The South will rise again.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Have you ever stopped to think maybe you made some mistakes along the way?

....

Have you?

I do that every day Ben. Every vote, every PM, every post. Should I have made this one, should I have done more in this election or that election.

That is what makes this process so much more painful, because I have attempted to bring "conservatives" of all varieties to the table and feel like this is yet another example of me seeing a potential problem, trying my absolute hardest to address it, and then in spite of all that effort, the problem happens anyway and better yet I am the villain for not doing enough.

It is enough to drive you nuts.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Also, I am not encouraging drug use. I am against drug use, as well as use of tobacco and alcohol. However, I am against continuing a policy that has been 1) expensive, 2) very ineffective and 3) Very destructive to things I care about, like the stability of the family home environment.

Are drugs a menace to society? Most certainly. But like any small government conservative should be asking, is a full scale war on the drugs that has been waged for thirty years plus without much success, the best approach to discouraging its use? I don't think so at this point because the evidence tells me that it has not worked.

[Wisconsin+17]

Surely you can understand why this process is disruptive though and why desperate people would seek radical alternatives be it in the form of Trump or Sanders or someone else who is disrupting the status quo.

On the contrary, eventually we are all Austrians. Kicking the can only works for so long. Sanderites are going to pull a Venezuela and Trumpists are going to pile on the debt. At some point fiscal sanity will reassert itself.

I don't see how cutting spending and lowering taxes is going to disrupt the status quo.

[Wisconsin+17]

I do that every day Ben. Every vote, every PM, every post. Should I have made this one, should I have done more in this election or that election.

That is what makes this process so much more painful, because I have attempted to bring "conservatives" of all varieties to the table and feel like this is yet another example of me seeing a potential problem, trying my absolute hardest to address it, and then in spite of all that effort, the problem happens anyway and better yet I am the villain for not doing enough.

I believe I explicitly said that none of us consider you the problem. For most of us, myself included, the only reason the Feds work is because, not in spite of you.

As for me, yeah, I've made many mistakes. I could have handled things better on multiple occasions. I already said it here that the reason this didn't work last time is because of me, not you or anyone else.

I sure as hell ain't perfect, never claimed to be.

[Wisconsin+17]

Are drugs a menace to society? Most certainly. But like any small government conservative should be asking, is a full scale war on the drugs that has been waged for thirty years plus without much success, the best approach to discouraging its use? I don't think so at this point because the evidence tells me that it has not worked.

Well, right now, if you are depressed and go on drugs you can get rehab paid for and benefits etc. But if you go on medications you have to pay for them. Many of our drug policies actually incentivize drug use through perverse incentives. We dish out methadone, and free needles, while making people pay through the nose for lithium.

Most of our social policies are designed to provide benefits for those who have made conscious decisions to try and destroy their lives. Whereas many responsible people are having difficulties making ends meet. We have responsible people taking drug tests to work even low level jobs paying for benefits that go to help people taking drugs recover.

Now, we are seeing the advent of medical dope and abuse of the disability system so that drug users can get their fixes paid for by the government. Meanwhile if you need glasses, you're paying for them.

The drug lobby is huge. The solution isn't legalization, as drug usage has increased. Significantly. The only thing I can see is to incentivize staying off drugs by making welfare require a clean drug test. Make being clean a pre requisite for access to government services, etc.

Three strikes for convictions of driving and losing your license until you get clean would also be another incentive.

[Mr. Reactionary]

Are drugs a menace to society? Most certainly. But like any small government conservative should be asking, is a full scale war on the drugs that has been waged for thirty years plus without much success, the best approach to discouraging its use? I don't think so at this point because the evidence tells me that it has not worked.

Well, right now, if you are depressed and go on drugs you can get rehab paid for and benefits etc. But if you go on medications you have to pay for them. Many of our drug policies actually incentivize drug use through perverse incentives. We dish out methadone, and free needles, while making people pay through the nose for lithium.

Most of our social policies are designed to provide benefits for those who have made conscious decisions to try and destroy their lives. Whereas many responsible people are having difficulties making ends meet. We have responsible people taking drug tests to work even low level jobs paying for benefits that go to help people taking drugs recover.

Now, we are seeing the advent of medical dope and abuse of the disability system so that drug users can get their fixes paid for by the government. Meanwhile if you need glasses, you're paying for them.

The drug lobby is huge. The solution isn't legalization, as drug usage has increased. Significantly. The only thing I can see is to incentivize staying off drugs by making welfare require a clean drug test. Make being clean a pre requisite for access to government services, etc.

In Atlasia im pretty sure medical cocaine and recreational lsd is legal federally and in all 3 regions. MWAHAHAHAHA!

[Former President tack50]

Surely you can understand why this process is disruptive though and why desperate people would seek radical alternatives be it in the form of Trump or Sanders or someone else who is disrupting the status quo.

On the contrary, eventually we are all Austrians. Kicking the can only works for so long. Sanderites are going to pull a Venezuela and Trumpists are going to pile on the debt. At some point fiscal sanity will reassert itself.

I don't see how cutting spending and lowering taxes is going to disrupt the status quo.

Regarding this point, I will tell you that the debt is a much smaller problem here in Atlasia than in the RL USA. We are close to balancing the budget, which will probably be done in 2020 or 2021 at worst.

Of course, a lot can change until then, especially in the game.

[Wisconsin+17]

Regarding this point, I will tell you that the debt is a much smaller problem here in Atlasia than in the RL USA. We are close to balancing the budget, which will probably be done in 2020 or 2021 at worst.

Yes, fortunately we've had much more fiscal sanity in game than in the real world. Still, there is no reason to be running deficits.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Surely you can understand why this process is disruptive though and why desperate people would seek radical alternatives be it in the form of Trump or Sanders or someone else who is disrupting the status quo.

On the contrary, eventually we are all Austrians. Kicking the can only works for so long. Sanderites are going to pull a Venezuela and Trumpists are going to pile on the debt. At some point fiscal sanity will reassert itself.

I don't see how cutting spending and lowering taxes is going to disrupt the status quo.

You don't have to be an Austrian to support a balanced budget. I passed Paygo in the House, didn't raise the debt or deficit at all in my first Presidential term (pretty sure the second as well, but I might be mistaken at this hour of exhuastion) and the deficit is about $300 to $400 billion less than it is real life right now.

Edmund Burke criticized deficit spending as essentially mortgaging the future (don't have the actual quote right in front of me, again very tired).

