The Crusader (Public Service Announcement)

Quote from: Joseph Cao on May 25, 2023, 02:34:29 AM

Hurrah! Though my 3am brain would like to know, is the I-FL Dereich or someone else?

Dereich. The "get off my lawn" attitude was both priceless and an important morale boost.

The Crusader

Championing biased news since 2017

May 25th, 2023

An interview with TimTurner:

Seven or so years into Atlasia, TimTurner has been our National Archivist, a longtime Southern politician, a member of PUP and more recently the Labor Party, Governor of the South, and of course, Attorney General at a particularly vital time for the Justice Department. In this long career of public service, he has also been the subject of an electoral court case, he was given the Silver Star of the Order of the Star of Atlasia by President Griffin, and his contest with LouisvilleThunder over the Governorship of the South signaled the revival of the Federalist Party some time ago. As he presides over the Justice Department in the middle of the latest attempt at secession and treasonous behavior, he is the subject of the latest interview by The Crusader.

Lumine: Mr. Attorney General, pleased to talk to you today. I think the first question is self-evident: what do you make of the Supreme Court's decision in Yankee vs. the Southern Government? Good outcome, bad outcome? Any surprises for the Justice Department?

TimTurner: I am pleased with the outcome. The Supreme Court did what it needed to do, though of course North Carolina Yankee's actions in this space didn't hurt. And it did speedy action as well, exactly what I signalled what would be my preference would be very early on in this crisis, as noted in the Public Commentary thread. The Supreme Court has conducted itself quite responsibly here, and I greatly approve of the result. The game's strength comes at its firmest when people do their job. People doing their jobs is a key part of a functional game. I would say the Justices performed broadly as expected.

Lumine: We have had AGs who have prosecuted their cases personally, and others who have used prosecutors. In this case, Laki has led some of the current court cases. How do you feel about his performance as special prosecutor?

TimTurner: I am not entirely sure what I think of Laki's performance as prosecutor in this case, but I'm happy to see he's taking on a difficult job, energetically. We shall see how the Court rules on the ongoing legal troubles and what they decide. I'm glad the case is off my hands. It would be a travesty if the case was not properly given a hearing at all and these issues sat entirely untouched. The proper venue for this situation, as it had now ended up, was the courts. We have a court system and the things required for it to work ought to be in place. To make an Ace Attorney analogy stating the obvious – you need both your Pheonix Wrights and your Miles Edgeworths, or else courts will find it harder to function. It was an issue that cropped up in the discussions around the recent case involving the Department of Federal Elections, and in a case of this sort, it is even more important.

Lumine: Of course, we know what the main institutions of the Republic have sided strongly against seccession. But leaving aside the trappings of office, how do you feel about the present affair personally?

TimTurner: I was surprised to see the Southern President declare secession, even as I saw him take steps in regards to energy that were far from clear winners from a game theory point of view, costing the South support in other parts of the country (which, if anything, looked counterproductive to me). Personally, I've seen crises come and pass and I have memory. Looking at it dispassionately, I think I can firmly say, this is not a good situation for the South.

It is hardly disadvantaged, it has won in court many times before and carved out autonomy under our federal system. It has been able to achieve great success while being within this Union. It supplies and has supplied numerous officeholders. In that historic election in 2017, NeverAgain and DFWLibertyLover, both Southerners, were the two choices, and the former's running mate was also a Southerner. There have been a huge contingent of grandees in Atlasia who have been Southerners. Southerners and ex-Southerners have given this great nation leadership at important times of need.

I am proud of what my region has achieved and what its people have contributed to the game and it would be a shame to throw that away and shut ourselves off from our brothers beyond the Ohio and Mississippi rivers and the Mason-Dixon Line, with whom we share Atlasia. I have always self-identified as a regionalist, but I also feel our shared institutions have their own sort of value and balance is important for both playability and other reasons. In any case, I have friendly personal relations with a lot of people on both sides of this crisis, which has made things kind of difficult, but such is politics. You must play with the cards you dealt.

Lumine: And, when it comes the present and future situations, how do you feel officeholders should behave and respond to them?

