Wittenberg

Let's just replay some of the opposition's greatest hits on this subject.

From exactly one month ago:

Quote from: Baron Alexandreu Davinescu on September 27, 2025, 06:59:20 PMIt seems to me like the Government is very reluctant to address the immigration issue, even though it's obviously a crisis.  We just had a span of four months with zero immigration, and in the entire term, there have been only two total immigrants.  The country is shrinking, and getting quieter.
...

we need the people who are in charge to act like they care about this.
...

(quote from a previous statement):

It seems to me like this should be the number-one, absolutely top priority of the Government.  ...
Would you guys please drop everything else and immediately switch to focusing on this issue above all others, tell us what exactly you plan to do, and let us know when those things are happening?

... the Government of the Kingdom of Talossa had watched immigration applications drop to zero for months, and they'd never bothered to check and see if the application was working.

To date, there has been no accountability for this failure.  No one resigned.  No one was reprimanded.

Now once more we have another immigration crisis, four months after the last one.  For another four-month span, there were no immigrants.  Immigration has plummeted, and we near the end of the term with two total immigrants.

So here we are again.  Maybe this isn't a surprise, since there were no consequences last time.
...
The Government does not want to discuss this.  They are slow-walking any attempts to identify a root cause or pattern...

This all brings me to my terpelaziun for the Seneschal:

Would the Seneschal please provide to this chamber a point-by-point description of the Government's plan to address this crisis?

One month later: the opposition admit that we're in a boom. And Sex Pest is in another thread desperately trying to find any excuse not to give the Government credit.

I have no hope for the Sex Pest, but the PA leader is honest - or at least he knows what honesty is. So he knows that an honest person can't be demanding resignations and apologies when it goes badly, but refuse to give plaudits and credit when it goes well.

A possible response might be "no credit to the Government. You didn't do anything! This is a coincidence!". But when I mildly suggested that there was no necessary connection between "government making an effort" and immigration levels, the PA leader sneered that this was an evasion of responsibility. That we had to do something NOW NOW NOW - and if we didn't, it was proof of negligence.

In fact, the main reason why I was reluctant to engage with this boisterous rhetoric was that I was quietly confident that the Government were doing the right thing; that changing tack wouldn't help; and that things would come right in their own time. I was right. (The subordinate reason, as said elsewhere, is that I'm tired of me butting heads with the Baron, and so is everyone else.)

So how about it, Alexandreu? Did the Government actually do something right? Does this mean we "cared" and stopped "slow-walking"? I get the weird feeling that, if the PA were to end up leading the next Government, and immigration levels were exactly the same, there would be a sudden conversion to the idea that perhaps "effort or even perceived effort <> results". That is, unless Baron Davinescu were honest.

Anyway, if you like the immigration boom, vote for @Mic'haglh Autófil, O.Be and the Union of Free Reformists in the Cosa election. Don't mess with success.

(this post has been edited to tone down some intemperate language. sorry, but some of those accusations really grated on me.)

Quote from: Miestră Schivă, UrN-GC on October 29, 2025, 02:45:02 PMA possible response might be "no credit to the Government. You didn't do anything! This is a coincidence!".

I think an issue with your "We are the Good and you are the Bad" view of Talossa, Most Honourable Seneschal, is that it's hard to either accept blame or give credit.  It's divisive and maybe not great in other ways, but also that view of things makes it hard to operate in a world where sometimes -- maybe, just darn maybe -- the other party has done stuff right!

So this post, and the even angrier early version, just end up looking strange.  I think it's great that there's been some progress!  I said as much!  Just the other day, I was talking about the recent "boomlet" in immigration (borrowing your phrase) and gave a long speech where I told about how you are a good person and a passionate Talossan.  And I went on record a month ago saying that the changes to the immigration form were welcome and a good start!

I'm over here saying good work, and you're shouting at me to demand some credit, lol.

