Join the new world

Some of you have read my previous article and expressed great interest in the details of this new way of thinking. There are so many aspects to living in the New World and I plan to address each aspect individually. In this article, I will relate the Lockean Philosophy on Politics, Government, and Leadership.

[Politics]

Allow me to define this in New World terms.

Politics: Any activity that involves competing with others for a position, elected or appointed, that will further your future options.

That seems a bit vague so let me expand. Politics can include, intra-national politics (which includes: intra-party politics, inter-party politics, congressional politics, cabinet politics) and international politics (which includes such things as alliances, MPPs, treaties and wars).

Intra-national politics
The first "political" thing you can do in this game is join a Party. Why is this so significant? Why does this seem so... trivial?

This is significant because more often than not, these parties can define you. Your first friends are sometimes from your party and most times, the friends you keep in touch with the longest are from your party (or first party).

Once in a party, Country President is the limit... not the sky... there is no such thing in the New World 😛

Party Politics
Intra: Within
Within ones party, there is plenty of politicking going on. You may not notice at first, but once you become more and more involved, the politicking becomes obvious. When I first started this game, in Beta, for my first week I was a member of the USWP. I ended up leaving for the AAP. Once in the AAP, I became extremely active on the (party) forums and became a particular favorite of Evan Bayh. At the time, Party Presidents could arrange party ranking on their own as foten as they wished (unfortunately no longer). I became a valuable asset to the party and eventually became director of Public Relations under Citizen HEM. (How did I do all this? Well I never got my hands dirty, I was just active, quite ... quite often.)

I eventually became a party favorite doing much to benefit the party's image in the public's eye. I was subsequently elected four times. The first time I gave it up to Sam, as I did not feel ready. The last three times I've furthered the party incredibly (if I may say so myself). I have since left to join a party that I had inter-party relations with while PP of the AAP, the USWP.

Inter: between; in the midst
As PP of the AAP, the USWP and AAP became close allies, especially at one point when a certain player, Donovanator, decided that it was time to "unite the right" (the conservatives) against "the left" (the liberals). This angered me incredibly to the point where I started doing my best to "unite the left". This was unnecessary as, in the end, nothing came out of Donovanator's attempts.

For several congresional elections, the USWP and AAP selectively placed candidates so as to not overlap with each other. Why? To maximize the number of possibilities we had of winning. We "cross-endorsed" candidates and worked to get others to endorse our candidates as well.

As well as working with the USWP, the AAP worked with the Nationalist and Federalist Parties to endorse their candidates for congress. Why? Because the AAP is good people. No, actually because the better our inter-party relations, the more effective we are as a party.

Congressional politics overlap party and government politics. I'll describe the party parts now.

In order to run for congress, you must be a member of a top 5 party. Why? Game mechanics. If you are running in a state with someone else who wishes to run there, then the it is the party president's discretion as to whether or not you run or the other person does. For this reason, party politics come in handy.

Cabinet politics also overlap. A president's cabinet is usually hand picked by him for reasons that are his own. In recent elections, multi-partisanship has become a fad, but in previous months, party members were usually the first to be picked, unless there was absolutely someone incredibly better.

International Politics
This particular kind of politicking is usually engaged in by only the elite in a country. Who are the elite? Cabinet members, Ambassadors, Country Presidents, Vice Presidents, etc. Of course you can communicate with others but that isn't really international politicking unless you are planning to expatriate yourself and become some high-ranking official in a foreign country. This is rare.

Some examples of this include: Michael Lewis, Franco (The Teacher, This Gen Media), William Shafer, and most recently John Jay.

Alliances and Mutual Protection Pacts (MPPs) are really the same thing. These are part of the war module and protect a country when attacked, or rather deter one country from attacking a country with multiple MPPs. These are only activated when attacked The countries that have the MPP with the attacked country are allowed to fight from "home" "for free" and fight in the battles occuring between the attacking and defending regions.

Politicking for an MPP is basically no longer needed. Why? What the main concern is, is national strength, population, and other factors crucial to the war module.

[The Lockean View of This]

Politics

These are not necessarily in any shape or form.

You could focus your game play solely around the war module and business management, but you would not become well recognized by as many people.

Politics are good for becoming famous and building up a reputation in order to run for Country President.

Why so cynical?
Well that's a good question.

You see, you can be a Congressman and be all proud of it and all, but what is the point of it if you are not completely in love with debating every issue like a child (at least in the eUS, I can not testify to the political governing of other nations)? Seriously, after a while it gets on your nerves and you have a breakdown in which you start flaming people.

Maybe like everything else, Congressional terms should be taken in moderation, only two in a row.

In order to be a Country President you must be level 14 (OMG THAT IS SO HARD //sarcasm//). But in order to be elected by the majority you need serious name recognition (and on odd occasions a good platform). In order to have name recognition you need to do something in a major political party or in Congress to become recognizable. (The idea of being a media politician is rare. The people want SOME experience mixed in there.)

No matter what position you occupy, this game becomes most interesting when politicking your way to the top. I personally put everything else aside (war, business, etc.) until my political aspirations and desires had been fulfilled.

Government and Leadership will be published only if the reaction to this article is at least constructive in its criticism and not blatant flaming.

I'm putting serious amounts of time into these articles simply to make them respectable and not huge walls of text.