I am a fiscal conservative, always have been. That means you live within your means, within your revenues. A lot of my issues with the real life GOP stem from the fact that they talk a good game and then fail to deliver. I don't equate this with Trumpism though, since the same thing happened on Bush and under Reagan. Trumpism has also not controlled the Congress. Trump's problem is that he let Congressional GOP dictate the agenda and the deficits, and he went along and now he is regretting that decision.

I am also a strong believe in the free market and in capitalism. I think people are empowered when they can tell someone who gives them a bad product "F-u" and walk down the street to a competitor. That is empowering and that is the free market at its optimum. The alternative is slavery, and eventually, socialism.

The problem is preserving the Free market and lassiez-faire work at cross purposes because you have regulatory capture and you have economies of scale. This means that monopolies form from entrenched advantage and buying off of the government. To correct this, you need to remove or simplify most of the regulation that has been captured. We have passed dozens of bills deregulating the economy thanks to the hard work of Mr. Reactionary. But you need the other hand, on the other hand, those regulations that remain, have to be simple, effective and vigorously enforced, to ensure that competition is maintained.

The Free market is great, and capitalism is great, but I agree with Tucker Carlson when he says that some times you need to actively work to preserve competition, to discourage monopolies. The problem with Austrians, is that mistake the unregulated free market for God and let it dictate policy as if it is the almighty. I disagree with that, God is God, and for me, I think we need to act in the public interest and yes act to preserve the free market.

You say in the end we are all Austrians, no I think the end result of lassiez faire is socialism. You know how I know this, because the USSR went to great lengths to fund Randian academic thought. Revolutionaries love the far right and they love lassiez faire, because they want enough angry, desperate, pissed off starving people so they can ride in as the savior. They want an extreme as a foil, so they can laugh all the way to the bank. A traditional Conservative, whose main view is to preserve a stable society that lives in freedom and wealth, would understand this concept. Understand how revolutionaries come about, what context they use to their advantage and how to prevent them. The answer is not by going in the opposite direction to an equal extreme, the answer is to make the system work as it is suppose to.

The free market is suppose to be competitive, if it is not competitive, it is just as bad as nationalization. A monopoly is a monopoly be it government or private sector, and the end result is that the customer becomes a slave to the machine with no alternatives. Freedom comes when you pick up the phone or walk into a store, and tell them "F-U I am going your competitor". You cannot do that if there isn't a competitor to go to.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Are drugs a menace to society? Most certainly. But like any small government conservative should be asking, is a full scale war on the drugs that has been waged for thirty years plus without much success, the best approach to discouraging its use? I don't think so at this point because the evidence tells me that it has not worked.

Well, right now, if you are depressed and go on drugs you can get rehab paid for and benefits etc. But if you go on medications you have to pay for them. Many of our drug policies actually incentivize drug use through perverse incentives. We dish out methadone, and free needles, while making people pay through the nose for lithium.

How about working to get prescription drug costs under control? Which we have kind of sorta started to do here unlike real life.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

For most of us, myself included, the only reason the Feds right work is because, not in spite of you.

We have a lower deficit
We have fewer entitlement programs, even while reforming health care on pro-market and pro-region lines.  
We have empowered regions on health care and education
We have transferred administration power over Regional Senate seats to the Regions
We have eliminated as many if not more regulations than they have in real life.
We have passed bills to protect the bill of rights and many aspects of it.
We have conducted a wide ranging audit of the Federal Gov't.


Did I do all of these? No! Was I involved in a lot of these? Yes. But you know who else was involved in a lot of these? Federalists, numerous federalists including Federalists who are now no longer Federalists. To say that I alone am good while every other Federalist has been terrible is an insult to the many Federalists who have achieved these results.

You give me the conservative results, the conservative success that the GOP in real life accomplished in 2017 and 2018?

And compare that to what "WE" have done, while working with Non-Federalists in the same time period. We'll kick their asses to the moon and back and come back for seconds.

The reason I keep the RIGHT, yes the RIGHT afloat in this game is because there has in fact been a vision and there has in fact been an agenda. And yet at the same time we managed to get all of this done while the left dominated the Senate. We didn't do it by demanding everyone adopt to rigid conformity, less they get executed for treason like the real life GOP and conservative movement operates.

You know what my role in that has been. I know how to find and promote talent to the highest levels. I know how to create an environment that encourages innovation, that encourages strategy. An environment that encourages people to find ways to acheive results while engaging the other side. And that has led to results, more results than the real life right has ever dreamed off because all they know how to do is scream at the other side a little louder each cycle and then whine because they didn't get their way and find someone on their side to blame for their incompetence, stupidity and laziness. They would kill to have succeeded to the extent that WE have and they are too blinded by extremism and money to realize what is wrong.

Lets be honest here, you are not rejecting the awful federalists "because Yankee, I just can't take it anymore". You are turning your back on playbook that has worked for TEN Years, that has delivered more concrete results in two years, than the real life GOP has in 100 fing years and all of that for an echo-chamber safe space.

Now you remember that next time you cry that we have left conservatives down. Bullsh**t! The real life conservative movement has let you down and will continue to do so, again and again and again.

[Wisconsin+17]

We have a lower deficit

We had a Fed governor overrule a successfully passed Fed budget, He got angry because it didn't include spending that he wanted that had been rejected by the Delegates. Surprise, surprise, he abused emergency powers to get the spending he wanted.

We have fewer entitlement programs, even while reforming health care on pro-market and pro-region lines.

We have Feds pushing for the massive boondoggle that is single payer.
 

We have empowered regions on health care and education

By ramming down constraints on private schools and curriculum control. We were better off years ago than we are now.

We have transferred administration power over Regional Senate seats to the Regions

Yet, we are forced to legalize drugs. Full on ramming speed!

We have eliminated as many if not more regulations than they have in real life.

And added many more such as publicly funded puberty blockers.

We have passed bills to protect the bill of rights and many aspects of it.

And stripped away rights through Obergefell style laws.

We have conducted a wide ranging audit of the Federal Gov't.

While still running routine deficits.

The Federalist record of the past five years is pretty well summed up as socialism with the brakes on. The Fed record is very mixed. Many decent laws with some absolutely horrific ones. There just comes a point when you are tired of being lectured on for being opposed to drugs, single payer and the whole below the waist issues.

To say that I alone am good while every other Federalist has been terrible is an insult to the many Federalists who have achieved these results.

Some Federalists are good, but the majority of the 'good' federalists have now left the party. I never said that all the Federalists were bad, but that there were some prominent Federalists that were imposing their values on the party as a whole.

Your posts here keep proving me right, not only do you not get it you keep trying to make a case that our values should incorporate these ones. Gonna NOPE out of that, TYVM.

You give me the conservative results, the conservative success that the GOP in real life accomplished in 2017 and 2018?

