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HEM · 03-04-2016, 01:20 PM

Has Sam even posted here? Isn't there a new argument that he might not be active enough for this post??

Formerly Relevant, Currently Former.

**Farengeto** · 03-04-2016, 01:35 PM

(03-04-2016, 01:20 PM)HEM Wrote: Has Sam even posted here? Isn't there a new argument that he might not be active enough for this post??

His last public post was 30 days ago. He has made some posts in an unclear non-CSS hidden sub-forum since then.

**Belschaft** · 03-04-2016, 01:59 PM

(03-04-2016, 11:52 AM)Wolf Wrote:
(03-04-2016, 10:15 AM)Tsunamy Wrote:
(03-04-2016, 10:12 AM)Belschaft Wrote: Equally full disclosure; who ejected who was determined by influence levels, and had I had more influence on my nation at the time it could have been me ejecting Kris.

... you didn't have Border Control Powers?

I think Hileville would have made Bel's nation an officer in order to do so, is what Bel's implying.

Pre-Hileville handing off control of his nation to Bel, of course.

Correct. The point I was making was that Sam didn't eject Kris because he was evil or malicious, but because the influence calculations indicated that he was best placed to do so. The increased influence costs for Regional Officers meant that I couldn't have done so had Hile added me as an RO, or it is likely that I would have ejected at least one of the people in question to retain influence on Hile and Imki.

The fact that it was Sam who actually pressed the button is relevant, but it has to be understood that every other member of the cabinet as well as myself were aware that it was going to happen and agreed to support it.

_{Minister of Media, Subversion and Sandwich Making}
^{Associate Justice of the High Court and Senior Moderator}

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Drugged Monkeys · 03-04-2016, 02:00 PM

SO everyone openly admits to unlawfully ejecting members of the region, but we still failed to recall this person?

Semi-Unretired

~~Wolf~~ · 03-04-2016, 02:10 PM

(03-04-2016, 02:00 PM)Drugged Monkeys Wrote: SO everyone openly admits to unlawfully ejecting members of the region, but we still failed to recall this person?

Quite the conundrum, isn't it?

Perhaps it's sympathy with the circumstances that gave rise to The Crisis that prevailed there?

I think in all this decrying of Sam and his one banjection, the pro-recall people are ignoring that Sam didn't act alone, The Crisis wasn't a black and white event, and a degree of public sympathy might actually exist for the former members of the Transitional Government.

It's almost like The Crisis wasn't ended by an absolute and total victory which saw one side totally crushed by the other. Maybe it's time we adjust to this reality?

**Belschaft** · 03-04-2016, 02:17 PM

Wolf has kinda summed up my point of view. I'm not saying that Sam is blameless, nor that he acted correctly, merely that the circumstances were such that this isn't a black and white issue.

_{Minister of Media, Subversion and Sandwich Making}
^{Associate Justice of the High Court and Senior Moderator}

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ProfessorHenn · 03-04-2016, 02:25 PM

Sam was the only one in the Cabinet who was, and still unfortunately is, a member of the CSS.

And why would we give sympathy to those that overthrew the entire government in favor of their own? They knowingly made that choice to coup, and should not expect this degree of defense for their action.

The Coup was not clear cut, but the word and intent of the law was clear in it. One side defended the law, the other dissolved it, and I'm a fan of dissolution in Chemistry only.

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ProfessorHenn
Legislator

**Belschaft** · 03-04-2016, 02:38 PM

I'm sorry Cath, but it was not the case that one side broke the law and the other didn't. The law had been broken and bent on multiple occasions, which is precisely why the Crisis ended up happening.

_{Minister of Media, Subversion and Sandwich Making}
^{Associate Justice of the High Court and Senior Moderator}

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ProfessorHenn · 03-04-2016, 02:39 PM

The coup was the climax of the law breaking you bring forth. They took it a bit too far with their complete absolving of the Coalition.

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ProfessorHenn
Legislator

***Kris Kringle*** · 03-04-2016, 04:16 PM

Click the spoiler if you want to read a somehow long post where I explain why I think the coup was completely unjustified, even if the coupers' grievances might not have been.

