Atlasia can do better ~ Marokai Blue for Senate

[Marokai Backbeat]

Sewer should like seeing this again.

POLICY ANNOUNCEMENTS FOR CONVENIENCE:

• Wide-reaching proposals to make Atlasians elections more interesting.
• Ways to vastly improve the position of Vice President. (First half of post.)
• Making Constitutional Ratification more exciting and flexible. (Second half of post.)
• Continuing my long history of extreme Wiki reform and increased consolidation.
• Finally fixing the Consolidated Criminal Justice Act from disrepair. (First half of post.)
• Implementing deregistration procedure, or making a Do-Not-PM List actually matter. Choose! (Second half of post.)

When I ran for Senate the first time a very long time ago, it was after a very long time of telling myself "No, I won't do this." I kept trying to convince myself to back away from the idea. It would be too time consuming, I told myself. It's too intimidating to throw myself into.

And then I read something that made me snap, and think, "Dammit, if I don't run, when will this ever change?" I put myself in a position where I had left myself no choice.

I find myself in such a position now. And that is why I will be running for Senate in the Northeast.

If I will win, who knows. I'd go so far as to say I don't expect to win. But I feel like I must.

The current Senate has done some interesting things. Improving the GM and the ability for the GM and the SoEA and SoIA to work together. Clarifying the issue of expulsion with good, and fair, new expulsion procedure. But I'm not satisfied with that alone. The Senate needs a kick in the pants, far more interesting proposals are necessary, and we need a Senator who will pose important questions, but when they're not answered, he'll demand to be answered. We can do a lot better than what we have right now.

When I was a Senator in the past, I passed 15 bills or Amendments of my own writing, proposed many more, debated endlessly, and helped many other bills become suitably amended over time, and of course, I served admirably as PPT of the Senate.

And if elected, I will try to live up to, and exceed, the standards I set for myself then.

As a rough outline of what I hope to do:

• Outline and pass a workable set of Senator activity requirements to make your Senate truly work for you the way it should.
• Continue Wiki consolidations efforts that began under the Purple State/Marokai Blue administration to make our Wiki simpler and more easily read.
• Propose deregistration procedure that can work, instead of giving up at the first sign of dissent.
• Consider an entire rewrite of our criminal code. It's had things just tacked onto it for a very very long time now.
• Improve the useless positions of the game, or abolish them. The Vice Presidency, for too long, has just been a useless political football. We should make that position matter, or get rid of it.
• Improve the SEDZI Act and make it matter.
• Introduce a set of credit card regulations in addition to the caps on credit card interest rates I authored the last time I was a Senator.

I look forward to campaigning and I hope we can all treat each other respect in the coming days and weeks.

[Fmr. Pres. Duke]

Good luck, Marokai. Lord knows the NE needs active citizens.

[Marokai Backbeat]

Thanks. I'll need the luck.

[This user has not been convicted of 34 felonies]

Well, I already endorsed Napoleon but I think you'd be a great senator. To be honest, as long as it isn't Rowan, we'll be fine....

[Napoleon]

Welcome to the race.

[Rowan]

Well, I already endorsed Napoleon but I think you'd be a great senator. To be honest, as long as it isn't Rowan, we'll be fine....

Love you too, sweetie.

[Sewer]

Sewer should like seeing this again.

Yes, yes I do.

[Antonio the Sixth]

It's great to see you back in politics. You've been one of the greatest senators I know and working with you would be a great thing.

You have all my support.

[Rowan]

Endorsed!

[Marokai Backbeat]

Endorsed!

I appreciate it. I need all the help I can get.

[Fmr. Pres. Duke]

Endorsed!

I appreciate it. I need all the help I can get.

You do? Have you seen my presidential primary numbers lately?

[Junkie]

Endorsed!

I appreciate it. I need all the help I can get.

You do? Have you seen my presidential primary numbers lately?

Both of you are much better off than me.

[Cincinnatus]

Endorsed!

I appreciate it. I need all the help I can get.

You do? Have you seen my presidential primary numbers lately?

Both of you are much better off than me.

All of you are better off than I*

[Yelnoc]

Endorsed!

I appreciate it. I need all the help I can get.

You do? Have you seen my presidential primary numbers lately?

Both of you are much better off than me.

All of you are better off than I*

What are you running for?

[Marokai Backbeat]

Bumping this to the next page purely for the sake of convenience.

[Marokai Backbeat]

• Making Atlasia's elections more interesting without the tired old false dichotomy.

I am a Centralist in this game no longer. I am a Socialist in this game no longer. I am a Reformist for the foreseeable future. An individual that seeks to do something, anything at all, to change the game and make things interesting.

Atlasia has often been caught, during discussions of reform, in the old choice of sides. You always had to pick one. You were a "regionalist" or you were a "centralist." There was no in-between. Anything deemed "regionalist" set the centralists on fire, and any change getting the support of "centralists" made the regionalists oppose it without a second thought. I want to leave this false choice behind, once and for all.

I consider myself, these days, neither of the above, but a "reformist." Someone who will support changes to Atlasia that will simply work and make the game more interesting with more flexibility and enjoyment. Anything to that end.

