmComm was described as an "ideal screening measure" in Coleman's initial articles. He later proposed no strict requirements (bar the usual) for ImmComm to follow, but the initial consensus for the ImmComm to screen and investigate potential Foreign PTO threats.
Coleman set up the ImmComm as an objective-investigating body. Read his previous articles. He didn't set it up as a strong governing body either, more advisory - the near exact words were that if a Dail member passed an unauthorized applicant, then they would feature in a CP report for the public to decide if they acted correctly or not., but the actual breach was not predetermined to be good or bad. That is not the foundations of an authority aiming to control, that is the foundation of a watchdog to advise Dail members.
I am not denying the ImmComm has evolved from the original consensus of "Prevention of Foreign PTO threats", but the violations did not spark my criticism of a system which deviated from them - that began 3 months ago when orangejuicemmm was rejected on what I understood to be grounds of "Foreign PTO threat" by the ImmComm.
@Winston "Foreign" being the key word here ^. I have continually said OJ and the like represent threats of all other types which give justification for Dail members sharing those concerns not to accept their applications - Yes, Bhane, I keep saying that... just because someone isn't a FOREIGN PTO THREAT doesn't mean they ain't another type of threat - SO when an application was rejected, and I thought the only parameters the ImmComm worked by was "Prevention of Foreign PTO threats", I obviously questioned it. Not because of specific applicant,as Bhane you would like others to believe, but because knowing how an exIrish player / someone who definitely isn't foreign can be classified as a "FOREIGN pto threat" raises questions in my mind.
Later, it emerged that "desirability" decided by the 3 Committee members had become the prominent parameter and not Foreign PTO threat. And my criticism of that subsequently followed. While, as always, the discussion gets stuck on the individuals in question... as I said, alots of unauthorized applicants over last few months, only seems 3 are important... there are things blatantly wrong with how the ImmComm has been operating. 3 people cannot decide "desirability" for the community without any real consultation (its entirely subjective... and you didn't see that word when it was being set up), the focus on desirability has been to the detriment of screening for Foreign PTO threats (once admitted by Liam that they don't get enough time / unreported masses of unauthorized applicants coming in) and that subjective focus on desirability undermines the creditably of ImmComm to act as an objective body.
I had a long answer, but it doesn't matter. You are completely wrong in the way you are describing the activity within the ImmComm. But, your ears are closed, so there's no point in telling you how decisions are made there. You have decided to turn a blind eye to any truth, and defend real e-criminals. You are a master wordsmith, Seanan, and giving those talents to protect real villains of eIreland is sad to see.
You may not want people to be held accountable for their actions and behavior, but that will only incentivize them to repeat more criminal behavior. I'll just leave you to your soap box, and wait to say I told you so after eIreland has to learn a very hard lesson... again.
No, Bhane, you are failing to address valid concerns as that would acknowledge there is any legitimacy behind them. Instead you want to dismiss them as "protecting criminals" given those concerns would be direct challenge to your perceived impeccable position.
I am not a wordsmith, not changing my argument as we go along. I know what you believe, but I am proving you are wrong based on more than just my word and have done so before "my" criminals came into play - that is your changing argument.
"Victorious warriors win first and then go to war, while defeated warriors go to war first and then seek to win."
The ImmComm must put the protection of our borders from Foreign PTO Threats as a paramount priority. Desirability / worth have a place to play, but not solely at the hands of 3 individuals and certainly not above reproach.
Winston
The Labour Party only appeared 2months ago.
Have they at any time actually agreed to join up to the MoImm system?
If 'no', then by the logic you've applied to ILP,
TLP is not guilty of anything.
With respect (and despite the obvious lack of reciprocation I do respect, if not always agree, with your opinions) the rule was in place 2 months ago (& only introduced when the ILP stayed our and stated so to Congress at that time) and on attaining Congress representation would apply...if you disagreed with the rule it was your duty to say so to Congress, and probably top the voters prior to the vote.