Removal of public funding for PP was a big one for me.

The reason I keep the RIGHT, yes the RIGHT afloat in this game is because there has in fact been a vision and there has in fact been an agenda.

There is a vision. But when you say that 'homosexuality is a part of tradcon values', then I can only say that your vision is not my vision. And there are a fair number who agree with me on that. That is what you are not getting, that for many of us these are 'line in the sand' issues. I can't justify supporting a party that supports this, when there are other viable options out there that don't shove this on me.

I know your first cry will be 'demographics', but there are a helluva lot more traditional Catholics out there than they are homosexuals. I serve the people who aren't getting any love. What you don't understand is branding. We have what, 5 parties that are liberal on this issue? If there are 10 percent of the people here on the Atlas who agree with me, than having one party that does not support these things is viable. And it helps the game because it means these people have a voice.

by demanding everyone adopt to rigid conformity, less they get executed for treason like the real life GOP and conservative movement operates.

Recall attempts sponsored by their own party is not really different from a political lynching. I don't see how you can claim that you weren't pushing 'rigid conformity' while at the other time turning a blind eye to my recall.

You know what my role in that has been.

Indeed. You seem far more concerned with my return and joining another party that you ever were with my departure. It wasn't you who invited me back or asked me politely to return. Although there were some other Feds who did so.

I told them what I am telling you that I was very unhappy as a member of the party and I did not want to be where I was not wanted. I certainly did not want to rejoin and face the exact same intraparty dynamics, and the same situation in the Delegates as when I left. That was pointless to me.

I know how to find and promote talent to the highest levels.

Then why are you losing people? What is it about what you are doing or what the party as a whole is doing to turn all these folks off? I have given you several and so far you have brushed them off because it doesn't fit your narrative. Listen more, talk less would probably be in order.

Lets be honest here, you are not rejecting the awful federalists "because Yankee, I just can't take it anymore". You are turning your back on playbook that has worked for TEN Years, that has delivered more concrete results in two years, than the real life GOP has in 100 fing years and all of that for an echo-chamber safe space.

I've actually successfully implemented a collaborative effort in the past. So this does not strike me as particularly valuable. With the way our voting system works I am not convinced that candidates who can garner a broad appeal will have difficulty attracting votes.

And if your candidates cannot do that, well, that speaks volumes for them.

The real life conservative movement has let you down and will continue to do so, again and again and again.

It wasn't the real life conservative movement that recalled me. Actually, the real life conservative movement has treated me with a ton of respect. Many of the folks that I work with and the folks that pay my bills are involved with them.

You know who hasn't given me a lot of that? The Federalists. That's part of why I left. I realized that I was too busy actually working with Conservatives in RL to waste time here. People go where they are wanted. You can't look me in my eye and say that the Feds wanted me, not after my recall. 

[Wisconsin+17]

How about working to get prescription drug costs under control? Which we have kind of sorta started to do here unlike real life.

Federalizing and consolidating health care under Single Payer is the direct opposite path, if your goal is to make healthcare costs manageable.

You would be better off by turning it back to the regions and allowing us to choose our coverage, or better yet, letting people choose individual policy options for coverage a la carte. But Atlasia has been consistently moving in the opposite direction. I suppose reducing what people pay makes a good canard to favor consolidation, but it actually massively increases the overall health care costs.

[Mr. Reactionary]

Removal of public funding for PP was a big one for me.

We did that in the south. Go Federalists!

[Wisconsin+17]

I am also a strong believe in the free market and in capitalism. I think people are empowered when they can tell someone who gives them a bad product "F-u" and walk down the street to a competitor. That is empowering and that is the free market at its optimum. The alternative is slavery, and eventually, socialism.

How does that square with 'bake the cake' laws in Oregon? The Free market works both ways. Businesses by the first amendment have the right to decline work that is contrary to their branding. Most people don't really believe in free market, believing they should have the power to constrain how businesses operate through a morass of regulations. All that does is raise costs, and in order to save money, businesses have to invest in lawyers and not actual workers.

The problem is preserving the Free market and lassiez-faire work at cross purposes because you have regulatory capture and you have economies of scale. This means that monopolies form from entrenched advantage and buying off of the government.

Certain industries work best this way. Ones that require substantial capital formation will be natural monopolies, and breaking them up won't help anyone, least of all the consumer.

To correct this, you need to remove or simplify most of the regulation that has been captured. We have passed dozens of bills deregulating the economy thanks to the hard work of Mr. Reactionary. But you need the other hand, on the other hand, those regulations that remain, have to be simple, effective and vigorously enforced, to ensure that competition is maintained.

Some of the regulations you have passed are beneficial. Some are not.

The problem with Austrians, is that mistake the unregulated free market for God and let it dictate policy as if it is the almighty. I disagree with that, God is God, and for me, I think we need to act in the public interest and yes act to preserve the free market.

Austrians believe that all regulations have a cost associated with them and that regulations do nothing more than increase prices. The question has to be, 'is this regulation appropriate'? Trustbusting is a progressive policy and not usually motivated for the benefit of the general economy or the consumer, but to serve other policy ends. I agree it's not a simple decision as 'regulations bad', it will depend on the industry and so on and so forth.

You say in the end we are all Austrians, no I think the end result of lassiez faire is socialism. You know how I know this, because the USSR went to great lengths to fund Randian academic thought.

Walk into my wheelhouse, eh? Go study Peter Stolypin and get back to me. I did a paper on him. What Stolypin did was massively overhaul the Russian economy along lines we would refer to as market capitalist. He was successful and yields increased dramatically. The problem is that he was assassinated before they could continue and we all know what happened after the Bolsheviks came to power.

Revolutionaries love the far right and they love lassiez faire, because they want enough angry, desperate, pissed off starving people so they can ride in as the savior.

Not true, actually. Had Lenin remained in a German jail, and the Tsar survived, it is likely that Russia would have done just fine. They would have been spared so much suffering and would have made the jump up to be where the rest of Europe was within 2 decades. Under Stolypin, they had already made significant progress towards a western european style capitalist market.

The reason Lenin succeeded is that he took advantage of a political crisis that had came to head. Also, blaming the laissez faire for the most primitive economy in Europe strikes me as rather self-serving. Most socialists at the time argued that the reason they were successful in Russia (and later in China), was due to serfdom. A country with a strong democratic tradition has no need for socialism or communism. 

Understand how revolutionaries come about, what context they use to their advantage and how to prevent them. The answer is not by going in the opposite direction to an equal extreme, the answer is to make the system work as it is suppose to.

An austrian would point out that the freer a people are to better their lot the more likely they are to actually do so. If the issue is lack of opportunity, why would the best system for achieving this be rejected?

