How do you feel these instances of ministers being "out of the loop" have affected trust and comfort within the Cabinet?

If I said not at all, I'd be lying. Of course it didn't cause good vibes, but that's why I'm working against it. That being said, there were still many, many instances of all four of us working together, so this wasn't the norm at all.

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Could you elaborate on those instances where the Cabinet had worked together?


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I'm not sure what you want to know. Did you want a list of every instance where we worked together in the past term? That would take a while to put together and require several redactions.

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Not particularly. But you mentioned that the Cabinet does cooperate. What is one example of that that comes to mind? I basically want to know how the Cabinet works, and how your leadership affects that dynamic.


Inviato dal mio iPhone utilizzando Tapatalk

Former Delegate of the South Pacific
Posts outside High Court venues should be taken as those of any other legislator.
I do not participate in the regional server, but I am happy to talk through instant messaging or on the forum.

Legal Resources:
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Not particularly. But you mentioned that the Cabinet does cooperate. What is one example of that that comes to mind? I basically want to know how the Cabinet works, and how your leadership affects that dynamic.

Well, the best example here is the process behind setting up the Legislator Committee. As the LCA was being discussed, I proposed a plan of action, which the other assented to. When the bill went up for vote, I opened the nomination thread to have the assembly propose individuals they deem good for the position. In parallel, we were discussing potential interview questions for them. I then put those together into a form and sent them to the candidates. That's the usual process so far. In this specific instance, we also had the issue of Legislator apps not being done, so I proposed appointing myself temporarily, which we were collectively wary about but agreed to do, so we went ahead and did that while we were waiting for all the answers to the interview and any followup questions to come in. We then all looked at the answers, debated heavily (for example, there was a big discussion on Sam vs. Faren, before Sam withdrew himself from consideration), and then came up with the final three.

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Has it been the official foriegn policy position of the cabinet to form a political Bloc against independent regions? Is this something you would change in your new term.

The 16th Delegate of The South Pacific

(This post was last modified: 02-08-2018, 05:59 PM by southern bellz.)

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I wanted to highlight the critical adviser and mentor and support role that Roavin has played for the cabinet. When I think of the various roles that a PM can play, the role of someone actively trying to help you do your best is the role that has been most helpful and one that I think really has pushed TSP to be active and engaged.

Some questions:
1. What is one of the biggest struggles the Prime Minister faces when overseeing a group of four people with widely different personalities and working style?
2. At time in TSP the various ministries have worked independently without really knowing what the other did.  How do you think cross ministry cooperation could improve?

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Has it been the official foriegn policy position of the cabinet to form a political Bloc against independent regions? Is this something you would change in your new term.

The short answer is: No, but I can understand why you would ask.

First, let's differentiate between "independent" and "Independent". An "independent" region is simply a gameplay region that doesn't align itself on either side of the spectrum but rather operates based on its interests. An "Independent" region is a region subscribing to the principles of the Manifesto - which also says that subscribing regions don't align themselves on either side of the spectrum but rather operate based on interests. Are you confused yet? Manifesto-opponents have long said that this was deliberate — I (and many others) prefer to call regions like TSP or TP or TEP "unaligned" rather than "independent", to distinguish them from the "Independent" regions like Balder, Europeia, etc..

TSP itself is (as I see it) an unaligned region with some culturally seated leaning towards being more defender-y than raider-y by default. So with your question, I presume you meant the other kind of independent.

The reason why it may look like such a bloc could be forming is because we're currently not on great footing with a good number of such Independent regions. Balder, the flagship Independent GCR, has been outright hostile to us, twisting any narrative they can to their whim. Their goal here is to get us to submit to their pressure, doing their bidding in exchange for being allowed into their sphere, on the threat of full isolation and ostracization from other regions (just think of that conceit for a moment, it's baffling). Most commonly, they do this by claiming in a million different ways that we are Unibotian Defenderists in hiding.

Other Independent regions, while not outright hostile as Balder, aren't so great on this front either. The best example here is Europeia. Euro initiated a treaty repeal with us. This is fine and was expected - it was a dead treaty, and most South Pacificans saw this as something we can do amicably and remain cordial with each other. What was disappointing, however, is the scorched-earth way in which this was done. President Writinglegend came into office after a massive scandal that led to the previous President's resignation, and would surely have been dealing with the fallout from it, but choose despite that to initiate the repeal on day 2 of his administration, saying in the Europeian Senate that this was "urgent". CSP went onto GP to say, lightly paraphrased, "TSP is single-handedly controlled by the Wardens and if you don't see it you're a fucking idiot", and I'm told that this view is not an outlier in Euro.

This pattern of behavior is not new, by the way. I don't know the full details, as I wasn't around back then, but for example a few years ago we have been literally uninvited from a conference by Europeia etc. because we dared to talk to Lazarus (an outright defender region at the time). Manifesto-Thumpers claim to be beyond the R/D divide, but really what they are is anti-defender, and they don't mind painting with the defender brush anytime something doesn't suit them.

This behavior is disrespectful and not acceptable. So, no, we're not going to cave and do their bidding. We're not going to submit to their threats of diplomatic isolation to conform. What we have done is that we have continued to be South Pacificans as we are. If they think this is the way to treat us, then we look elsewhere. We don't need them.

To, to answer: No, we haven't explicitly formed a political bloc against Independent regions. What gives the appearance is that I'm not afraid of saying that, next to the significant base merit of it, forming relations with a significant region like the East Pacific also serves to dispel the notion that regions like Balder actually have the clout to diplomatically isolate (and thereby influence) us.

How we do this in the new term will depend on who wins the MoFA race - with Tim, things will remain as they are. With Glen we'll likely be forming such a bloc much more explicitly. As Prime Minister, I go along with the policy espoused by the individual elected for those policies unless I see a clear and present danger for doing so, and I would be supportive of either approach as I see the merits of both approaches. If you want to know which I would choose if I were MoFA ... well, ask me in 4 months

Thank you, SB, you consistently ask the best questions <3

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I wanted to highlight the critical adviser and mentor and support role that Roavin has played for the cabinet. When I think of the various roles that a PM can play, the role of someone actively trying to help you do your best is the role that has been most helpful and one that I think really has pushed TSP to be active and engaged.

Thank you for the kind words

1. What is one of the biggest struggles the Prime Minister faces when overseeing a group of four people with widely different personalities and working style?

I wouldn't necessarily call this part a struggle, and in fact I rather enjoy it. It does involve having to get to know each minister, seeing how they work best, and helping them get into that space in which they work best. Both you and Tim are absolute power players, but each in a very different way, and so I've approached working directly with you two in very different ways as well to do it in a way that works best for each.

2. At time in TSP the various ministries have worked independently without really knowing what the other did.  How do you think cross ministry cooperation could improve?

I see it as the responsibility of the Prime Minister to facilitate it. There have been a few cases where it didn't happen correctly in the last term, and those are on me.

Besides the things I've mentioned earlier in my answers to Kris (calendar etc.), I'm still thinking about other ways that could be done better. Farengeto mentioned some ideas in his campaign that I may shamelessly steal.

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Do you believe you have the ability to make plays in the paint? Please be as thorough and detailed in your answer as possible, providing reasons as to why you would or would not have said ability.

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