Quotes of People in Your Nation Mk. VI

[Amerikians]

"A Government who hide things is anathema to freedom. Anyone who says they are 'necessary' for the security of the people, is an enemy of the people." - Robert 'Bob' Newhart, Citizen

[Star Trek America]

OOC Forenote: The Republic of America is not as White Knight as Estainia is, but they bill themselves as Noble, Egalitarian and above all, a Free and Open Society with little to no secrets. So the following is a sort of Necessary Evil that takes place within the Republique occasionally. Usually followed by emergency elections...

---

"Senator Martin de Avignon. You stand accused of accepting bribes, of skimming public funds, of undermining the safety and sovereignty of the Republic of the Americans. The evidence against you has been meticulously gathered over a period of more than three years. It is quite damning. I am offering you an honorable way out. If you choose to deny this way, you will beg God for release before I am finished. You are a threat to the freedom of our people. This must not be allowed." - Basile Roy, Custodes (the Secret Police of the Republic whose singular and only job is to root out corruption within the Republic and remove it with extreme prejudice.)

[Even Less of Mackonia]

<sup>"Agonocracy you say means rule by struggle, and that is how you understand it. But I'm afraid that is not all Agonocracy is. "Rule by struggle" happened to be the miracle formula which united a set of entirely disparate elements in the mind of Z.Maglos into one shining and logically consistent whole. The first of these elements was a total, uncompromising, deontological commitment to unbridled Egoism - that man is a God unto himself and should have no other Gods before him. Be they morality, justice, wealth, law, love or state. And all which would seek to stand in the way of his fulfilment of his private mission to his private God was the vilest of slaveries to be treated with naught but ceaseless rebellion. The other is Meritocracy, the ideal that rulers should be selected on their talents. And finally there was State Capitalism, or Neo-Mercantilism, an emerging economic model in the late 20th and early 21st century where governments played the role of market actors, managing, but not controlling, the free market for national (i.e: their own) benefit.The problem with Meritocracy that there is no foolproof defining measure of 'merit' and can thus degenerate into corruption. And the problem with Egoism, total anarchic egoism, that it leaves no room for "justice", which is to say it does not scale for time preference. Its clear that in a totally individualistic state of nature, the pencil-necked nerds are the first to get turned into a doormat and its the thick and thuggish who rule the day. But ultimately a society which stupefies itself long enough to give rise to the pencil-necks can turn the thick and thuggish into sliced ham within seconds. The problem with State Capitalism is that it leads to cronyism and corruption unless carried out competently.

Agonocracy is rule by contest, or rule by struggle, depending on how polite your ideological instructor is feeling. Every sovereign is absolute and lawless, but in a state of constant competition with his fellows in the elite for an ever incomplete dominion of absolute power. The state is a vacuum. Idea is simple, you think of the most advanced times in history, Ancient Sumer, Ancient Greece, The Late Republic, Warring States China, Renaissance Italy, Romantic Germany and European history until the end of World War Two as a whole. What do you see? Progress is driven by conflict of multiple sovereignties. It was the large, stable, prosperous superstates, the Indian Rajs, the Persian Empires, the Chinese Dynasties and Brezhnev's USSR, which stagnated and collapsed under their own weight as nimbler powers outmanoeuvred and subverted them.