Obviously, the Progressive Alliance was happy to see the Government simplify the immigration form, for example.  I think anyone who looked at the immigration form could see that it needed to be fixed up.

Quote from: Baron Alexandreu Davinescu on July 02, 2025, 07:40:19 PMWe need a fresh look at our immigration process.  To apply to immigrate to Talossa, prospective citizens must complete an expanding form that requires an enormous amount of work to fill out -- someone answering thoughtfully will end up spending half of an hour or more on their application, and possibly even longer if they are dyslexic or not a native English speaker.

(https://i.imgur.com/aesOhb2.gif)

When it happened, we were happy to see it!  I don't know how much it contributed, but it definitely helped ease the path.  Now, I think there's pretty broad consensus that the current uptick in the immigration rate is mostly due to a viral Tiktok video and the Milwaukee Magazine article, but lucky breaks won't fix everything -- we need to actually smooth the way for our immigrants.  But you won't catch me saying that nothing's been done at this point!

That's why we want to see much more than the change to the immigration form happen... we have a lot more to our programme to turn this good luck into sustained growth.  It's now absolutely clear that the problem is not that we need to "raise the bar" and make it harder to immigrate, and the problem is not that "you can't create a marketing campaign for a pile of garbage," as you have said.

Instead, we can and should be looking to advertise... we just need to find new approaches and keep trying stuff until we find a path that works!  Talossa is fun and amazing, not a pile of garbage -- when we let people know about it, they will be interested! In addition to the immigration form, the Progressive Alliance have other ideas:

• Put a human face on the Government, with more positive interactions done with video and photos... let people feel how real we are!  Not just angry denunciations -- how about proud boosting?

• Focus on our strengths with heraldry, and appeal to the online heraldic community.

• Incentivize recruiting with awards, and publicize those awards with recorded video speeches.

• Offer prizes for Talossan language writing, and then (crucially) advertise those prizes on conlang forums.

• Set specific goals.  It's one thing to demand credit, but leadership also means accepting responsibility.  Set some specific goals for immigration, and own up to our failures as well as our successes.

• Improving our public face with a website refresh, including updating the stuff that's just broken now.  Put our best foot forward!

• And more!

And again, credit where it is due: good job on your part of increasing the immigration rate this past month!  Well done, Most Honourable Seneschal!  Now let's move Talossa forward and make sure that we can keep it going -- we're not going to get a magazine article every month!

Quote from: Baron Alexandreu Davinescu on October 29, 2025, 05:56:50 PMI think an issue with your "We are the Good and you are the Bad" view of Talossa

I'm honestly surprised that you're that upset by a reference to the title of a 1966 spaghetti Western.

Quote from: Miestră Schivă, UrN-GC on October 29, 2025, 08:32:53 PM

Quote from: Baron Alexandreu Davinescu on October 29, 2025, 05:56:50 PMI think an issue with your "We are the Good and you are the Bad" view of Talossa

I'm honestly surprised that you're that upset by a reference to the title of a 1966 spaghetti Western.

Especially when one considers that he is purposefully and blatantly misquoting you, and not even doing a good job of hiding it. That's twice now he's done it (emphasis mine):

Quote from: Miestră Schivă, UrN-GC on July 29, 2025, 05:03:04 PMEnough of that. Onto "the Bad". Well, that's mildly unfair. Certainly not bad people. But bad politics.

...

Quote from: Baron Alexandreu Davinescu on October 27, 2025, 11:44:01 AMCan we agree not to lie about stuff, though?

I don't know, can you?

I'm glad to see His Lordship is on board with the URL plan to incentivize recruiting (https://wittenberg.talossa.com/index.php?topic=4469.0) and reward cultural development (https://wittenberg.talossa.com/index.php?topic=4476.0), at least. I would however argue that something like a Living Cosa is a better way to "put a human face on the Government", as opposed to doing TikTok videos "since that's what the kids like" (https://platform.theverge.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/2/chorus/uploads/chorus_asset/file/8846551/Screen_Shot_2017_07_13_at_1.09.20_PM.png?quality=90&strip=all&crop=0,3.0129722879915,100,93.974055424017).