Spoiler

OK, breaking my earlier promise, but I really feel this must be restated:

Nobody says those who carried out the coup did not have legitimate grievances. The point is that nothing in their grievances should be used to legitimise their actions or diminish the gravity of couping the region. This was not some squabble between the Cabinet and Forum Administration. This involved the Assembly and the High Court, not to mention a system of government that had been mostly successful for the past thirteen years.

Should we discuss the grievances that led to the coup and agree on address them? Yes, absolutely. There were serious problems and we need to see what can be done to prevent them from happening in the future. But a coup was not the solution to this, and we should not act like this was a legitimate course of action, or one more in a series of equally bad actions. Whatever grievances each side had, they should have been solved through negotiations and ultimately judicial action, if necessary. A coup was not necessary, it was not something that the Cabinet was forced to do. I was told by Hileville himself that the Cabinet did not make an effort to talk things through with Forum Administartion because he did not believe it would work. So the myth that the Cabinet simply had no choice is false: they didn't try.

Let me quote from the Statement of January 31:

The Cabinet Wrote:Because the institutions of the Coalition of The South Pacific have consistently proven themselves inadequate, broken, and corrupt; and because certain individuals have made a concerted effort to circumvent legal actions undertaken by the elected government; the Cabinet of The South Pacific has voted unanimously to take the drastic action required to restore the rule of law to our community. The Cabinet hereby:

1) dissolves The Coalition of The South Pacific, replacing it with The Transitional Government of The South Pacific.
2) removes Sandaoguo (Glen-Rhodes) and Kringalia (Kris) from the region for their determined effort to create strife in the community and increase their own personal power through illegal and unethical actions carried out as administrators of the forums.
3) temporarily removes Farengeto from the region until such a time that the situation has normalized and a new democratic regime is legally in place.

Here you have the dissolution of the government and the removal of three citizens, all of which were members of the institution entrusted with preventing coups and one of which was a judge who ruled against the Cabinet. This was not simply a case of X person being ejected. This is a case of the Cabinet completely circumventing the Assembly, which so many say is the supreme institution of this region. This is a case of an executive choosing to remove a judge who issued an inconvenient ruling. This is a case of a Cabinet dissolving the government because they believed it would be easier than actually talking.

Did they tell Forum Administration they had grievances? No they didn't. You can ask any of the Administrators. Did they request the Assembly to authorise a forum move or a constitutional convention? No they didn't. No vote ever took place. Did they bring to public notice the supposed problems in the region? No they didn't. There was no public debate. I have lost count of how many times I have said this in the past two months, but I keep saying it because it's the truth: it's not that they didn't have a right to believe there were problems in the region, it's that it wasn't their place to kick the table over it.

Their job was to come forward with those problems and propose reasonable solutions to them. That was their mandate. Had they come to us with a list of problems, then all was good! We could go over those problems and see what could be done, where we had acted wrong, and jointly agreed on steps to be taking. But that never happened. You see in the second paragraph of the Statement that it says admins were unwilling to cooperate with needed reforms. That is not true, because we were never given a chance to do so. I know for a fact all three found out the Cabinet had problems not because they told us, but rather because of this Statement. We didn't know there were problems until the Cabinet called us out for being unwilling to solve them.

And yet, despite all this, we are giving the chance of coming back, if they respect the rules of democratic engagement. We are following their proposal for serious constitutional reform. We are acknowledging that there were problems that need fixing. I am not denying their grievances, only their claim that that somehow gave them the right to coup, or that their couping was somehow less problematic because they felt they had good reason.

Let me put it differently. I believe the forum crisis had different shades of grey, and even though I strongly believe it was obviously illegal, I can understand it being a genuine political crisis. But the coup was and still remains a black and white issue. You shouldn't be able to excuse your way out a coup. The Cabinet had the trust of the entire region. It would have been so positive for them to enact change through the legal means. It would have been proof that they had what it took to move the region in the right direction. Their belief that laws were bent doesn't excuse the commission of an even worse crime. We have to address their concerns, but we can't excuse their actions. Doing so is a disservice to citizens past and present who did things the legal way.

We are moving forward with positive change in this region, all of us together, by following the letter of the law. We passed resolutions and will meet in the Great Council to do all by the book. It can be done. It is being done. Why do we keep justifying their coup, when we are doing exactly what they said couldn't be done through legal means?

Former Delegate of the South Pacific
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