NationStates

So, I was going through some old debate threads a few days ago, when I came across the thread for SC #192, the second Condemn DEN. The mere sight of the thread pissed me off enough to write our an outline of a repeal, which turned into an actual draft of a repeal.

I don't know if people remember what the deal was with this one, so to summarize it: DEN was originally condemned in SC #187, but it wasn't the best resolution ever, and it was repealed by SC #191. When it was repealed, we went for a few weeks of getting poorly written attempts to replace it before a legit replacement started drafting, but SC #192 was submitted before the drafted condemnation. The text of SC #192 is listed below, and it is atrocious. There are a dozen major grammatical errors, and several factual errors as well. The condemnation also omits several important facts. The author said that English wasn't his first language, to which we all responded "then why didn't you post it to the forum?", to which he changed his explanation to "I did a bad job on purpose, to make DEN feel bad," to which we all responded with "Bullshit."

I think Kaboom Wallenburg was drafting a repeal when DEN was deleted, and it didn't get anywhere, so I decided that I would take a crack at it.

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The Security Council,

Reminded that the author of SC #192 "Condemn DEN" was unaware of the typical procedures of the Security Council, and therefore neglected to seek assistance from their fellow Security Council members in drafting their proposal,

Noting that despite heavy criticism, and the disapproval of many well known World Assembly members, delegates, and authors, SC #192 was passed,

Deciding that SC #192 is, frankly, poorly written and riddled with factual errors,

Disturbed by the fact that SC #192 attempts to downplay the act of invading by referring to said activity as a mere “sport”,

Observing that despite the author’s claims that DEN was known for “destroying small regions”, DEN was actually never successful in destroying any inhabited regions,

Exasperated by SC #192’s inclusion of DEN’s intelligence gathering and embassy forming as condemnable acts, seeing as the strategies employed by DEN in these areas are widely used in various other large regions,

Bewildered that SC #192 only includes three examples of DEN raids, neglecting to note the far more important raids that DEN committed on Paradoxia, Power is Rising, Japan, Union of Proletarian States, California, St Abbaddon, Yorkshire, and NeoConfederate States of America,

Pointing out that one of the few examples of a DEN raid SC #192 identifies was an incident in September 2015 involving an internal coup of The West Pacific, in which DEN was the primary region providing support to a rogue Delegate, which is not widely considered to be a raid beyond DEN propaganda,

Cringing at the timing of this proposal, going into effect directly before a major scandal resulted in the complete annihilation of the region known as DEN, the fallout of which has made the region permanently uninhabitable,

Concluding that the only reason SC #192 was passed was due to the belief that many uninformed World Assembly members held that this proposal was the replacement for SC #187 Condemn DEN, which had recently been repealed, unaware that SC #192 was submitted while the replacement proposal was still being drafted,

Finding that while it is important for the Security Council to take action against Predatory regions that cause harm to others, it is equally important that the Security Council upholds its long held traditions and procedures, and hoping that removing this resolution will help encourage other aspiring Security Council authors to present their proposals for drafting before submission,

Believing that due to SC #192’s poor quality, factual inaccuracies and exclusion of major events, the Resolution should be removed from the record,

Hereby Repeals Security Council Resolution #192 "Condemn DEN".

Edit 5: Preemptive explanation of the "Predatory" thing: at no point has anyone ever used the term "Predatory regions" to describe what that phrase makes us all think of, and I am not using it to describe what we're all thinking of. Predatory means "seeking to exploit or oppress others" and DEN was a region that exploited others, therefore DEN was a Predatory region.

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I'm in no rush to submit this, and since the SC is otherwise dead right now I figured it wouldn't hurt to do something potentially controversial, if you know what I mean.

Thoughts?

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Edit 1: Minor changes.
Edit 2: It was Wallenburg who was writing the repeal, not Kaboom.
Edit 3: More minor changes.
Edit 4: More minor changes.

Ambassador Mike when walks into the room...

"The grammar mistakes alone warrant a repeal. Moreover, in addition to these mistakes, your proposal has listed plenty of reasonable arguments that my office and I find entirely suitable to support and vote in favor of this draft. Thank you for your contributions to the Security Council; the works submitted by the representatives from We Are Not the NSA are always excellent."

I can pretty well guarantee full support from TWP - #192 is a train wreck of a resolution and needs repealing, burning, burying the ashes in a peat bog and then covering with copious amounts of sodium chloride.

