Progressive Priorities

[Baron Alexandreu Davinescu]

On this final day before Balloting Day, I thought it might be a good idea to highlight some of our priorities for the upcoming term.  We're going to try to push for these things to get done, even if we don't win a majority -- just like we saw this past term, where we highlighted the unwieldy immigration form and demanded common-sense changes.  We've been a very effective Opposition, but the more seats we have, the more effective we can be.

One of our policies is to reject negative and angry politics.  You've seen the Seneschal's speech about how they are the "Good" and we are the "Bad," and you've seen the URL emails with lengthy personal attacks.  And while that might work for them, we're not going to take the bait.  The URL is a party of decent people who want to help Talossa, and we just have different visions about how to achieve that.  No matter how you vote this term: if you're a Talossan patriot, you're one of the Good ones.  That's our pledge to you.

We urge transparency in government.  The government should not have the power to secretly control who's even allowed to apply to immigrate... we need the bipartisan Public Process Act!  And let's make sure this power was never abused by anyone of any party or government.  If it was, the people deserve to know.  And on a different note, laws like this should be accessible to everyone -- let's get some regular citizens to read over our laws and figure out what's hard to understand!

We also want to make it easier for everyone to "do Talossa."  That means fixing up our website so that the links all work and the merchandise is available.  It means being vocal and supporting everyone's efforts -- the Seneschal should be an active booster of fun stuff, promoting it!  It means making space to be silly, and never yucking someone's yum.  And let's make sure we have plenty of people to have fun with us: let's turn our lucky breaks into sustained growth, and end these periods of zero immigration for months at a time.

I'll have a video out soon on our Tiktok, because we also want to put a human face on Talossa.  Let's get away from just message boards, since that's more interesting and makes it possible for us to reach a broader audience.  The people agree -- that's why the current leader in our poll asks for "regular Zoom meetings with His Majesty and the Seneschal."  We can make that happen!

It's time to move Talossa forward -- let's vote for the Progressive Alliance!

[Baron Alexandreu Davinescu]

Now in video form here!

[Baron Alexandreu Davinescu]

And now this should have hit your inbox -- hopefully all the links and everything work!  As usual, I immediately found a typo, despite proofreading like three times.

[Françal I. Lux]

Well done, baron. I'm proud of the campaign we've run and I encourage every Talossan to vote Progressive this election! Help us enact our bold and positive agenda and let's keep Talossa fun and accessible to everyone!

[Miestră Schivă, UrN-GC]

Well done, baron. I'm proud of the campaign we've run and I encourage every Talossan to vote Progressive this election! Help us enact our bold and positive agenda and let's keep Talossa fun and accessible to everyone!

You know, I'm not going to forget that PM you sent about how you agreed that you're telling falsehoods about the URL but "we have an election to win"

The people are not going to have a great time next election if the choice is between the Sex Pest party and the "massive dishonesty" party.

[Baron Alexandreu Davinescu]

Most Honourable Seneschal, we have been running a positive campaign.  It's possible that Françal said something inelegant, but he assures me you're mischaracterizing what he said.  Either way, it's not going to reflect on our campaign or our goals, since we've been united in refusing to fight like you want.  And I'm sorry -- you're just not going to be able to bait us.

We haven't made any speeches about your personal failings or the foibles of your successor as URL leader.

When we've made criticisms, they've been specific and based in concrete fact.  We link to sources and quote things directly.

We haven't attacked the character of your party as a whole, and we haven't made any kind of unfounded accusations about your motives.

Over and over and over, we have stated our policy goals, advocated for our principles, and vowed to work for a better Talossa... no matter the outcome of the election.

Tonight will be no different, because our goal isn't to victory for the Progressives.  It's victory for Talossa.

We're here because we care about transparency.  The fact that the government is able to secretly "bin" citizenship applications isn't something we're okay with, no matter who's in charge.  We want that power removed, and we want to make sure it's never been abused.  Hopefully the day is not too far off when we can issue a report that there was no malfeasance, and everyone can be relieved.

We're here because we want more Talossans to have fun doing Talossan stuff.  There's all kinds of infrastructure that wouldn't take much time to make, but then we could benefit from for years.  Updating the website, making starter kits for culture so people know where to find resources on things like BBCode, providing a directory of commonly used images... all of that is the work of a few days but would pay us back in years of fun new ideas.

We're here because it'd be great to put a human face on the government -- videos and things that take advantage of this new short-form video virality and try to keep it going.  In our recent poll, our number one option is more regular Zooms where His Majesty is joined by the Seneschal to meet people... wouldn't that be great?

[Françal I. Lux]

Well done, baron. I'm proud of the campaign we've run and I encourage every Talossan to vote Progressive this election! Help us enact our bold and positive agenda and let's keep Talossa fun and accessible to everyone!

You know, I'm not going to forget that PM you sent about how you agreed that you're telling falsehoods about the URL but "we have an election to win"

The people are not going to have a great time next election if the choice is between the Sex Pest party and the "massive dishonesty" party.

Excuse me but I have not made any false statements in this election, let alone perpetuate any. Your government dropped the ball on the immigration issue and you've been scrambling all this time to come up with a counter-narrative instead of owning up to your mistake.

I personally told you, out of professional courtesy, that my decision to join the Progressives is not personal, merely practical, and now you're going to mischaracterize what I said in a private conversation because I refused to save your Senechal candidate from Baron Davinescu's very credible criticisms and responses about how your government handled and bungled the 61RZ27? Shameless.

[Miestră Schivă, UrN-GC]

you're going to mischaracterize what I said in a private conversation

Happy to post the screenshots of the messages if you disagree with my characterisation of them.

My government have not "dropped the ball". Immigration is at an all time high. We did not make any "mistake" over 61RZ27. The bill was drastically flawed and would have opened me up personally to years of prosecution. But AD told actionable falsehoods about these matters in an email, you believed them, and once you'd decided to join AD's team, you didn't even want to hear counterarguments, because "we have an election to win".

You have to understand that playing politics like this drives people out of Talossa.

[Baron Alexandreu Davinescu]

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!

[Françal I. Lux]

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!

[Marcel Eðo Pairescu Tafial, UrGP]

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.

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":

• 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?

[Baron Alexandreu Davinescu]

Then 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.

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.

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.

How 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.

[Marcel Eðo Pairescu Tafial, UrGP]

It 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...

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.

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.

[Baron Alexandreu Davinescu]

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.

[Marcel Eðo Pairescu Tafial, UrGP]

I 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.

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.

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?

[Miestră Schivă, UrN-GC]

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.