TimTurner: Officeholders should deal with issues prudently as they arise and coalition-build as needed to get what they want done. And this scales up to regional governments as a whole too. The South did that with friendship acts during the Kansas Crisis, in which we built bridges with our neighbors. I cannot fault other regions for defending themselves, of course, and the South's rights come together with responsibilities. In regards to dealing with future huge problems, well, remember tyranny and crises can potentially come from any vector of power of great power in our political system. This was, to the best of my memory, more-or-less the advice I gave in the wake of the Kansas Crisis some time ago and it's still true.

Looking at it now, I'd add that any system is only as good as the people manning it...nothing encourages failure more than mass-scale neglect for what makes the game work, and coming in second place is the assumption that we've got something perfect or close to perfect and as a result, failure is not possible. Our government is a human institution and can embody human flaws on masse. I don't see us turning over the government to ChatGPT anytime soon. It's also germane to this topic that Discord makes a lot of things possible, as the means for people to come together and talk and plan has only scaled up. That has good and bad consequences, because Discord is a tool of those who use it. We should be aware of that fact and act accordingly.

Lumine: We are currently undergoing two impeachments in the Senate: that of Mr. Reactionary and OSR. How do you feel about this process? Is it warranted? Should we go further?

TimTurner: Mr. Reactionary and OSR, of course, are people who have greatly contributed much to the game over the years. I have had the honor of knowing them for years. It makes me sad a bit to see what has transpired and for them to sacrifice current and future potential on a nowhereville path like this. But what's done is done. It's not my job to decide what OSR did, even as I consoled him in his thread about why he turning against the government was unwise for his prospects in my mind. He's his own man and he can make his own decisions. Same for Mr. R, whose career earns special mention and who I would be proud to have on the unionist side, if only he chose that path.

Actions like those taken by them create a undeniably good case for impeachment. Whether or not the Senate wants to affirmatively act on said good case is up to them, not me. As I told OSR, "The Senate will decide your fate"; in the circumstances it was worth emphasizing that it is the Senate's call what the Senate does with its membership and the weight of what his actions had opened the door for. Of course, any actions taken beyond simply changing membership of the body start running into considerations that previously would not matter.

It's one thing to get rid of two secessionist senators, a rather obvious move however it is done precisely (expelling, impeaching, what have you). There's also the officeholding ban that comes with impeachment that adds things into the mix. Regardless of all this, however, it's at least one, if not two or more, steps further to repeal, in large numbers, the laws they helped pass and/or proposed, depending on the merits of the actual laws in question.

Far from every Mr. R bill is on par with the Posse Comitatus Act in how much it makes sense (or in this case, doesn't make sense) in the given moment. Additionally, in our quest to keep together our Union, we must take into account that not every month has a big crisis and not every president faces a seccessionist revolt that is strong enough to demand changes to laws. And we already have laws on the books punishing these sorts of crimes, who knows if we'll actually be changing things much at all once all the dust has settled.

As Attorney General, I will be ready to enforce existing law as needed to maintain law and order in this republic. As for Mr. R himself, he's has done Atlasia a lot of good in the time running up to this crisis, including during the Kansas Crisis when he helped this Union hold strong, and maybe even every long-serving regional legislator in recent memory has probably voted for at least one bill with his fingerprints on it, with a positive assessment that was earned by looking at its text.

If you impeach him he's out of office for two full years. He probably knows that full well. I hope he never gives up on bill-writing wholesale and remains available for that. The man has serious talent. It's a shame he chose this path of secession, leaving this as a deeply unfortunate blemish on a long, dignified career.

Lumine: Although unrelated to seccession, it has been mentioned that, as the face of an opposition of sorts in the South until a few months ago, you still voted in favor of much of the agenda pushed by Reactionary and others. Do you feel this was a mistake? Or, do you feel there is more you could have done while serving in the regional government?