The free market is suppose to be competitive, if it is not competitive, it is just as bad as nationalization. A monopoly is a monopoly be it government or private sector, and the end result is that the customer becomes a slave to the machine with no alternatives. Freedom comes when you pick up the phone or walk into a store, and tell them "F-U I am going your competitor". You cannot do that if there isn't a competitor to go to.

And you can't do that if you're a cake bakery that really just wants to make cakes, not politics. Or a wedding photographer who just wants to do photos. Freedom of association is very important.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

We have a lower deficit

We had a Fed governor overrule a successfully passed Fed budget, He got angry because it didn't include spending that he wanted that had been rejected by the Delegates. Surprise, surprise, he abused emergency powers to get the spending he wanted.

Federal deficit not regional.

We have fewer entitlement programs, even while reforming health care on pro-market and pro-region lines.

We have Feds pushing for the massive boondoggle that is single payer.

I know of almost no federalists who is seriously pushing for single payer at the national level. I also know of two feds that are/were working to implement market competition on the Lincoln exchange. It is unfair to cherry pick things you don't like and write off the hard work of others as chopped liver.
  

We have empowered regions on health care and education

By ramming down constraints on private schools and curriculum control. We were better off years ago than we are now.

I don't know what you are talking about. We passed a law easing constraints curriculum, called "Return Education to the Regions", that was sponsored by a member of another party initially. Perhaps you are writing that off because of personal issues with one of the original sponsors in question, Peebs.

We have transferred administration power over Regional Senate seats to the Regions

Yet, we are forced to legalize drugs. Full on ramming speed!

How is letting the regions decide their drug policies, forcing anything? It is in our platform that regions set the agenda on drugs. You seem to confuse freedom with fiat.

We have eliminated as many if not more regulations than they have in real life.

And added many more such as publicly funded puberty blockers.

So all of the hard work that Mr. Reactionary, Lt, myself and others have put into passing Dumb regulations Repeals is meaningless because one regulation went the other way on your pet issue of hating LGBT people?  

We have passed bills to protect the bill of rights and many aspects of it.

And stripped away rights through Obergefell style laws.

See above

We have conducted a wide ranging audit of the Federal Gov't.

While still running routine deficits.

Balancing a budget over night, would cause a recession, which would impede balancing the budget.

The Federalist record of the past five years is pretty well summed up as socialism with the brakes on. The Fed record is very mixed. Many decent laws with some absolutely horrific ones. There just comes a point when you are tired of being lectured on for being opposed to drugs, single payer and the whole below the waist issues.

Bullsh**t. Our record is one of regional empowerment, market competition and equal application of dignity and justice before the law.

Nobody is lecturing you for opposing drugs, and most every Federalist opposes single payer. Again you cherry pick the actions of a single individual or couple of inviduals to defame a party that is 95% pro-market healthcare, 80% pro-gun and overwhelmingly supports banning abortion after 20 weeks, simply because 80% of it also happens to be pro-LGBT.

Again, you want doctrinaire conformity on your pet issue of gays and drugs and would throw away massive amounts of deregulation, elimination/consolidation of massive government programs, reduction of the deficit, strengthening of the regions.  

This is not about you not wanting to be lectured to on gays and drugs, this is you wanting to impose your views on gays and drugs on other people. I have never forced anyone to vote for something or someone that they did not like. It is very reason Fhtagn joined us in the first place compared to Blair's "We should have talked about this approach".

To say that I alone am good while every other Federalist has been terrible is an insult to the many Federalists who have achieved these results.

Some Federalists are good, but the majority of the 'good' federalists have now left the party. I never said that all the Federalists were bad, but that there were some prominent Federalists that were imposing their values on the party as a whole.

Your posts here keep proving me right, not only do you not get it you keep trying to make a case that our values should incorporate these ones. Gonna NOPE out of that, TYVM.

The Federalist Party has always had a libertarian tilt on many social issues Ben, you have known that since 2013 and the very reason it is so, is because of none other than PiT. Libertarians don't impose their views on anyone, it is just that they happen to dominate the majority of viewpoints on certain issues. Millennials are not interested in crusading against gays and locking people up because of a little weed.

The simple problem is Ben, you are a selective statist who embraces government when it is convenient to you and you want the Government the enforce your views on those issues. I have never had a problem with you advocating that position, but you have always expected and demanded that others follow suit that others be imposed on by you. Then when they refuse, you play the victim card and claim you are being imposed upon. You railed against Tmth for pushing and equality bill, claiming it was "against the platform", when the platform of the party has never had any provisions on the issue. Ever, even when So-cons made up half the party.

The simple fact of the matter is Ben you a hyprocit when it comes to imposition of views and you always have been.

You give me the conservative results, the conservative success that the GOP in real life accomplished in 2017 and 2018?

Removal of public funding for PP was a big one for me.

Where is there massive reform of Medicare and Medicaid? Where is there deficit cut in half?

You seem to forget that Labor has controlled the Senate for all about 5 months in the past two years and those five months when we controlled the Senate, it was merely a tie and the left had gained the upper hand in the house.

We have achieved massive results for the right and for conservatism over that period in spite of the fact that they have controlled on part of the government for most of that period compared to the RL GOP which had completed control for two years and achieved almost nothing.

The reason I keep the RIGHT, yes the RIGHT afloat in this game is because there has in fact been a vision and there has in fact been an agenda.

There is a vision. But when you say that 'homosexuality is a part of tradcon values', then I can only say that your vision is not my vision. And there are a fair number who agree with me on that. That is what you are not getting, that for many of us these are 'line in the sand' issues. I can't justify supporting a party that supports this, when there are other viable options out there that don't shove this on me.

I know your first cry will be 'demographics', but there are a helluva lot more traditional Catholics out there than they are homosexuals. I serve the people who aren't getting any love. What you don't understand is branding. We have what, 5 parties that are liberal on this issue? If there are 10 percent of the people here on the Atlas who agree with me, than having one party that does not support these things is viable. And it helps the game because it means these people have a voice.

Again you are putting words in my mouth. I never said anything about gays and traditionalist conservative values.

Lets take it from the top, I said it was out of step with traditionalist conservative values to continue polices both economic and on drugs that have only succeeded in breaking up families (the pillar of society) while failing to stop the inflow of drugs.

If the family is what traditional conservatism is about, then the polices pushed by the right and the far right over the past thirty years on trade, on drugs, and on war have undermined and caused regression, broken up families, and spiked the divorce rate. But you don't want to discuss that because it requires introspection Ben.