One minor typo detected:

Pointing outthat despite the author’s claims that DEN was known for “destroying small regions”, DEN was actually never successful in destroying any inhabited regions,

Also I think you should use "effect" rather than "affect"

Cringing at the timing of this proposal, going into affect directly before a major scandal resulted in the complete annihilation of the region known as DEN, the fallout of which has made the region permanently uninhabitable,

These minor quibbles aside this is a nice piece of work NSA, a well written repeal.

Bhang Bhang Duc wrote:I can pretty well guarantee full support from TWP - #192 is a train wreck of a resolution and needs repealing, burning, burying the ashes in a peat bog and then covering with copious amounts of sodium chloride.

One minor typo detected:

Pointing outthat despite the author’s claims that DEN was known for “destroying small regions”, DEN was actually never successful in destroying any inhabited regions,

Also I think you should use "effect" rather than "affect"

Cringing at the timing of this proposal, going into affect directly before a major scandal resulted in the complete annihilation of the region known as DEN, the fallout of which has made the region permanently uninhabitable,

These minor quibbles aside this is a nice piece of work NSA, a well written repeal.

Fixed.

Adytus wrote:Ambassador Mike when walks into the room...

"The grammar mistakes alone warrant a repeal. Moreover, in addition to these mistakes, your proposal has listed plenty of reasonable arguments that my office and I find entirely suitable to support and vote in favor of this draft. Thank you for your contributions to the Security Council; the works submitted by the representatives from We Are Not the NSA are always excellent."

Colonel Agnarsson bows over her podium, "You are too kind Ambassador. We merely help out where we are needed, like many of the representatives in these halls."

*The RCS ambassador walks in*

Ahh, that's a scent I haven't smelled in a while, I didn't really care for DEN and still don't like most raider organizations, but that's beside the point. It's always good to see you NSA and I wish you well on your idea, and will gladly support this.

Oh my God, #192 is a terrible resolution. Burn it and then salt its fields.

I've made some minor edits, nothing really noteworthy. Unless anyone has any comments, I think I'm going to submit this later today, but do no campaigning for it. See if I can stir up some debate on the rmbs, or here, and see if a manual campaign will be enough to cut it on this one. I always choose the complicated proposals for some reason.

I don't think I'm going to really make an attempt to get it to vote until after Kemi's proposal to Commend Benevolent Thomas hits the floor. Unlike hers I may actually need someone to run an auto-telegram campaign for me.

Honestly, the mods should just purge the condemnation from the records, just as they purged the region. This way, no form of DEN would exist in the WA's records.

Benevolent Thomas wrote:Honestly, the mods should just purge the condemnation from the records, just as they purged the region. This way, no form of DEN would exist in the WA's records.

That's removing a piece of NS history, I think we should all be remembering their legacy and the good they've done for this game

On another note, I do think the resolution should be repealed, as DEN doesn't exactly do anything anymore (since they don't exist)

Vetelo wrote:On another note, I do think the resolution should be repealed, as DEN doesn't exactly do anything anymore (since they don't exist)

The long debate over what DEN was an acronym for has been settled; it Doesn't Exist Now.

Oh yeah, since there are now things going on in the SC again, I won't be submitting this until the next lull in activity. There's no need to rush this. Still looking for comments and suggestions though.

DEN? What's DEN?

....

I have just been informed that I don't need to pretend I forgot DEN as I thought everyone was doing, therefore I support this repeal.

Submitted to test the waters.

You ought tell people why textual quality is more important than any badge on their page.

Imperium Anglorum wrote:You ought tell people why textual quality is more important than any badge on their page.

But there is no badge on the page, the region no longer exists.

Imperium Anglorum wrote:You ought tell people why textual quality is more important than any badge on their page.

This arguments wasn't a problem last time I used it, and as Wrapper said, it's not like it serves a purpose anymore. No one will ever notice SC 192 again unless they go looking for it or they decide to read... the past... resolut... I can't say that with a straight face. XD

The funny part was that I never knew SC #192 existed until this repeal. I was in Europe that week and it got buried by Commend SP.

Nohbdy wrote:

Imperium Anglorum wrote:You ought tell people why textual quality is more important than any badge on their page.

This arguments wasn't a problem last time I used it, and as Wrapper said, it's not like it serves a purpose anymore. No one will ever notice SC 192 again unless they go looking for it or they decide to read... the past... resolut... I can't say that with a straight face. XD

Okay. Then explain to me why textual quality is important. And why the rectification of textual quality is more important than any other impacts: like effective repudiation of the SC's condemnation, the fact that the SC cannot pass a new resolution on the topic, etc.