TimTurner: To be sure, some of what I voted for was a mistake in retrospect. Sadly, as they say, hindsight is 20/20. The South has a long history of consensus political culture. To us as a regional government more generally, we were more reasonable than many think, which is somethin/g that the bigwigs in the region's right-leaning politicians deserve some credit for. Broadly, I would say we stood up for our diverse and old culture, and for the retention of history. Remembering and preserving our history in the face of those who oppose it is a noble cause (but cherishing history and repeating it are very distinct endeavors, obviously).

Free speech was an area we legislated on energetically. We also passed legislation smaller in scale aimed at smaller-scale but nonetheless worthy problems, including some laws that helped the vulnerable in society (such as the handicapped) or defending the region's interests. We were not all united on all bills, though seeing the meme circulate that the Southern legislators always voted legislation in unanimously cracked me up because memes are fun. But memes are not all there is to reality, even if they in many, many cases very effectively capture a specific and limited truth. And we did have disagreements in the South, just perhaps not as often as in Fremont and Lincoln.

As for a case in point, there was an effort to ban certain kinds of sex permanently in the wake of monkeypox, but (I think) a majority of 3 of 5 delegates stopped the effort. The response from the Speaker Fhtagn was not favorable, she wasn't happy at all. One bill that was quite troublesome for me was a sex toy ban. Sex toys have been found in unearthed sites in Rome. Humanity hasn't really changed fundamentally since then, has it? Now, I was tempted to vote Aye just to get the "go along to get along" thing stronger, but on this occasion I felt a need to represent my voters, who were more libertine in their preferences on sex regulations than the region-at-large (and I myself in my policy preferences, in relative terms, took that position relative to other delegates too).

When the matter came to vote, I abstained. It is not like voting against the sex toy ban would have done anything for my voters besides change a tally on an unwinnable vote. Things did change a bit in my last term as I got more willing to vote Nay to bills, in the wake of a strong challenge from a fellow left-leaning candidate (my surviving only being thanks to Mr. Reactionairy), but that probably had a role in my defeat as I lost (generally right-leaning) swing voters previously inclined to lend their vote to me, even as I picked up Weatherboy's vote.

Even critics would agree we passed a lot of bills. Reality was that a lot of the bills-turned-laws in the South didn't make sweeping changes, but they did some change to something in this policy area or that, or were a resolution on something important enough to act on, making an already consensus-driven political environment even more dominated by all of us voting the same way. Like, what's the point of voting nay on a bill whose subject matter is a single suicide prevention hotline? Of course, if you are going to get that many bills passed (making us the most pro-activity region), at some point you'll get to silly stuff and the South's reputation in some circles as a meme region did have some truth to it, since we probably led the country in the passage of meme bills.

But we also passed bills to help our friends in Lincoln and Fremont too. And the South, with what you could call its "tinker bills" (tinkering with something on the edges in a way that makes some sense) was a bill factory, and innovator for the rest of the country, in large part due to the direction Mr. R helped give us. In general, I would still say most of what I voted for was a net improvement for the South. And when I was there, we kept a generally moderate and reasonable course in regards to governance, taken as a whole. And I was just one man out of five or seven...realism, affability, and pragmatism are why I am still here and managed to keep a decent working relationship with practically every Federalist or right-leaning governor in the South.

Really, it cannot be helped not every one of your work collegues are going to agree with you on all issues, and this is especially true if you are elected from a party that is decidedly in the minority, which is where I have been for most of my time in office. But I've always felt that you need to be ready to work with fellow officeholders for the good of the public, regardless of party or whether you are in minority or majority. I was first elected as a "try to knock BenKenobi out of the CoD" write-in, but I even managed to start working with him in not too long. Could I, a man vowing to do the "people's work" on the campaign trail, justify hindering that goal by starting unproductive fights, perhaps even clearly undermining the policy preferences of my voters by doing so?

Politics is about networking and getting things done. Mr. R even dropped a provision from a bill one time purely because, in his view, he said I was pleasureful to work with. I had a serious job, and I did it. If I was unable to do said job, I would not be here today as a veteran politician. I've always looked at bills not by who wrote them but rather their contents, an attitude that generally helps when building relationships. Since the time I've served as delegate I've personally grown a bit more skeptical of social regulations than I used to be, but that does not change the fundamental facts of what it means to be someone who was in my position, in this sort of time and place.