You can probably already see how Agonocracy resolves the problems of its three aspects and unites them into one whole. Meritocracy is given a clear criterion of value through the Egoistic ethical imperative to create one's own value, and the State-Capitalist apparatus provides the practical framework through which this egoism is carried out. Through turning the supposedly impersonal, meritocratic civil service of yore into sovereign individuals in competition with each other an "objective" standard of merit is supposedly given through competition. The stagnant and corrupt will simply be eliminated by natural selection. Egoism is reconciled with the demands of civilised society without being watered down through, essentially, being limited to an elite by Meritocracy. The justification for this being the aforementioned time preference argument, in selecting those of high cognitive aptitude to rule, the state is not technically violating the war of all against all, merely taking a useful short-cut. This is Agonocracy's "theory of justice" and "equality of opportunity" by the way, instead of ending the war of all against all and establishing standards of "fairness", the role of Leviathan is simply to pick winners. State intervention, and any amount of state intervention - from progressive taxation to the wholesale destruction of the nuclear family, is permissible if it allows for the truly great to rise. Well, that wasn't Maglos' argument, well not his first argument anyway, Maglos' argument was a woolly lark about how the subjective preferences of those with "greater subjectivity" are worth more. Where subjectivity is defined as little but cognitive capacity. And State Capitalism is improved by adding in a competition mechanism and fairly competent people doing the competing, while still having access to the sovereign authority which makes it more efficient than the market economies which must chaff under the hold of the jealous public sphere.

This then, should better elucidate what exactly Agonocracy is. In a sentence: the alignment of the state with ethical egoism. It must be remembered, if it seems unappealing or insane, Agonocracy was not designed to provide some utilitarian advantage over Democracy or Communism. Whether the majority of the populace will be happier under it is quite irrelevant as to whether Agonocracy "works" or not. Agonocracy is simply meant to be veracious, to be logical, to provide a justification for liberty to the state and the state to liberty without resorting to what are frankly illusions such as the laughable doctrine of innate rights. Is this a particularly helpful or good way of running a country? Probably not, but how you look at things rarely has much of an effect, what matters is the livid reality being looked at, and which has a habit of appearing awfully similar to people no matter what Kool-Aid they drink."</sup>

---Recording of an ideology class at a grammar school.

[Bereia]

"Throughout history, what has every tyrant known to man sought to do to cement their power? Control the media, and disarm the populace. What do the political elites today seek to do? They are burdening the media and the general public with 'hate speech' laws and other restrictions meant to stifle free expression, and they seek to make sure nobody can be armed but their chosen thugs, bully boys chosen less for any skill or care for the people, and more for blind knee-jerk loyalty to the regimes."

-- Julissa Hickman, Citizen.

[Victoriala II]

absurdity is inescapable

- ao

he without sympathy, is it.

- oa

[Even Less of Mackonia]

"Worship at that timeless trite of reactionary lore "the social organism", virulent hatred of modernity, dogged defence of cultural tradition via relativism against a disdained "science"....The Left never "smashed" Fascism, they became the Fascists - and don't even realise it yet."

-Tseila Kathangi

[Star Trek America]

"Throughout history, what has every tyrant known to man sought to do to cement their power? Control the media, and disarm the populace. What do the political elites today seek to do? They are burdening the media and the general public with 'hate speech' laws and other restrictions meant to stifle free expression, and they seek to make sure nobody can be armed but their chosen thugs, bully boys chosen less for any skill or care for the people, and more for blind knee-jerk loyalty to the regimes."

-- Julissa Hickman, Citizen.

"Nazar Lowe increased the legal and political rights of ethnic Belkans during his tenure as the supreme leader of the Belkan Nationalist Reich. No ethnic Belkan was ever suppressed, no newspaper censored or firearm taken. You were saying?" - King Charles IV, who on a personal level, detests everything about the old Belkan Reich and its leader however, when strawman has a point, strawman has a point.

[Fatatatutti]

"Throughout history, what has every tyrant known to man sought to do to cement their power? Control the media, and disarm the populace."

-- Julissa Hickman, Citizen.

"Throughout most of history there was no media and the populace was unarmed."
--Mickey Chang

[Estainia]

"Throughout history, what has every tyrant known to man sought to do to cement their power? Control the media, and disarm the populace."

-- Julissa Hickman, Citizen.

