On political parties outright lying about each other

[Miestră Schivă, UrN-GC]

Compare and contrast:

The URL repeatedly and knowingly lied about our flagship Public Process Act,

We're only a few days away from the end of the voting for the Clark, and we're very close to the current URL government killing The Public Process Act.  Your Talossan government is trying to keep the power to secretly control who even gets to apply to immigrate!

(emphasis added)

The latter outright lie won a plurality of votes for the PA.  Unfortunately, when we chose not to "hit back", these lies were broadcast to the broad masses by mailer, so that didn't work. Here's another one:

One of the URL leaders, our current Seneschal, took a phrase out of context from a private conversation in order to lie about its meaning.  She was messaging with a past ally to scold him for his decision to support the Progressive Alliance, and she demanded that he denounce me publicly.  He said in dismissal of such a demand, "we're trying to win an election here." 

Since people get upset when I quote them, let's quote what I actually said to provoke this response:

I mean, AD's latest post is just what I mean. He is outright lying about what Mic'haglh has said to him to try to score a political point. And you're going along with it?

In what way is this a "demand to denounce [AD] publicly" as opposed to, say, an objection to someone telling outright lies? It is of course possible that the Baron hasn't actually seen the message, in which case he's not lying, but is instead being lied to. So it appears to be lies all round up in this joint.

[Baron Alexandreu Davinescu]

The URL blocked the original Public Process Act, voting almost unanimously against it.  While later during the campaign and under immense pressure for this decision, Mic'haglh proposed an intervention which would allow Opposition lawmakers to be a part of a secret process, it is entirely a factual statement to note that the URL voted overwhelmingly to retain the government power in question.

But listen, I'm not really interested in an extended argument about this.  I'm describing the feelings of my caucus -- as well as a lot of our voters, who specifically mentioned some of the URL mailers that motivated them to vote Prog.  The broad feeling is that the general tone of aggression, condescension, and anger, joined with what we feel are some very knowing deceit, undermined our confidence in the URL as potential partners.  It's not impossible to fix, and there's a path forward, but please don't try to convince us that we're wrong about how we feel.

Obviously, we're going to feel differently in some respects.  You might feel that you made no mistakes in tone or rhetoric, and that I'm just trying to spin.  But please think back and just remember the speeches and mailers, and what you said, and consider what effect that might have had.  I also tried for even just a broad summary, leaving out a lot of things... even the recent account of our negotiations, which said a URL offer was presented that we never even saw.  Maybe it was intended to send it at some point, though?  I want to step back from the urge to just attack in response.  Can we change the dynamic, instead?  Move past it, now that the air is cleared?

We just publicly reversed ourselves on a coalition decision, since sometimes we make mistakes.  Everyone makes mistakes.  Let's move forward from them.

[Mic’haglh Autófil, O.Be]

Step 1: Propose a solution that removes power from singular Government official and divides it among multiple people

Step 2: His Lordship complains because it's not his bill, even though his bill does nothing to remove power from singular Government official

Step 3: Senators representing a majority of provinces recognize weakness of His Lordship's bill, vote against.

Step 4: His Lordship proceeds to spin narrative that we wanted to keep secretive power, despite proposing a bill that does the opposite.

You're right, no real reason to have an extended argument, better to just set the narrative straight now.

[Baron Alexandreu Davinescu]

Okay, well, I don't think we're going to agree.  I'm going to leave it there.  I hope that however things turn out, we can find a productive way to work together on things in the future.

[Baron Alexandreu Davinescu]

Here is a material idea I had about how to potentially increase cooperation and trust, no matter how things turn out: perhaps the leader of the opposition should be "read in" on major decisions in private. Any interest in that idea?

[Miestră Schivă, UrN-GC]

a lot of our voters, who specifically mentioned some of the URL mailers that motivated them to vote Prog.

I'd be interested to hear from those people. I can understand that the "tone" of the URL mailers might have struck some as overwrought, but the content - that the PA preferred to make an alliance with absolute monarchists, and thus in a very real and practical sense didn't value democracy - had the virtue of being true. That came back to bite you.

It also confirms what I've been saying for ages about how the PA is not held together by political principle, but by an "ingroup/outgroup" distinction. Anyone can join the ingroup if they agree not to criticise anyone else in the ingroup. And this characterisation is something you seem to be really upset by. Equally so as alleged "lies" and "aggression". I'm not sure why, but I hope you accept that this is a good faith political characterisation which makes no imputation of bad character.

In any case, I'm not sure what led you to make that "Leader's Post" in public - an attempt to "negotiate by press release"? a response to internal pressures? - but you have to remember that there are two sides here to the negotiation and it didn't help build good faith on our side.

[Miestră Schivă, UrN-GC]

Anyway, all this discussion seems pointless.

If I were an ordinary PA member, or even Txec Fortupt the Talossan who knows nothing about politics, I would read AD's document and think "... why are they voting? It's an obvious choice! They get confidence and supply for free from someone who's not even going to be politically active; or they do a deal with these URL guys who are apparently the nastiest pieces of work on the planet. Door Number 1, Alex!"

I can't imagine anyone would read that and not vote for the Zero Strings Attached Deal with the absolute monarchist theocrat. AD gives absolutely no reason in the document why a deal with the URL would be desirable in any way.