That is why, as your Senator, I will propose a fair and workable Constitutional Amendment that would give the regions of Atlasia the power to determine the means of the election of their regional senators. This could include a wide number of fascinating proposals: Allowing two or more regions, if they so desired, to form "districts" of their own, two regions joining together to shuffle their states around for the purposes of regional Senate elections as opposed to a national redistricting program.

It could also include simply changing the voting system of each regional senate election to add a specific regional flare to each individual Senate election. Condorcet vote counting, cumulative voting, STV, FPTP, range voting, all would be available based on what that region's citizens want, first and foremost. Regions would have, and should have, complete control of that process.

In the past we often closed our eyes to the idea of any change because we were thinking with the wrong approach. So many people would think "How can we get regions out of the process" instead of thinking "How can we make the game more interesting?" We never took the time to think that we could make exciting changes to keep the game from growing stale without constantly falling into the same old camps. Over time I have come to strongly believe that we can make, with a sincere effort, great reformist changes with a region's autonomy fully intact and in charge. As your Senator, I would be working to make the game of Atlasia much more fun and exciting with that attitude at the forefront.

[Badger]

Endorsed, btw.

Good to see you back, old friend.

[🐒Gods of Prosperity🔱🐲💸]

Marokai, that is a very interesting election amendment idea, and I think it would be good.

[Marokai Backbeat]

Marokai, that is a very interesting election amendment idea, and I think it would be good.

I'm very glad you think so.

[Marokai Backbeat]

• Statement on my new registration.

In the last year or so, game reform has become my biggest cause. I think most people can agree with that if you actually look at my statements in that time. I ran with Purple State in June 2010, a member of an opposing party, because I wanted game reform. I worked behind the scenes with members of the Populares when crafting a new constitution, to make compromises and gather their support, because I wanted game reform. I founded the UDL, because I wanted to improve the game through increased competition and make the game's elections more interesting. At this moment in my Atlasian life, the game itself is most of what I care about.

And now, I join the RPP, to further those ends of mine.

It's something I've actually been considering for a little while, but only very seriously in the last week or so. For a long time now I've wanted to make reforms to the game through regions, on the regional level, or simply with a more bottom-up approach on the national level as opposed to a top-down centralist one, and there are plenty of reform approaches from that angle:

Altering the ways regions elect their Senator by giving them the power to change it themselves. Regional governments having the ability to determine ratification of Constitutional Amendments through either their government or their choice of making it a referendum instead. Empowering citizen-legislating by creating regional or national petition drives for legislation crafted by the citizens themselves when they believe the Senate has gone awry.

When given the time to brainstorm, one could think of many ways to improve the game by spicing up regions or making improvements through regions.

I want to point out, as well, that I am not the first of my kind in my new home. Not only has the RPP had many soft-regionalists and those who take the side of the left-wing of Atlasia many times, such as the wealth of European and international centrists that also reside in the RPP, Meeker was once a member of the RPP, and he joined why? Because of his views on game reform.

Granted, things were different back then, but my intentions are not dissimilar from his. When reasonable proposals are made from the regionalist-reform mindset, it is easier to have success by uniting all sides together. In my idealistic streak, I believe such a thing to be do-able.

I do not change my left-wing views, of course, on domestic policy and such. But that is so wholly different from my main motivation in the game at this point in my life in Atlasia. My prime motivation for the past year has been reform. It's always been that. Making the game more interesting, more varied, more exciting, is my top priority, and I think alot of people can respect that. The RPP summary says it opens it's door's to people of "any ideology" and I intend to take them up on that. So, I hope my left-wing friends don't view this as a betrayal to the dark side.

It may be, as Meeker said when he first joined, a "brief flirtation", or it may be a year. But my reformist instincts tell me to do this at this moment, so I believe that it's worth my time.

So, hello to my new party. Please be my friend.

[MASHED POTATOES. VOTE!]

Lulz.

[Napoleon]

For a long time now I've wanted to make reforms to the game through regions, on the regional level, or simply with a more bottom-up approach on the national level as opposed to a top-down centralist one, and there are plenty of reform approaches from that angle

It's almost as if you're endorsing me, considering that is precisely what I have been doing.

[Marokai Backbeat]

For a long time now I've wanted to make reforms to the game through regions, on the regional level, or simply with a more bottom-up approach on the national level as opposed to a top-down centralist one, and there are plenty of reform approaches from that angle

It's almost as if you're endorsing me, considering that is precisely what I have been doing.

I do endorse you in the job you do best. NE Assemblyman.

[This user has not been convicted of 34 felonies]

Well, I already endorsed Napoleon but I think you'd be a great senator. To be honest, as long as it isn't Rowan, we'll be fine....

Love you too, sweetie.

You're the one that claimed I wasn't a real person, so I love you more

[Ban my account ffs!]

For a long time now I've wanted to make reforms to the game through regions, on the regional level, or simply with a more bottom-up approach on the national level as opposed to a top-down centralist one, and there are plenty of reform approaches from that angle

It's almost as if you're endorsing me, considering that is precisely what I have been doing.

If you can't beat 'em, just copy 'em and sell at a discount.