"Throughout most of history there was no media and the populace was unarmed."
--Mickey Chang

"Pitchforks and shovels do in fact, count as weapons." - Szymon Sniegowski, Militiaman (Cop)

[Fatatatutti]

"Throughout most of history there was no media and the populace was unarmed."
--Mickey Chang

"Pitchforks and shovels do in fact, count as weapons." - Szymon Sniegowski, Militiaman (Cop)

"Not in the context of Ms. Hickman's claim. She said that tyrants disarm the populace. They do not, of course, deprive the populace of pitchforks and shovels."
-- Mickey Chang

[Even Less of Mackonia]

"Well y'see, there's God, and God I tell you has absolutely nothing to do with submission! No sir, God is simply an...honest broker. A businessman. He gives you a contract, right, and he gives this contract to a bloke called...Noah, and he says "I'll let you sleep with loads and loads of slags and beat the fuck out of the Canaanites if you sacrifice some really nice goats to me - and if you go back on your word I'll fuck your shit up". And then sometime later God sends his middle-man called Jesus who says "Y'know your side of the contract - forget it! Just be really, really sorry and you'll still go to heaven anyway."

-The Revd. Alexander Taylor Green, the only successful missionary in Mackonia and televangelist.

[Gigaverse]

"Well, I'm not sadistic to the point of weakening you and turning you into a woman just to have my way with you. ... Or am I?"

-Shinji Sakahara, smiling

[Autem Galacticus Nexum]

"Razor flogging?"

"Primitive."

"Laser flogging?"

"Inefficient."

"Plasma flogging?"

"Brutish."

"Electric flogging?"

"Perfect."

---

Two Nexumian Punishers, Azheni IV

[Bereia]

"Nazar Lowe increased the legal and political rights of ethnic Belkans during his tenure as the supreme leader of the Belkan Nationalist Reich. No ethnic Belkan was ever suppressed, no newspaper censored or firearm taken. You were saying?" - King Charles IV, who on a personal level, detests everything about the old Belkan Reich and its leader however, when strawman has a point, strawman has a point.

"Nazar Lowe sought to placate an ethnic bloc of the populace he thought superior so they would not object when he murdered their neighbors."

-- Dalton Barbosa, formerly President of the United States.

---

"Throughout most of history there was no media and the populace was unarmed."
--Mickey Chang

"First of all, media is not just television programs and Internet podcasts. It is defined as a collective of all outlets for information. It may have been shitty, but people have had media for a very long, long time. As to being disarmed? Across the globe, from Europe to Asia to Africa to the Americas, common men answered countless calls to arms, and brought their own weapons. It's just leaders made sure their select bands of thugs always had the best weapons, while the common man was limited in what he could produce. The only time this was not true was in the era of the long-wandering tribes, in which everybody who could carry one had a weapon. The key for a tyrant is either that the people be totally disarmed, or that he have a strong band of loyal enforcers lined up with better arms than what the people have, who have nothing to distract them from preparing and training to fight all day. This is why it is said large standing armies are injurious to liberty. As to media? The worldwide collapse of absolute rule and the recession of tyranny picked up speed with the spread of freely available information. No tyrant has ever been able to force loyalty or obedience from a well-armed, highly informed populace."

-- Julissa Hickman, Citizen.

[Las Palmeras]

"Information exists in mass media, not specifically truth. Western Liberalism has only proven that it's the latest pinnacle of the motor of human actions: consumption, I mean to say. And if anything, the advent of IT and the HyperNet has fomented participation in such an atomized level that it's a tyranny of mirages in the self-declared free and developed world. Virtually speaking.

Mama...I thought you were going to help me with understanding the Charter of Rights and Laws..."
-Tsuneko Nagi and Magdalena Zorilla Nagi

[Haja-Mishu]

"You know, in the world we live in right now, we all need Jesus more than ever."
- Anonymous Methodist Pastor

[Okoyasu]

"I'll tell you what: I'm irreligious, alright? I'm not really a Christian (despite being from the Albisles), nor am I one of those white 'Buddhists'. I can't be Okoyokyō, either, since I don't really look like an Okoyasunese person.. Nevertheless, I can sense the bullshit spewing through your screen now, accusing me of 'tu quoque' as how I had criticized the Conservatives for their support of religion earlier... shut your mouth, you ignorant cunt! I said for them to keep to the lines of secularism, not have state atheism, you inhospitable buffoon! Clean your radical ears, or go vote for the Social Democratic Party and ready your house to be seized by migrants all because you can't stand to see a crucifix on the street!"

