What will you do to cut back the government bureaucracy which is strangling freedom in this great region?

I don’t answer questions from American Presidents who deserve to be stricken from history for being horrible

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Thank you to everybody who tuned into the SPINN debate, and especially those who submitted questions for us

(This post was last modified: 10-09-2020, 08:56 PM by sandaoguo.)

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I've had the honor and pleasure of serving as this region's Prime Minister more than anybody else in our 17 year history, serving 5 non-consecutive terms spanning a total of 20 months. Both my strengths and weaknesses in that position are pretty universally known, I think. What is somewhat less known is that my approach to solving complex non-time-critical problems often involved consultation, where I would gather opinions and their reasoning from people that I knew to have expertise in that area to inform my ultimate decision making. What few people realize is just how much advice I have gotten from Glen in all that time, and just how good that advice always was.

Here's something else few people remember: The image in the spoiler below pops up when you use the "!glen" command on our Discord server. It's there for a good reason and it's very appropriate:

Spoiler

There are very very few people that have the TSP credentials that Glen has, that are as consistent as Glen, that have put in the work as much as Glen (even if much of that is behind the scenes things), that have such a conviction for norms as Glen, that are ultimately right as often as Glen, and I can think of nobody (myself included) that is as eminently qualified as Glen.

I'm looking forward to see you become our new Prime Minister and hit the ball out of the park. If anybody's got it in them, it's you.

#glen4pm

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In the past, RMBers -- and not just those in positions of power -- have complained on the RMB that Cabinet members in administrations with gameside stances like yours completely ignore them to the extent that they don't even feel represented by the Cabinet. This is a distinct issue from giving gameside offices more power or involving them in forum politics. If RMBers similarly complain about feeling out of touch with their executive branch under your administration, what would you do? Would you reject their complaints as invalid on principle because they don't align with how you conceive of the role of the Cabinet? Or would you respond to their frustration with a lack of communication by increasing communication in some way (AMAs, cross-posting announcements, etc.)? I want to stress that this is not a hypothetical.

I do not believe the premise here -- that this is a distinct issue from trying to involve the Local Council in forum politics -- is actually correct. I don't believe so, because what exactly would "Cabinet representation" mean absent relation to forum government & politics? ...

I'm not sure you actually read my question. You rather seem to have read what you want my question to read. You've written a lovely long answer to the question "why shouldn't the Cabinet be more involved in government of the gameside?" -- but you haven't written an answer to the question "why shouldn't the Cabinet be more visible on the gameside?".

I did not ask you about the Local Council at all. I am precisely interested in your reaction to gamesiders who are not the Local Council. But evidently the Local Council is much more fertile territory for your dogma.

The fact that you can't possibly think of another type of "Cabinet representation" besides political integration shows how far removed you are from the interests of all but the forum politics game.

~ Aumeltopia ~

Raccoons are bandits! First they steal your food . . . and then your heart/identity!

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I did indeed answer your question, Somy, and you have chosen to cut it off and ignore the points I brought up. You are not simply asking, "Should Cabinet members post on the RMB?" That is a silly question of little consequence. Nothing would change in this region just because Cabinet ministers are forced to go write soulless posts on the RMB, just to meet a metric of "being visible on the gameside" that has no real substance to it. Indeed, you specifically talk about RMB allegedly complaining about not "feeling represented by the Cabinet." To which I asked a direct question you have not answered: What exactly is representation "distinct from .. involving the RMB in forum politics"?

So what you are really trying to get at is, "Should the Cabinet be responsive to RMB affairs?" Which is what I answered: no. The Cabinet should not do that, because doing so would usurp the role of the Local Council. When it comes to the RMB, the Cabinet's sole role is to provide a pathway to join the forum community and get involved in the forum government. Everything else is the protected jurisdiction of the Local Council, a right of independence protected explicitly by the Charter.

Where I strongly disagree with you and Prarie is that you both have a very short-term approach to this issue. You believe that mandated weekly RMB posting metrics and giving the Local Council a Cabinet seat will address an issue of "representation," an issue that only exists because Prarie went and asked a few LC member if they wanted a seat on the Cabinet. He introduced the idea to them, not the other way around. Without any consultation from the Assembly, I might add. Like I do with most things in TSP's governance, I am looking at the long-term and big picture. I can see how the ideas Prarie is proposing threaten to damage RMB culture and turn the RMB into something it doesn't want to be.

The answer to addressing a feeling of "lack of representation" is, which I wrote in my previous reply that you have cut out of yours, to create a more effective RMB-to-forum pathway and educate the RMB on what we do in the forum government and how they can join in. I want to preserve RMB culture, not destroy it and let the Cabinet or the Assembly feel entitled to mold the RMB into what they think it should be. 99% of RMBers like what they have and continue to create. I suspect the 1% who feel there is something lacking may have a budding interest in the political game we play here on the forum community and in Discord. What I believe is that the Cabinet should nurture that interest by providing those players an easier pathway to join in the political government game, rather than change the RMB that 99% of RMBers like.

(This post was last modified: 10-11-2020, 11:41 AM by sandaoguo.)

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Alright, I realize I erred in writing "not feeling represented by the Cabinet", because you've evidently seized on that as the only important part of my question. I... didn't really mean "represented" in the way you're interpreting it (although I admit you have the more reasonable reading). I should've gone with "connected to".

So I'll rephrase my question, this time with an example:

What if RMBer Novum Sina (just chose a random name from the recent RMB) posts the following:

"@sandaoguo can the cabinet tell us what TSP's plans for Z-day are?"
or perhaps
"@sandaoguo can the cabinet tell us why we just started building an embassy with the Pacific?"

Do you feel you have an obligation to answer that question, as you would have an obligation to answer if I sent the following message in #lampshade-bar?

"@hierocles#3041 what are we doing for z-day?"
or perhaps
"@hierocles#3041 what's up with the new NPO embassy?"

In other words, are all citizens of the South Pacific your constituents, or do you have an obligation to some more than others based on where they locate themselves?

~ Aumeltopia ~

Raccoons are bandits! First they steal your food . . . and then your heart/identity!

(This post was last modified: 10-11-2020, 08:44 PM by Somyrion.)

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