Continued on a puppet since I am not in any way representing Europe in this matter — why is textual quality more important than the fact that repeal effectively repudiates the baseline actions set by the NationStates community as a whole and prevents any legislation on the topic from existing in the future (as Wrapper pointed out)? You tell me in your telegram that 192 SC is an "incomplete account of DEN’s actions". Given that is important, the comparative here is between an incomplete (and admittedly crap) account of DEN's actions and no such account in the SC books whatsoever.

But more fundamentally, I've constantly seen people rail against bad writing (and I'll admit that I have done so as well) but give no reasons why that is inherently bad. People railed about how the WSA debacle was horribly written. But why is that important? What are the impacts of it being horribly written? Or, if there are few impacts and we care only about ends, why is bad prose bad in of itself? But finally, in the case of a proposal to take some action, why are those impacts important enough to both justify repeal and outweigh any disadvantages?

Imperium Anglorum wrote:

Nohbdy wrote:This arguments wasn't a problem last time I used it, and as Wrapper said, it's not like it serves a purpose anymore. No one will ever notice SC 192 again unless they go looking for it or they decide to read... the past... resolut... I can't say that with a straight face. XD

Okay. Then explain to me why textual quality is important. And why the rectification of textual quality is more important than any other impacts: like effective repudiation of the SC's condemnation, the fact that the SC cannot pass a new resolution on the topic, etc.

In normal circumstances textual quality can be given some leeway when compared to the resolution's impacts, but these are not normal circumstances. Unlike the last version of Condemn DEN the Security Council was forced to repeal, the basis for repealing it is not the spelling and grammar, but the claims of the proposal.

My counter to your argument is that, imho, the 4 resolutions that have to do with DEN (with this one included) say enough, and are easy enough to find just by reading this one, to give a reasonably accurate explanation of what DEN has done, especially considering the indirect reference I made to Predator in this proposal.

With the deletion of DEN, SC 192 ceased to have any actual effects; it is an entirely symbolic representation of the World Assembly's opinion. So, we have on our hands a resolution that does not actually condemn anyone any more, that tells an account of the actions of a region that is not at all accurate. In my opinion, as long as we're going to have a resolution on the matter that doesn't actually condemn anyone, it is better for that resolution to be a repeal that finishes the story and provides a few more insults to DEN's character than for it to be a condemnation that does not tell a full or accurate story, and was by the author's own admission, poorly written.

We Are Not the NSA wrote:With the deletion of DEN, SC 192 ceased to have any actual effects; it is an entirely symbolic representation of the World Assembly's opinion.

All commendations and condemnations are "entirely symbolic representation(s) of the World Assembly's opinion" and have no actual effects.

We Are Not the NSA wrote:In my opinion, as long as we're going to have a resolution on the matter that doesn't actually condemn anyone, it is better for that resolution to be a repeal that finishes the story and provides a few more insults to DEN's character than for it to be a condemnation that does not tell a full or accurate story, and was by the author's own admission, poorly written.

The DEN High Command went out of its way to ensure that both condemnations of the DEN were passed by the Security Council with flying colors. It wasn't because we liked the content or the author, but we followed the mantra of "any publicity is good publicity." In light of this, a poorly-written resolution garners more attention and ensures that a successful repeal will occur in the future, only to have another incomprehensible resolution take its place.

At the same time, opponents of the DEN will have to decide if they prefer yet another permanent mention of its name in the annals of the World Assembly with the repeal of a "useless" condemnation or if they would rather let the badge and organization fade into distant memory.

But if we permanently repeal this 'permanent' resolution with a repeal that stays on the books of the WA permanently, NSA will get a pretty permanent badge for removing a badge that is already permanently gone. DEN is permanently gone, and the name is permanently blocked from being recreated.

In all seriousness, I'm against this, let sleeping dogs lie, and I was a bit surprised it was NSA's badge hunt rather than someone else attempting it.

North Pacific Spy wrote:But if we permanently repeal this 'permanent' resolution with a repeal that stays on the books of the WA permanently, NSA will get a pretty permanent badge for removing a badge that is already permanently gone. DEN is permanently gone, and the name is permanently blocked from being recreated.

In all seriousness, I'm against this, let sleeping dogs lie, and I was a bit surprised it was NSA's badge hunt rather than someone else attempting it.

What makes you think it's a badge hunt? I've been trying to repeal it since it was passed.

As the author of one of the previous attempts to repeal this, I support your repeal resolution.

I've got a better motivation: DEN no longer exists. The WA cannot stand in opposition to entities that do not exist.