But look we don't agree and the rules is now dead with two large Parties not signed up to it so rather than continued debate here lets park it?
You said just above that the rule could not be applied to your party until your party agreed to it.
Why does it not also work that way for TLP?
No I said that that prior to the rule been suggested we opted out therefore it was not a "Law"...once all Parties in the Dáil accepted and it became convention if any Party, inc. the ILP, wanted out they needed to declare such so all the other Parties would know and thereby be able to make the informed decision on what to do.
The LP opted out but neglected to tell everyone so all the other parties thought they we still bound by the terms. Once it became public knowledge they opted out then all other parties needed to examine their stance. The ILP did and opted out too (for very different reasons).
to sum up until ALL Parties signed up it was not a Law/Convention but once they did you needed to declare (inc new parties) they were not subjected to those terms.
Well, I can see your take on it. However in many ppls' opinion the MoImm departed far from the premise it was originally created for.
It's awfully convenient to throw out the rulebook for oneself, and then want to put the walls back in place AFTER one has broken through. If you want rules that only apply to "the other guys," then you don't really want rules.
This goes for all factions, in regards to all rules. Don't advocate for rules that you are unwilling to enforce on your own members.
stop trying to divide the country again WHS.
I'm unsure why D.P running for PP of the Labour Party is an impeachable offence. Surely it's just normal politics, unless he creates a horde of multis or brings in a number of supporters at the last minute?
Is that the stance of your party or personal opinion?
It's unethical for a CP to try and politically take over another party. I don't see how that's normal politics...
Again Hank, cool it, his question isn't illegitimate..
The President of a country, elected as a member of another party, parachuting into another one for reasons one can only speculate about. That has consequences for political power, and for precedent. The attempt failed, largely because he went overboard soon after, but we can't consider his failure to mean that he was allowed to do it in the first place. It's political interference in the workings of another party by an elected official, whether it's successful or not.
Just an honest question, Hank. I'm not sure I've seen a cover-all definition of a PTO, so it's, for me, an interesting point. It's certainly unusual for the CP to change parties. Out of interest, is there a written down definition of what a PTO is?
A PTO is generally accepted to mean either a foreign group entering the country for the express purpose of taking control of the country against the wishes of its occupants and without integrating into their community, or a group of non-members doing the same to a party.
I recall a similar discussion on IRC many moons ago after the Labour Party (if that's what it was called at the time) was PTOd and just before they did the same to us, as to what a PTO was. It's probably a sensible idea to get a good definition of what it is written down.
To me the take over of a party from an external source is different from one that is internal. As we are talking about PTOs and immigration I think that threats of a foreign source are what the Imcom should deal with. Not whether someone is disagreeable to our society.
Now someone who is an Irish citizen trying to run for pp is a different issue in my mind. Most of the time it is just politics. Now there can be extenuating circumstances that make it not right (but perfectly legal via game mechanics) such as the CP switching just before elections or a group trying to destroy the good name of a party.
But I do agree with Seanan that the InCom should deal with people who mean to do us harm first. They can check backgrounds for past PTO attempts and such. But to "socially engineer" our society is not their job.
Well, that's certainly a sensible point to make.
tbh he was just a trouble brewer so its difficult to defend any of his actions. but yeah a long term citizen should be able to run for any parties presidency without it be considered a PTO .
Do you agree Liam or does your "morals" only apply to the labour party.
I'm not sure what you're accusing me of here. I said at the start that it would be helpful if we knew exactly what constituted a PTO to clarify the situation. Personally, any player should be able to apply for PP, but it becomes an issue when a swarm of players joins at the same time, whether they be multis, as happened recently, or real players.
He was in the country five months, he's not a long term citizen lol
If he wanted to run, he should have done it after his Presidency. There's an obvious conflict of interest there.
That's racist. Reported.
what was that newspaper of yours called again alexandriathe one we organized a fp point on?