Again, your inconsistency undermines your position. And I warned you on a previous page, DO NOT PUT WORDS IN MY MOUTH!!!

by demanding everyone adopt to rigid conformity, less they get executed for treason like the real life GOP and conservative movement operates.

Recall attempts sponsored by their own party is not really different from a political lynching. I don't see how you can claim that you weren't pushing 'rigid conformity' while at the other time turning a blind eye to my recall.

Again your recall was supported by a bipartisan coalition because of your behavior in the Delegates, not because of your ideological positions. Such has never happened to any other Federalist in the history of this game, including many of the ones who have now jumped to the ACP. It has only ever happened to you. If 8 or 9 Traditionalist conservatives, which includes both members of the Federalist leadership have never been treated as such, then the evidences again points to the fact that the reasons for the recall were mistakes you made as well as personal issues and squabbles which both sides of an argument were responsible for.

It is not indictment against the Federalists or proof that we have abandoned Traditionalist conservatives to wolves. I find that insulting considering the issues, which have harmed the family in RL, that we have tried to address here. It seems though you are bent on following and repeating the blind myopia of real life conservatism and its death trap for conservative values.

You know what my role in that has been.

Indeed. You seem far more concerned with my return and joining another party that you ever were with my departure. It wasn't you who invited me back or asked me politely to return. Although there were some other Feds who did so.

I told them what I am telling you that I was very unhappy as a member of the party and I did not want to be where I was not wanted. I certainly did not want to rejoin and face the exact same intraparty dynamics, and the same situation in the Delegates as when I left. That was pointless to me.

Again you are referring to your own situation. I have never actually asked you to return ever, because I never actually thought you would ever return anyway, and I am loath to impose on people by asking things I know to be impossible.

Occasionally I have tried to get some people back but most old timers almost universally decline because they are busy IRL. I figured you would take the same approach.

I also find that you have a history of being your own worst enemy and a hindrance to you own values because of your own personal issues you always seem to develop with people.

I know how to find and promote talent to the highest levels.

Then why are you losing people? What is it about what you are doing or what the party as a whole is doing to turn all these folks off? I have given you several and so far you have brushed them off because it doesn't fit your narrative. Listen more, talk less would probably be in order.

I listen more than you do Ben. I listen when people have issues, and I listened to Fhtagn when she had issues with ASV and I tried to find a workable solution that was within my power to achieve. I cannot drop someone in an ocean though or make them magically disappear.

Lets be honest here, you are not rejecting the awful federalists "because Yankee, I just can't take it anymore". You are turning your back on playbook that has worked for TEN Years, that has delivered more concrete results in two years, than the real life GOP has in 100 fing years and all of that for an echo-chamber safe space.

I've actually successfully implemented a collaborative effort in the past. So this does not strike me as particularly valuable. With the way our voting system works I am not convinced that candidates who can garner a broad appeal will have difficulty attracting votes.

And if your candidates cannot do that, well, that speaks volumes for them.

Is not the whole basis of this effort because I refused to enforce conformity and demand that two or three members become like all the others? My protection of an atmosphere in which people could grow without as you call it being lectured to based on their exact positions on the issues, is what has made us strong and is what has enabled us to work with the other side to get results done. If I had done things your way and demanded conformity on your pet issues like you want, we would have ceased to exist in 2014 and Fhtagn never would have joined us in the first place or left back in 2017. The first time she tried to legalize some libertarian stuff that you have bitched about here in this thread, you would have had me go to her and say "why didn't we talk about this first". Just like Blair and she would be a member of Peace Party right now or something.

When put together it yields a strong record of accomplishment, and maybe people aren't aware of it thanks to Discord, and people retreating from the AFE Board, but the facts still remain as they are.

If anything, part of the problem is because I have not talked enough, and the members of the party have not spoken out enough about what we have accomplished and why it is important.

The real life conservative movement has let you down and will continue to do so, again and again and again.

It wasn't the real life conservative movement that recalled me. Actually, the real life conservative movement has treated me with a ton of respect. Many of the folks that I work with and the folks that pay my bills are involved with them.

You know who hasn't given me a lot of that? The Federalists. That's part of why I left. I realized that I was too busy actually working with Conservatives in RL to waste time here. People go where they are wanted. You can't look me in my eye and say that the Feds wanted me, not after my recall.  

"Recall this, recall that". Get off the damn recall, We never recalled any of the other ACPers. It was not about conservatism, it was your actions that led to that, your actions alone and you have to accept that and move on.

If I am wrong than why is government bigger and spending higher than it was in 1981 in RL? Why have more families been torn apart and divorce rates driven to record highs?

Gays aren't destroying marriage, it is our policies as conservatives in real life that have furthered the destruction of the family and marriage and it will require acknowledging those failures and moving forward to fix the root causes of the problems.

But under your model you cannot do that, because anyone who doesn't follow your myopia gets run out of town on a rail.
Under your model if you aren't screaming at the other side as loud as Mark Meadows and Jim Jordan you get primaried
Under your model if you don't comply 100% with dogmatic conformity you are out

Under my model, we set the objective, we find away to achieve that objective that can get bipartisan support and the end results is that we succeed. Mr. Reactionary is very effective at getting people to support his deregulation. I have been very effective at getting people to support consolidation and reduction of entitlements in exchange for improved access to health care.

The facts speak for the themselves, and while I am disappointed and sadden to lose people I have known for 11 years, seven years, six years etc. I am not going to stand here and be told I didn't listen to people. 95% of the time it was pulling chickens teeth to get these people to talk to you at all. PiT and Fhtagn should know this better anyone. I am also not going to stand here and let my party be defamed and let my work be insulted on the grounds that I didn't do enough when every time a situation came up, it was always coupled with a demand that I do something that was illegal, against party rules or against my values to do to please the demands.

Remember I tore Oakvale to pieces when he ran against Fhtagn from the right, and then I protected his right to be in the party when others wanted him gone. I know the value of dissent, you gain strength from it.

Anyone who disagrees with you Ben, you deride as a villain who is imposing the evil homosexual/transsexual agenda on you.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

I am also a strong believe in the free market and in capitalism. I think people are empowered when they can tell someone who gives them a bad product "F-u" and walk down the street to a competitor. That is empowering and that is the free market at its optimum. The alternative is slavery, and eventually, socialism.

How does that square with 'bake the cake' laws in Oregon? The Free market works both ways. Businesses by the first amendment have the right to decline work that is contrary to their branding. Most people don't really believe in free market, believing they should have the power to constrain how businesses operate through a morass of regulations. All that does is raise costs, and in order to save money, businesses have to invest in lawyers and not actual workers.