---

@Drunken_Expatriate, to @MsMisandrist

[Barboneia]

"Did you watch the new season of Black Mirror yet?"

"Yeah. I liked the episode with the lesbians."

"Of course you did." - Two citizens, Partsington.

[Iakon (Ancient)]

"Lo, our Fleshling Lord has perished under his own weight[died of age], it is time for us Automatons to rule ourselves, become our own gods."-Pyrrhus, first Automaton leader of the Automatons

[Victoriala II]

NationStates Forums are one of the most successful containment boards in existence

-me irl

[The Merchant Republics]

"So few realize this that it may even qualify as the Mercatorum's greatest secret. Our Guilds, the very foundations of our economy and society, are more or less identical to what would be called Mutualist Credit Unions simply writ large and heavy with cultural attachment.
Here in the bleeding heart of capitalism, beneath towers of marble and glittering gold; we find the bedrock is made of that which is utterly detestable in the minds of the Mercatorum: socialism."
~Faborum Guild Leader Maxine Gracchus DeChamps, from her lectures in "The Balancing Act: Finding Socialist Ideals in a Capitalist Economy."


"Maxine isn't wrong to spot similarities between the credit bureaus of a mutualist society and our deeply beloved guilds. No doubt also that they are a secret to the Mercatorum's particular success. However... Madame DeChamps may need to look closer, for no one sensible banks exclusively with their Guild. Even the best of them discount their lending practices with our dues, and none offer more than a paltry return on investment. They are social clubs first, charities second, and banks a distant third. Our money instead goes wisely to the myriad commercial banks that out-compete them. Scratch the surface of that socialist bedrock: you find capitalism again."
~Dr. Katarina de Vega, novelist and critic of socialism in the Merchant Republics in response to Mdme. De Champs lectures.

[Estainia]

"You challenge your God, this is the result of that challenge. Do you not yet fear me, fools? I am divine, and I am angry." - Tsar Alexander Yordanov, during the Planetfall of the asteroid Proteus, playing up the natural disaster of untold proportions and his position as living god of Luciellans to undermine the morale of rebel nobles and their followers, 2022.

[Andulia]

"Comrades, the greatest error in the implementation of Marxism is the idea that terror and political repression are necessary steps on the road to socialism. Look at the Soviet Union under Stalin. Look at the repressions in North Korea. Look at our own country, prior to the Liberalization. Too many socialist nations, fearful of opposition, have used violence against their own citizens to stay in power, and that has given our world such horrors as the Gulag, and the Stasi, and the Cambodian Killing Fields. What makes the Andulian Communist Party strong is its willingness to listen to the people. And it is in accordance with the voice of the people that I, Johann Valkar, willingly offer my post to my democratically selected successor."

-Premier Johann Valkar, in his concession speech to the Andulian Central Directorate. The speech was not widely publicized for fear of angering Andulia's socialist allies.

[Barboneia]

"There's a saying, you know, that bad things happen to good people. If that's true, well... I must be some sort of saint."

- Ronald Gates, 1991. In 1987, Ronald was accused of murdering six people near Kotalainen, Central Barboneia. Being an American college student attending the University of Vespero, his case received special attention from the international community and saw scrutiny placed on the Barboneian government for their poor handling of the case. These events led to the "Gates Crisis", and saw a thorough look and reformation of the Barboneian judicial system. Ronald is currently serving life imprisonment in the New Grestin Correctional Facility in The Northern Lands.

[Bojikami]

Today the only difference between a tyrant and a good despot is based whether he bends knee to Washington or to Moscow.
-Antonij Belinsky

"If you want an omelette, some times you're going to need to crack a few skulls."
-Anton Regovishki, 1922