(02-29-2016, 03:25 PM)Belschaft Wrote: It was a constitutional crisis, that got messy when the Cabinet reacted poorly to Farengeto refusing to recall himself despite being a partisan in the matter in question. No one is denying that the Cabinet exceeded their legal authority in dissolving the Coalition, but prior to that they had been acting legally and had done nothing typical of a GCR coup.

"Before they coup'd, they didn't do anything typical of a coup." This idea that it wasn't really a coup, just a simple disagreement, is just ridiculous. A constitutional crisis is when our laws can't fix an immediate issue. We have had them before, without the Delegate resorting to what Hileville did. There was a legal means to do everything Hileville wanted to do, he just didn't want to go through those means. When the Delegate decides the law is inconvenient or that he can't get what he wants through it, and then just does away with the law, that is a coup. There's no mincing words. There's no "it's complicated." It's really not.

(02-29-2016, 03:25 PM)Belschaft Wrote: ... Once native WA members made their displeasure for the dissolving of the Coalition clear, Hileville and the Cabinet brought things to an end, peacefully and without demanding concessions or terms.

This is just false. The coup wasn't on its way to ending until Scylla defected and cleared the banlist. There was plenty of "native" "displeasure" with what Hileville did from the start; he didn't care. As long as he had the Cabinet, he could claim legitimacy, and it would be an uphill battle toppling his coup, especially with well-known NSers pouring into his forums to participate in writing a new constitution. Imki, Sam, and Sopo didn't even have a role in ending the coup: they couldn't do anything about it, once Hileville left. Imki and Sam spent all their influence banning the CSS. Sopo didn't have enough in the first place. What happened was that Scylla defected, Siberian was planning on defecting; and Imki, Sam, and Sopo were left with an unwinnable scenario. They didn't approach any of us with an olive branch. Going to TNP to express doubts doesn't mean much. Actually doing the right thing does, and that's why Scylla and Siberian have been celebrated. Coming back here afterwards, expressing that the coup was wrong, and showing a willingness to work within our laws, is also worthy of celebration.

(02-29-2016, 03:25 PM)Belschaft Wrote: You are approaching this with a sense of triumphalism and entitlement entirely inappropriate, and greatly to my dislike. This was not a situation where you won a GCR war, and get to impose terms and demand grovelling apologies at your feet.

Actually, yes, this is a situation where we get to impose terms. We, in fact, already have. Our terms are: admit wrongdoing and get amnesty. Now you are moving the goalposts and demanding of the people who were victims of the coup to stop calling it a coup, to erase this from our history and pretend that nothing wrong happened... (Except, of course, we must agree that Kris and I are to blame for the great chunk of it, that must be something that we never forget.)

The amnesty clause was never a reset button, as if we would revert to the post-coup status quo in terms of trust and relationships. We emphatically did not grant unconditional amnesty precisely because a level of contrition is absolutely necessary to fix what went wrong. Some have showed that contrition-- quite a few have not. Conditional amnesty was granted because it was more important for us to begin the process of rebuilding, than to get mired in trials for people who wouldn't even show up anyways. But it was not a declaration that there would be no consequences for them at all. There have been consequences for everybody else.

You may believe that being chosen to hand the delegate seat over to Tsunamy somehow prevented a "civil war" and would lead to a "forgive and forget" reality. But that was never the case, and it was never going to happen. Reconciliation is not a one-way street. Those of us who defended the Coalition against the coup have been asked to be merciful. We have been. We've been asked to acknowledge the faults in our system, and to work in a process to fix that. We have done so. All I ask is for history to be written accurately, for us to call a coup a coup, and do reasonable things to prevent further dysfunction. That includes being honest about what happened, and not trying to sugar coat it for posterity.

Sam cannot remain in the CSS; there's no trust there. It is beyond obvious that he must resign or be recalled, no matter how you personally feel about him or his motives. The writing has been on the wall since the Coalition was restored. Amnesty or not, the CSS can't function unless everybody there trusts each other. Being removed from the CSS is not a punishment: it's an acknowledgement of reality.