The problem is preserving the Free market and lassiez-faire work at cross purposes because you have regulatory capture and you have economies of scale. This means that monopolies form from entrenched advantage and buying off of the government.

Certain industries work best this way. Ones that require substantial capital formation will be natural monopolies, and breaking them up won't help anyone, least of all the consumer.

To correct this, you need to remove or simplify most of the regulation that has been captured. We have passed dozens of bills deregulating the economy thanks to the hard work of Mr. Reactionary. But you need the other hand, on the other hand, those regulations that remain, have to be simple, effective and vigorously enforced, to ensure that competition is maintained.

Some of the regulations you have passed are beneficial. Some are not.

The problem with Austrians, is that mistake the unregulated free market for God and let it dictate policy as if it is the almighty. I disagree with that, God is God, and for me, I think we need to act in the public interest and yes act to preserve the free market.

Austrians believe that all regulations have a cost associated with them and that regulations do nothing more than increase prices. The question has to be, 'is this regulation appropriate'? Trustbusting is a progressive policy and not usually motivated for the benefit of the general economy or the consumer, but to serve other policy ends. I agree it's not a simple decision as 'regulations bad', it will depend on the industry and so on and so forth.

You say in the end we are all Austrians, no I think the end result of lassiez faire is socialism. You know how I know this, because the USSR went to great lengths to fund Randian academic thought.

Walk into my wheelhouse, eh? Go study Peter Stolypin and get back to me. I did a paper on him. What Stolypin did was massively overhaul the Russian economy along lines we would refer to as market capitalist. He was successful and yields increased dramatically. The problem is that he was assassinated before they could continue and we all know what happened after the Bolsheviks came to power.

Revolutionaries love the far right and they love lassiez faire, because they want enough angry, desperate, pissed off starving people so they can ride in as the savior.

Not true, actually. Had Lenin remained in a German jail, and the Tsar survived, it is likely that Russia would have done just fine. They would have been spared so much suffering and would have made the jump up to be where the rest of Europe was within 2 decades. Under Stolypin, they had already made significant progress towards a western european style capitalist market.

The reason Lenin succeeded is that he took advantage of a political crisis that had came to head. Also, blaming the laissez faire for the most primitive economy in Europe strikes me as rather self-serving. Most socialists at the time argued that the reason they were successful in Russia (and later in China), was due to serfdom. A country with a strong democratic tradition has no need for socialism or communism.  

Understand how revolutionaries come about, what context they use to their advantage and how to prevent them. The answer is not by going in the opposite direction to an equal extreme, the answer is to make the system work as it is suppose to.

An austrian would point out that the freer a people are to better their lot the more likely they are to actually do so. If the issue is lack of opportunity, why would the best system for achieving this be rejected?

The free market is suppose to be competitive, if it is not competitive, it is just as bad as nationalization. A monopoly is a monopoly be it government or private sector, and the end result is that the customer becomes a slave to the machine with no alternatives. Freedom comes when you pick up the phone or walk into a store, and tell them "F-U I am going your competitor". You cannot do that if there isn't a competitor to go to.

And you can't do that if you're a cake bakery that really just wants to make cakes, not politics. Or a wedding photographer who just wants to do photos. Freedom of association is very important.

You misread what I said about USSR and again you are putting words in my mouth. For the last time, stop putting words in my mouth!

Walk into your wheelhouse? More like walk into mine. I know very well about Peter Stolypin, and his policies, and yes they were working and yes they were cut short by his assassination. Do you know why he was assassinated though, for the same reason Alexander II was. People who are going to make the system work, or are moderating its excesses are eliminated by the Revolution because the Revolution wants Tsarism in all its extremes to push more people into the revolutionary camp out of desperation.

I never said Laissez faire was the culprit behind the revolution. The war, government incompetence and societal collapse because of those problems were the cause of the revolution.

What I said was that Communists love having extremes on the opposite side as foils. Nazi Germany comes to mind. The same goes for the USSR and Randian academic thought, because they "Soviet Intelligence" believed that if they succeeded in deregulating the economy and especially finance, it would lead to excesses of poverty, recession and decline of society, that would create the backdrop for a successful revolution.

I would point out the record levels of support for socialism we are seeing today, which is a direct result of the recession, which in turn was caused in part by deregulation of Mortgage Backed Securities in the 1990's.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Removal of public funding for PP was a big one for me.

We did that in the south. Go Federalists!

uh rah!!!

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

How about working to get prescription drug costs under control? Which we have kind of sorta started to do here unlike real life.

Federalizing and consolidating health care under Single Payer is the direct opposite path, if your goal is to make healthcare costs manageable.

You would be better off by turning it back to the regions and allowing us to choose our coverage, or better yet, letting people choose individual policy options for coverage a la carte. But Atlasia has been consistently moving in the opposite direction. I suppose reducing what people pay makes a good canard to favor consolidation, but it actually massively increases the overall health care costs.

Do you have any idea what you are talking about? Really Ben, do you even understand what the R&RPH does?

IT REGIONALIZED HEALTHCARE REGULATION!!!

Section 1: Regionalization

1. All present healthcare exchanges are abolished as of January 1, 2018.
2. Three new exchanges will be created and administered by the Health & Human Services (H&HS) Sub-Department, within the Department of Internal Affairs, with jurisdictions matching those of the three Regions. The H&HS Sub-Department will coordinate with regional officials during the setup and implementation process, and hand over administration and regulation of the new exchanges on January 1, 2018, to the respective Regional Government
3. All Federal restrictions on the access to these markets will be abolished as of January 1, 2018, including but not limited to the sale of insurance across regional lines.
4. On that date, the Regions will become the primary regulator of access onto their market and responsible for determining the nature and structure of healthcare providers allowed onto the exchange to compete, provided all terms of this act and federal law are complied with.
5. Should a region’s legislature fail to act by the above date, the H&HS Sub-Department will continue to administer the exchange until such time as the Regional Government is able to assume control.

[Wisconsin+17]

1. All present healthcare exchanges are abolished as of January 1, 2018.
2. Three new exchanges will be created and administered by the Health & Human Services (H&HS) Sub-Department, within the Department of Internal Affairs, with jurisdictions matching those of the three Regions. The H&HS Sub-Department will coordinate with regional officials during the setup and implementation process, and hand over administration and regulation of the new exchanges on January 1, 2018, to the respective Regional Government
3. All Federal restrictions on the access to these markets will be abolished as of January 1, 2018, including but not limited to the sale of insurance across regional lines.
4. On that date, the Regions will become the primary regulator of access onto their market and responsible for determining the nature and structure of healthcare providers allowed onto the exchange to compete, provided all terms of this act and federal law are complied with.
5. Should a region’s legislature fail to act by the above date, the H&HS Sub-Department will continue to administer the exchange until such time as the Regional Government is able to assume control.