A seat at the table is incredibly important if you can get it. And at this point it would be remiss for me not to thank those who kept voting me in, either as a 1st or 2nd or 3rd or whatever preference, and putting their trust in me over the many years, and for one particular individual who pushed for me to be their guy in the most recent legislative election, when I wasn't even planning on running that time. You all know who you are and I thank you profusely. I didn't even send a single get-out-the-vote PM in many/perhaps even most elections I ran in, yet you still turned out. You are part of this story too...you helped keep the South from going down darker paths. You gave the region relatively more balanced politics than where it would be had you and I not been there. Without you I might have been a historical footnote.

Who knows where the South will end up a year from now? If you draft me, I'll probably be glad to take up the call.

Lumine: Among your other activities, you have recently started a polling firm. What do you think works and what doesn't in terms of polling activities in Atlasia? And, is there anything in particular you'd like to innovate in in terms of this area?

TimTurner: I have not been in this business as long as North Carolina Yankee, whose Survey Atlasia firm has been in the game for a very long time, and it would interesting to see what he would say on this. Personally, I would say Google forms remains quite good from the looks of it, but it at least seems to be kind of silly (and unworkable) to use it for every poll. More generally, I would say that polling in Atlasia faces real issues, because of Discordification. My polls are forums-only and very likely have a heavily anti-SNP house effect (one wonders if Survey Atlasia might face the same issue). My recent poll about "how do you feel about removing recalls" shows a massive bias in what I'm getting. Sometime soon I plan to get around to post the results to that specific poll, but needless to say, prime example of a poll overtaken by events.

Everyone knows the South getting rid of recalls is top-of-the-line news now, alongside news of paint drying in the renovated Justice Department buildings. Perhaps the time might come to find some way to get some Discord responses? If so, how and when would it be done? There's a lot for me to consider as an up-and-coming pollster in what is a challenging time for polling, because I doubt YoungTexan's true approvals rest merely in the 30s or 40s. If they really are that low, well, I have a huge rainforest in Kansas to sell you, frequented by Tmth himself!

Lumine: You've been a regional officeholder and now a member of the Cabinet. What can we expect of Tim Turner in the future? Do you have designs on higher office or a specific challenge?

TimTurner: The Senate might be likeliest at the moment, though the Southern legislature continues to fancy me and I'm encouraged by the fact that a write-in campaign pushed for me last time even though running for Southern legislature was not in my plans. I was drafted by citizens and got within a few votes were winning. With how the South might go any which way and there is uncertainty looming over the most politically stable region in the game over the past five years, I see more potential upside than downside in how things could work out there in the future, but I don't know for sure. No one in my position could.

Attorney General has been a good experience and in any case, I plan to work in that job for the time being regardless of whatever else I am doing (as long as it's statutorily possible of course). Just a month or so ago it was unexpected how busy I would be in that job, with all the legal drama...Well, there is this Japanese proverb that I've even used before, I think I used it in a speech I gave when I lost the governorship. It even gave its name to a piece of Kirby music, "Ashhita wa ashhita mo kaze ga fuku". That literally translates as "Tomorrow's winds will blow tomorrow", but I've always put it as "tomorrow is new day".

Whatever you are facing today, tomorrow's winds will come and things could change. Yankee lost his Senate seat in 2015, but it was merely a speed bump. I've faced a lot in a political life that has ran for eight years. My time includes the height of IRC, when I once ran the #Labor IRC channel (until the moment it was left). I've gone from Jambles recruit placed in Wisconsin to unsuccessful candidate for the Mideast Assembly to Southern resident Labor zombie to Delegate to Governor, back to Delegate, with long stretches as Speaker and Deputy Speaker in the mix, and a time as Acting Governor, not to mention multiple Cabinet offices.

For the moment, the only office I occupy is Attorney General. I've lost elections before, so ups-and-downs are not new to me. Who knows what the future holds? I shall see what chances present themselves. And then I shall conduct myself to the public's needs.

Lumine: Mr. Attorney General, thank you very much.

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