I'm glad you asked! We've had quite a few discussions about our goals over the past few weeks, but it's helpful to get it all in one place:

• Continued Success on Immigration: This term saw such a boom in immigration that Talossa finds itself with more citizens than it did when the term started. We saw a new one-month immigration record set in October that's almost double the previous record -- and that's compared to nearly the last seven years! A lot of this was due to the tireless efforts of Miestră Schivă in her role as Immigration Minister, making the changes necessary (including legislation where appropriate) needed to make immigration a less onerous process for applicants. We're going to continue "trimming fat" where appropriate, while also sponsoring legislation to make the process more impartial and transparent. Targeting an average rate of one citizen a month is a realistic goal (that's a goal we're guaranteed to exceed this term, by the way!), but using average rates is also a wise decision to prevent people from trying to light the country on fire again the next time we have a dry month.
  
  
• Mentorship for New Citizens: While the Immigration Ministry has quietly revived the TalossAssistant program, I think it might be more helpful to look at the other side of the coin: what do we do with new citizens once they've immigrated? And the answer, for many years now, has been...not much! I've already put up a few recommendations for new citizens that should prove helpful -- they were based on feedback from new citizens, after all -- and I think an optional mentor program for recent immigrants, a "Novice Network", if you will, would be a logical next step.
  
  
• Reforms in the Zouaves: Talossa's "military" has seen signs of life recently, and that's a good thing. The Zouaves are the most effective tool the Government has to promote cultural development, but they themselves need a bit of development too. I'd like to start with "exhibitions": creating "exhibitions" are how you get promoted in the Zouaves, and there are a lot of things that qualify! But in the time I've been a citizen, it doesn't seem like we've ever had a way to be sure you get credit for something! How can you know you're close to promotion if you don't know your work will count as an exhibition? Problems like these are ones I intend to help the Zouaves solve.
  
  
• Refreshed Visuals Nationwide: Talossa has quite a few talented artists. We've got talented web developers, wiki editors, the whole shebang. We need to use them better! It's not just the Zouaves that need a visual refresh, it's not just the website, it's...most things, really. The wiki's main page is cluttered with information. The website feels very dated, which is a problem that is deeper than content. Better visuals help to make us more appealing to people who are considering joining our community. Bringing the nation into alignment with what people expect on the internet in 2025 isn't a small task, to be perfectly level with you, but it presents a lot of opportunities for everyone to make their mark!
  
  
• Continued Work with Other Micronations: One thing our Government pledged in this last term is more contact with the micronational community. While "you can lead other micronations to the Landing Pier, but you can't make them post" might be the important lesson learned, that leaves us with two conclusions moving forward: one, we should be very choosy about the nations we wish to try and form relations with, and two: the micronational community is perhaps most valuable when we focus on the organizations as opposed to individual nations. I've already proposed a Talossan Micronational Olympic Committee as the first way to do this, in order to utilize micronational competition for the same reasons macronations utilize the "big" Olympics: namely, publicity and soft power. Our steps into the micronational community have in fact borne fruit: at least one new citizen this term immigrated after we introduced Talossa to the wider micronational world, and they liked what they saw! The only way to make sure that isn't the last citizen we recruit from the community is to remain active in it.
  
  
• Realistic, Measurable Goals: A government that's promising to be all things to all people is a government that's going to leave a lot of people disappointed. It's one thing to talk a big game. It's another to deliver! Personally, I'd rather have a government say "hey, we'll be making incremental changes to X, Y, and Z" and then end up being able to do that and add in I and J too.
  
  
• Talossan Culture Kept in the Hands of the People: One of the big draws of a micronation like Talossa is that you can make of it what you want! Talossan culture is sort of vague, which is a massive strength, because it lets people be Talossan in the way they find most meaningful. Some have campaigned on giving the Government a leading role in defining our culture; we in the URL reject that approach as heavy-handed and narrow-minded.
  
  
• Keeping Power Decentralized: The more work you promise to do, the more big projects you pledge to do, the more helping hands you're going to need available. We've seen some parties promise a lot of pie-in-the-sky goals, while also promising to put a lot of roles on a small number of people. Government By Many Hats makes it easier to concentrate power, but it doesn't make it easier to actually accomplish much in the way of positive change.
  
  
• A Government Built on Honesty, Optimism, and Respect: We've seen some shocking displays of dishonesty in this campaign, which have been justified by the folks involved as doing "what [they] need to do to win." I don't stand for that sort of thing, the URL doesn't stand for that sort of thing, and I don't think Talossa should stand for it either. We don't believe in putting up false positivity as an election tactic, we don't insinuate or imply guilt or corruption where we know darn well there isn't any, and we don't stand for harassing or bullying people. These tactics certainly well may yield results in the short term, but they're dangerous for the country in the long term. We reject them, and we hope you do too.