Great. The issue for me is having to cover things that I don't think ought to be covered. Regional insurance is better than federal stuff, but it honestly doesn't matter if the regionals are still forcing us to cover things like puberty blockers, etc.

[Wisconsin+17]

Walk into your wheelhouse? More like walk into mine. I know very well about Peter Stolypin, and his policies, and yes they were working and yes they were cut short by his assassination. Do you know why he was assassinated though, for the same reason Alexander II was.

This is speculation. He had over 10 assassination attempts prior to the one that killed him. Stolypin had a lot of enemies. Asserting that he was assassinated by revolutionaries or the Bolsheviks is not something that we can confidently assert.

Saying that we should not try to fix a broken system because you might get assassinated by those who benefit under the present system is no different then telling Lincoln that he should not have signed the emancipation proclamation.

I never said Laissez faire was the culprit behind the revolution. The war, government incompetence and societal collapse because of those problems were the cause of the revolution.

Then you need to stop tarring laissez faire with a revolution that they had nothing to do with (on either side), and a revolution that laissez faire (and laissez faire alone), could have solved. Stolypin and his reforms were succeeding. The Communists eliminated them in 1920.

What I said was that Communists love having extremes on the opposite side as foils. Nazi Germany comes to mind. The same goes for the USSR and Randian academic thought, because they "Soviet Intelligence" believed that if they succeeded in deregulating the economy and especially finance, it would lead to excesses of poverty, recession and decline of society, that would create the backdrop for a successful revolution.

Uh, the National Socialists were not foils anymore than the Mensheviks were foils for the Bolsheviks. The truth is that Communism does need a foil, but that if the Communists don't have a natural foil that they will create one. Which is why you see divides between Bolsheviks and Mensheviks, Trotskyites and Stalinists.

I would point out the record levels of support for socialism we are seeing today, which is a direct result of the recession, which in turn was caused in part by deregulation of Mortgage Backed Securities in the 1990's.

Right, and has nothing to do with the fact that most children in school are taught everything about socialism. Looking at the curriculum, the only surprise is that we have some children who aren't socialist. Hammer it into them for fifteen years and we are surprised when they exit with socialist ideals?

[Wisconsin+17]

Federal deficit not regional.

And? We still have Feds pushing for deficits.

I know of almost no federalists who is seriously pushing for single payer at the national level. I also know of two feds that are/were working to implement market competition on the Lincoln exchange. It is unfair to cherry pick things you don't like and write off the hard work of others as chopped liver.

Almost (!) = none. I know a former president of Atlasia who served as a Federalist, who as a Federalist pushed for single payer. 
 

I don't know what you are talking about. We passed a law easing constraints curriculum, called "Return Education to the Regions", that was sponsored by a member of another party initially. Perhaps you are writing that off because of personal issues with one of the original sponsors in question, Peebs.

It doesn't matter how you divide things up so long as they are teaching the same things. Having regional clones doesn't address (and in fact bypasses) fundamental freedoms on education, like Charter Schools and Homeschooling.

How is letting the regions decide their drug policies, forcing anything?

The fact that any restrictions on the drug policies would be shut down by the federal laws. As for the policy of the Federalists, it was a Federalist President that pushed for laws supporting legalization of cocaine and heroin. Where are folks who don't want to see any drugs at all supposed to go?

You made it quite clear that you support hard drugs being legal. Fine. Why then are you surprised when socons decide that they are unhappy with a party like this?

So all of the hard work that Mr. Reactionary, Lt, myself and others have put into passing Dumb regulations Repeals is meaningless because one regulation went the other way on your pet issue of hating LGBT people? 

And this is why you have lost people like me. This is no different than Hillary calling people who disagree with her as deplorables. Puberty blockers are no different than injecting your child with poison. They render a child, who is not capable of making the decision, sterile. They will destroy their ability to function normally and they are irreversible.

And yet, because of an agenda that demands that all kneel to it, it is not only legal but paid for by our taxpayer dollars. And we have the leader of the Federalists demanding that we kneel to the policy too.

The natural response to this madness is to simply leave the party and go our own way. Puberty blockers are horrible from a medical standpoint and horrible from a psychological standpoint. We have an obligation to protect children from malicious human experimentation, particularly that which has already been shown to have deleterious effects.

And you are going to stand here and label my stance as hate. Wow. I guess you've really drank the Woka Cola.

[Wisconsin+17]

Balancing a budget over night, would cause a recession, which would impede balancing the budget.

BS. You just don't have the political means to cut where cuts are needed. Which is fine. But then to go and say that you are deficit hawks despite running deficits.

Nobody is lecturing you for opposing drugs, and most every Federalist opposes single payer. Again you cherry pick the actions of a single individual or couple of inviduals to defame a party that is 95% pro-market healthcare, 80% pro-gun and overwhelmingly supports banning abortion after 20 weeks, simply because 80% of it also happens to be pro-LGBT.

As for cherry picking, that stance on drugs was held by the president of Atlasia who was a Federalist. That ain't cherry picking, no more than calling the Republicans to task for the actions of Dubya.

Well, gee. I wonder why  someone who is a faithful Catholic might have an issue with a party with a leader who says that he is motivated by hate. Gosh. I can't imagine why said person might no longer feel comfortable being in such a party.

It would be akin to saying that a Jewish member was adequately represented by Hamas.

As for fhtagn, I will let her speak for herself.

Libertarians don't impose their views on anyone

Well, then. Since you've apparently drunk the woka cola in labelling opinions to which you disagree as 'hate', then the party has actually set aside its libertarianism for progressivism. I actually said this quite awhile ago that one issue is distorting the Federalists so much that it is destroying them on every other issue. I was right then and right now. You seem to believe that nothing has changed, but something has. You are right that Libertarianisms by and large do not try to force their opinions on others, but they also don't label their opponents as haters.

Progressives, however, do. Progressives have a vision of society (check), that they seek to implement. They don't brook discourse (check), nor do they acknowledge dissent (also check).

you are a selective statist who embraces government when it is convenient to you and you want the Government the enforce your views on those issues.

I am not, nor have I ever been a libertarian. I have always been a conservative. I believe that the state does have a role to play and that natural law should govern the operation of the state. This is fundamentally different from a libertarian who believes that the best option is always the smallest state possible.

I believe that yes, the state has an obligation to protect it's borders and it's citizens and has the authority to limit the entry of goods within the state. These are all constitutional powers. I believe that the state does have a right to target the distribution of illegal drugs.

