National Liberal Coalition Policy Discussion

[Verily]

Well, I'd like to get a little bit more input about the health care program before including some semblance of it in the party platform that is (slowly) coming together.

I've lost my train of thought as to where we going to go next. In the interim, I'd like to hear some suggestions from party members as to important issues in their minds that we should address.

[Verily]

Depending on how the referendum plays out and how the senate gets to the idea of US-Atlasian law, I'd like to see some of our members put some cases in the regional and nationwide courts.

What sort of issues do you mean? Clearly the court system in Atlasia is atrophied simply due to a lack of cases, but what sort of cases could we bring? Atlasian government doesn't lend itself to a lot of court cases from forum members.

[Verily]

Depending on how the referendum plays out and how the senate gets to the idea of US-Atlasian law, I'd like to see some of our members put some cases in the regional and nationwide courts.

What sort of issues do you mean? Clearly the court system in Atlasia is atrophied simply due to a lack of cases, but what sort of cases could we bring? Atlasian government doesn't lend itself to a lot of court cases from forum members.

Well, two different scenarios

1) we eventually merge the US into atlasia...then I think the cases can be endless

2) If we do the separate thing (Only God would know why), then someone might try and get creative, and try to push some bounds...suing on behalf of a fictional citizen etc...that procedural aspect could be a neat issue...and who knows from there...

I certainly hope strongly for the former, but I know it doesn't have broad support within the party.

Personally, I would say that the best way to resolve the issue would be, not something passed by the Senate, but a court ruling. Say, have someone take issue with a certain pre-2004 US law, bring it to the Supreme Court and have the Court decide. Speaking of which, there's been no word from Colin about a Justice to replace TexasGurl, has there?

[Verily]

I would also like to take a moment to express praise for some parts of the Federalist Party's platform with which I agree, and which I would like us to adopt. These include a shift from the interstate system to a rail-based system, the establishment of a National Bank, education system simplification, and a fully funded national university system.

[Verily]

With no objections, I am going to go ahead and include those in our platform. Does anyone have other concerns they'd like to see addressed?

[Verily]

We can add that in though it looks as if this referendum will establish the "anti-independence" position as the national consensus and close the issue.

[Verily]

I understand Colin's reluctance to have this included in the platform, and the fact that it looks to be a closed issue in Atlasian politics suggests to me that there is no particular reason for it to be included in our platform. That is not to say that I am not "anti-independence" (I am), but that addressing closed discussions would be rather pedantic.

[Verily]

Well, I would like to be able to come to a sort of consensus on that. Realistically, as long as Atlasia maintains the precedent of being a relatively large and influential player on the international stage, I have little concern about what choice is made.

I also have maintained that I do not think this is an issue for the Senate, which really shouldn't be concerned with aspects of the reality of the game, but rather for the courts, or even better, a recreated GM position.

[Verily]

We can add that in though it looks as if this referendum will establish the "anti-independence" position as the national consensus and close the issue.

I'd personally agree to a "Nay" plank on the Atlasian-US relations for obvious reasons, as would all other Nay voters in the NLC/GLP/BDP

Well it's not like I've ever given a sh**t about a party platform. While I wouldn't consider it a closed issue, I've heard many people state that they would be more willing to agree to something of this sort if it was discussed further before being put to a vote and Atlasia's place in the world is a constant debate stretching back to the beginnings of this country, I would consider it a bad choice if we included this in our platform.

Verily, when it comes to the GM the position is not coming back. No one, even if they want the position, would be capable of doing the amount of things that the GM is supposed to do. Even if we had a GM team made up of Tom Clancy, Alan Greenspan, and Zbigniew Brzezinski that we paid millions of dollars a year to do nothing but be Atlasia's GMs I doubt they would be able to do everything that is asked of the GM.

Not something I'd like to argue about, but I will say that I do not think we need the GM to be a particularly arduous job and leave it at that.

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We did talk about proportional representation at one point. (It's around page 3 of this thread, I think.) There seemed to be broad consensus at the time in support of the attempted electoral reform. Again, it's a dead issue once enacted, but I suppose everything is. (We establish universal health care, then what? It's not so easy to identify failings to correct in a system that doesn't exist in real life.)