Anywho, correcting of disinformation aside, I've gone through the citizenship database and the Infotecă records back to January of 2019 and every single month's count of naturalizations is accurate. The record from January 2019 to September 2025 is three new citizens in one month, which occurred four separate times: April 2022, October 2023, March 2024, and January 2025.

October 2025, not yet over, has five.

Let's keep Talossa moving forward; stick with the URL.

Listen, I wish it were otherwise, but the whole speech is about how Talossa has only one real political party, and that the Progressive Alliance is a fake party that's really a fan club and represents the worst in Talossan politics.  Yes, I do appreciate that little "they're not axe murderers maybe" bit, but we can be honest about the kind of politics this represents.  It's a negative.

Quote from: Miestră Schivă, UrN-GC on July 29, 2025, 05:03:04 PMA Real Party, For Real Politics
Union of Free Reformists, Talossa's newest and only real political party.
a contest between The Good, The Bad and the Ugly.
We're the Good, of course.
a "social club"
a leader to hand out seats to whoever puts their hand up after the votes are already in
"fan-club" politics in its purest form
high-school cliques
a fan club
essentially anti-political
Svengali makes all the decisions from behind the throne

And I'm not saying that it's not effective!  No one can tell me that the Most Honourable Seneschal, Miestră Schivă, isn't very effective at politics!  She's been in office for three and a half years, all told: the lady knows her business!  But sorry, it's just not our way.  We're not going to be making a speech about how we're the only legitimate party.

If we have specific critiques, we will make them.  Sometimes we will be very very persistent about it, when it matters.  But we're not going to call ourselves the Good party that's the only real party, we won't be calling anyone names, and we're going to focus on the changes we want to make.

From the look of your posts from this week, it seems like you agree with a lot of the stuff we've been saying.  I'd love to do a Living Cosa, too.  But we really just can't count on getting lucky with someone else doing a viral Tiktok and a magazine article landing in our laps every month! 

There were zero immigrants in April.  There were zero immigrants in May.  There were zero immigrants in June.  There were zero immigrants in July.  We're not going to get big crazy lucky breaks every month... if this was a plan, I'm not sure we can afford to keep following it!

Here's a good thing, though: you guys are in charge!  Right now!  You're the Government!  So maybe we can do some of the things you're campaigning on, right now... without waiting a couple of months until after the election.  The immigration form was changed.  Let's do some other things!

And of course, I do think that the Progressive Alliance is the best choice for the upcoming election.  We won't sit still for months, and we have a lot of solid, realistic plans.  It's time to move forward... vote Progressive!

Quote from: Mic'haglh Autófil, O.Be on October 29, 2025, 11:30:41 PM

Quote

QuoteI think an issue with your "We are the Good and you are the Bad" view of Talossa

I'm honestly surprised that you're that upset by a reference to the title of a 1966 spaghetti Western.

Especially when one considers that he is purposefully and blatantly misquoting you, and not even doing a good job of hiding it.

I mean, in this metaphor AD is Lee van Cleef. I'd take that as a compliment.

But more seriously, if you don't believe the opposition have bad politics, why would you have your own political party and combat them? And this goes back to the point I made in that speech about AD, and by extension the PA, not really having politics at all. Thus every election has to come down to personalities, hoopla, and auctions of promises of "activity".

You may despise URL politics, like you despised FreeDem/PdR/ZRT politics before then, but we have some.

I think there's definitely a difference between "we disagree" and "you're not a real party," lol.  Obviously, the Progressive Alliance has very different politics than the URL.

We believe very strongly in transparency, for one thing, which is why we oppose the government power to secretly control immigration applications.

And we believe in moving forward without unnecessarily discarding the past, so we don't want to get rid of things like the Senats.

These are clear, principled differences between the parties.  There's going to be a strong contrast in the upcoming election :)