However, I would not say that the majority of my positions are based on state ideals. With respect to marriage, since I believe that natural law is above the state, errant state laws that violate natural laws are meaningless. No matter how much money is spent pursuing it. Marriage predates the existence of the nation state and is not subject to it, the same is with the Church. You would support 100 percent state intervention in marriage, whereas I would be fine with the state and the Church governing marriage in such a way that would protect the natural law. I see it as a mutual responsibility not the exclusive domain of the state.

What is significant is that neither one of us is arguing that the state has no role to play in marriage, but rather 'what should the role of the state be?'. You are making the progressive and not the libertarian argument with respect to marriage.

Frankly you are not making your case better here by labelling my positions as hate, Yankee.

[Wisconsin+17]

Again your recall was supported by a bipartisan coalition because of your behavior in the Delegates, not because of your ideological positions.

Why then did the fellow who filed for recall repudiate his own recall? It was seen as a massive overreaction and far beyond the expected norms. So much so that the first thing that was done afterwards was to prevent this by 'raising the bar', a transparently self-serving action, but one that was taken nonetheless.

What we forget is that this is a game. This is no different than shunning someone. Why would you expect that person to come back unless invited and why would you expect the person who was on your team who received such treatment to ever want to do anything with your party again?

It is not indictment against the Federalists or proof that we have abandoned Traditionalist conservatives to wolves.

No, sir, the indictment is worse, that you as a team do not stick up for their own members. A house divided against itself will never stand. Standing aside while one of your own gets beaten up isn't a moral affirmation against anything save cowardice.

Let me ask you a question, Yankee. Do you honestly think that if the roles were reversed, and you were in my seat and I were in yours, that I would be saying what you are here?

Or do you think I would be sticking up for you?

Choose wisely.

I listen more than you do Ben. I listen when people have issues, and I listened to Fhtagn when she had issues with ASV and I tried to find a workable solution that was within my power to achieve. I cannot drop someone in an ocean though or make them magically disappear.

It seems that this is a common thread within the federalists. You seem to see the situations as isolated and unrelated. This isn't the first time this has happened. Again I will let her speak up for herself regarding her issues with the party. I can only speak up about mine.

Lets be honest here, you are not rejecting the awful federalists "because Yankee, I just can't take it anymore". You are turning your back on playbook that has worked for TEN Years, that has delivered more concrete results in two years, than the real life GOP has in 100 fing years and all of that for an echo-chamber safe space.

Actually I am being honest. After being recalled by my own party and ousted from the seat that I legitimately won, I have no desire to continue working with the Federalists. Ever.

You seem to find this hard to understand. It's not even the first time either, as you mentioned with Hagrid!

Is not the whole basis of this effort because I refused to enforce conformity and demand that two or three members become like all the others?

You blame victims and protect the bullies. This has a negative effect of cohesion within the party. Most are willing to tolerate it but eventually pretty stark lines are crossed. Recall was a line that was crossed. You chose not to participate in it, but there were also no consequences for those who initiated the recall in the first place.

Why would you expect the aggrieved party to believe that they would ever get a fair hearing? If two people cannot work together within the same party the obvious solution (well, obvious to everyone other than you), is for those people to no longer be in the same party. You're unwilling to evict them out of the Federalists, so the people on the other side will naturally leave to do their own thing. When there are enough people who are aggrieved by the same clique of people, then what happens is what you are seeing here. Why do we have to work with the people we don't like and they don't like us when we can work with the amazing people we do enjoy working with?

you would have had me go to her and say "why didn't we talk about this first". Just like Blair and she would be a member of Peace Party right now or something.

Did I and have I? If not, why not? Perhaps there is more going on than you are privy to and there are things that you do not understand. I would personally be wary about talking about the interactions of two people that generally appear to be choosing to work together when trying to understand their motivations for doing so.

If anything, part of the problem is because I have not talked enough, and the members of the party have not spoken out enough about what we have accomplished and why it is important.

Honestly, I think what you needed to do was put your foot down with the intra party fighting about six months ago.

"Recall this, recall that". Get off the damn recall, We never recalled any of the other ACPers. It was not about conservatism, it was your actions that led to that, your actions alone and you have to accept that and move on.

Not when the recall initiator repudiated his own recall because he felt that his action was unwarranted. I'm curious what you are trying to achieve here. You could simply say, "you know what, Ben, recall was a sh**tshow". Instead you seem to be doubling down on it.

Why? Recall has now become an issue because of the stance you have taken on it. Had you simply admitted that it was unwarranted there would be nothing more to discuss. Heck, you even voted against it.

So please tell me why your assessment at the time was incorrect. Who was right? Yankee then or Yankee now.

Gays aren't destroying marriage, it is our policies as conservatives in real life that have furthered the destruction of the family and marriage and it will require acknowledging those failures and moving forward to fix the root causes of the problems.

You cannot fix a problem unless there is general agreement on what the solution ought to be. There are disagreements as to what the solution should be and so the problem will remain unfixed.

Under your model if you don't comply 100% with dogmatic conformity you are out

How would I have ran things? As soon as I heard that a party member was attempting to recall another party member this is what would have happened.

One, I would talk with both party members to understand the dispute and how it reached the point.

Two, I would have insisted that the party who initiated the recall withdraw the recall. This gives the recall initiator two choices here. One, to do as he has been instructed, or two to continue to pursue recall. If they choose to pursue recall, I would let them know that the would not be renominated for their seat, would not be nominated for a different seat and they were on their own.

Recall is not a small matter. Had you let the consequences be known when it was submitted, it would not have gone forth. As it was you lost a member, and showed the general impotence of the party and gave Labor a massive victory, thus pretty much ensuring permanent minority for the Federalists. Ouch.

Just my two cents.

[Wisconsin+17]

Hello All!

I wanted to wait before doing so, but I guess this is the best time now.

Some of you have wondered why I came back after six months away. I want to thank fhtagn for inviting me back.

However, I am not going to stay. My real life commitments have not abated. Before I go, I have some important business.

First off, I want to transfer leadership of the ACP officially to fhtagn. It is her party and the party will reflect whatever policies she and the rest of you have chosen to implement. I am rather touched that so many of you have chosen to revive the ACP. I would not have dreamed such a thing.

You really brought a smile to my face. Thank you all of you, particularly Mr. R, fhtagn, and PiT.

I also want to thank Yankee again. You have helped me many times in the past. You are a good man, and I wish you the best of your endeavours.

I will still try to reply to inquiries made in my box, but I am not going to be, nor planning to be active in running for office again.

Thank you all for your consideration!

Godspeed.