As I've said on the Discord, I have no problem with voting for this now that it includes an enforcement mechanism. I would like to co-sponsor this bill once I am elected into the Ziu (I would've said "if" but it takes some real effort to run for the Cosă and then not to get a seat...)

I'd encourage anyone interested in the nuts and bolts of 61RZ27, the way it was presented and the fallout, to follow the discussion in the #xheneral channel of the Discord on this. Not *very* heated but very pointed debate which is coming to some serious conclusions.

Quote from: Baron Alexandreu Davinescu on Yesterday at 08:40:41 PMI think you're bending over backwards to make it seem like it's pointless to make something illegal without an immediate enforcement mechanism,

Maybe I'm going crazy, but how am I bending over backwards? The first question in my mind at least when someone proposes to stop something from happening is "Okay but how?". I can't possibly be the first one to ask this question, surely.

QuoteI think if you ask most people if they'd break immigration laws, even if they think they won't get caught, that they'd still say they wouldn't do it.  Now maybe your hypothetical "nefarious immoral mastermind" would still do it, but people aren't either Good or Bad.  As I said, most people don't break serious laws even if they think they might get away with it.

That's not my hypothetical, that was yours! You were talking about biased MinImms "losing", "accidentally deleting" or "not quite processing" applications. The only way criminalising this stuff would make sense if these actions are done deliberately and maliciously. And people who do these things, under the old version of the Public Process Act, would have always gotten away with it. What's so difficult about this, what am I missing?

Yes, the new version of The Public Process Act is much better, and the enforcement mechanism was a good idea.  I am glad we discussed it and came up with the idea to mirror the emails to another location out of government control.

I think you're bending over backwards to make it seem like it's pointless to make something illegal without an immediate enforcement mechanism, but yeah, I do actually think that a lot of people will hesitate to break the law out of fear of consequences.  I think if you ask most people if they'd break immigration laws, even if they think they won't get caught, that they'd still say they wouldn't do it.  Now maybe your hypothetical "nefarious immoral mastermind" would still do it, but people aren't either Good or Bad.  As I said, most people don't break serious laws even if they think they might get away with it.

Quote from: Baron Alexandreu Davinescu on Yesterday at 08:18:58 PMIt would have definitely been a good first step to make it illegal, lol.

The first step to fixing a problem is making it detectable first, not just when it comes to crimes but about literally anything. You can't fix a bug that you don't know exists. Maybe it's not actually as obvious as I had hoped...

QuoteI think you honestly underestimate the power of just knowing you're breaking the law.  It's not just feeling bad, it's also the possibility that you might get in trouble later.  Most people just don't break a lot of major laws, even when it seems like it might be the "perfect crime."  I don't think I've ever broken a law (not counting, like, speeding or jaywalking).  I assume you're not out there breaking laws, either, even when you think you'd get away with it.

The examples you gave were of people who deliberately and maliciously suppressed or even untraceably deleted applications because of personal and political bias. Do you really think the people you were talking about in hypotheticals would give a shit about what is or isn't illegal? Especially if they know for a fact that it is impossible for them not to get away with it? If you were already worried of people like this secretly controlling immigration (fair enough I guess, you never know) why would you ever trust them to self-report like that? It makes no sense to me: either they are nefarious immoral masterminds that twist the immigration process to fit their personal and political preferences... or they're not.

Your response just now confirmed to me that the bill as originally proposed was utterly inadequate in solving the problem of potential future corrupt immoral MinImms suppressing applications for their own gain. Calling this "transparency" is a joke, by any stretch of the imagination.

Quote from: Marcel Eðo Pairescu Tafial, UrGP on Yesterday at 08:07:43 PMThen why is going through the records to find instances of this currently legal behaviour a worthwhile endeavour?

I think people deserve to know if past governments have been abusing their power.

Quote from: Marcel Eðo Pairescu Tafial, UrGP on Yesterday at 08:07:43 PMThe Public Process Act had no mechanism, aside from perhaps the guilty conscience of immoral biased corrupt future MinImms(?!?!?!) that you are describing there, to ensure that every received application would be "processed and posted", and its rejection justified.

Yes, I think that the new version of the bill is much better.  The mirroring protocol is going to help a lot, and without any extra work for people.

Quote from: Marcel Eðo Pairescu Tafial, UrGP on Yesterday at 08:07:43 PMHow exactly would the Public Process Act have actually fixed the problem at hand?

It would have definitely been a good first step to make it illegal, lol.  I think you honestly underestimate the power of just knowing you're breaking the law.  It's not just feeling bad, it's also the possibility that you might get in trouble later.  Most people just don't break a lot of major laws, even when it seems like it might be the "perfect crime."  I don't think I've ever broken a law (not counting, like, speeding or jaywalking).  I assume you're not out there breaking laws, either, even when you think you'd get away with it.

I do think your point was a good one when we were talking about the bill, though, and thank you again for the keen insight.  The new version of the bill will have an enforcement mechanism.

Quote from: Baron Alexandreu Davinescu on Yesterday at 07:39:58 PM1.  If you are "binning" applications secretly, that's legal right now.  It's shocking, but right now the government is allowed to just delete applications and not process them, whenever they want.  And obviously you can't be prosecuted for something that's legal.

2.  Org.VII.14 explicitly says that the Ziu cannot pass ex post facto laws.  So even if the URL hadn't blocked The Public Process Act, and it had made it illegal for the government to delete applications if they don't like the applicant, you couldn't be prosecuted for something that wasn't a crime when you did it.

Then why is going through the records to find instances of this currently legal behaviour a worthwhile endeavour? I suppose the best you could hope to achieve with the info, assuming you actually find instances of malicious suppression of applications, would be a public shaming campaign... Speaking of "actually find":

Quote from: Baron Alexandreu Davinescu on Yesterday at 07:39:58 PM

• Imagine a politician who doesn't like an energetic new citizen's politics.  Maybe that application just gets "lost."
• All kinds of people have hidden biases.  Maybe someone applies who's just too different for the bureaucrat who sees it.  Does that application get deleted accidentally, maybe?

Emphasis mine. This might seem really silly to type out explicitly for how obvious it is, but once an e-mail is deleted it's gone forever. Which is to say, a deleted e-mail is impossible to distinguish from one that was never received. This is why the mirroring idea was so important in the first place: only if you know what the record is can you know if something is missing from it. The Public Process Act had no mechanism, aside from perhaps the guilty conscience of immoral biased corrupt future MinImms(?!?!?!) that you are describing there, to ensure that every received application would be "processed and posted", and its rejection justified. In effect the immigration process would be just as susceptible to suppressions and just as intransparent as before because there was no way of verifying that the law was actually broken.

How exactly would the Public Process Act have actually fixed the problem at hand? I've asked this before but the only response I got was effectively "people will feel bad when they break the law". People who feel bad for breaking the law would, in my opinion, not deliberately and maliciously suppress applications in the first place. And those who *would* do these things would vice versa not feel bad about doing them, and still not have to worry about getting caught because there would be no way of knowing whether any e-mail was ever deleted or merely never received. It's the perfect crime. What would've been the point of that?

I will not dignify these attacks, as personally disappointing they may be. I think everyone in Talossa can see very clearly what's happening here.

In the eve of this election, I want to remind everyone how important your vote is and what change you can help implement if the Progressives win this election. We pledge to always stay positive and to never abandon our dignity for cheap political theatre.

We Progressives want a fair and accountable government that doesn't shy away from the responsibilities of governance, and most importantly, does not reject innovative ideas to solve real problems just because we disagree with its sponsor. We want to hear from you and we want you to have a say!

If you agree that a positive Talossa is a better Talossa, VOTE PROGRESSIVE!

You were never at risk of prosecution for three very good reasons:

1.  If you are "binning" applications secretly, that's legal right now.  It's shocking, but right now the government is allowed to just delete applications and not process them, whenever they want.  And obviously you can't be prosecuted for something that's legal.

2.  Org.VII.14 explicitly says that the Ziu cannot pass ex post facto laws.  So even if the URL hadn't blocked The Public Process Act, and it had made it illegal for the government to delete applications if they don't like the applicant, you couldn't be prosecuted for something that wasn't a crime when you did it.

3.  You have repeatedly assured us that you haven't been secretly disposing of immigration applications, so you didn't even do it.

At no point have you ever been at risk of prosecution, as I have told you many times before.  There's no theory that would allow you to be prosecuted for anything under that bill.

And folks, this is a really necessary bill.  Right now, the Government can -- legally! -- decide to just throw out the applications of someone based on any kind of criteria they want.  It doesn't take a lot of imagination to see that this is a dangerous situation in a small country like ours.

• Imagine a politician who doesn't like an energetic new citizen's politics.  Maybe that application just gets "lost."
• All kinds of people have hidden biases.  Maybe someone applies who's just too different for the bureaucrat who sees it.  Does that application get deleted accidentally, maybe?
• Sometimes former citizens reapply, and maybe they're on someone's wrong side.  Maybe their application never quite gets processed.

We have no reason to think any of this has happened in past years, but we shouldn't have to just hope.  At the bare minimum, it should be illegal to do this.  And the improved version of The Public Process Act has even more safeguards -- without any additional work!