[DEFEATED] Commend Crushing Our Enemies

[Jakker City]

If we're intent on recognising him, why a commendation over a condemnation? Raiding regions isn't particularly commendable, and the non raiding achievements seem to be exclusive to one region bar a song. Looks like, as with many other votes, the individual votes are against by large margins but in the total vote, the for side is winning due to the large delegates drowning out the individual voices.

As I have said multiple times, the proposal lists qualities, values, and organization that the nominee brought to TBH and the raiding community. It is not commending raiding. It is commending the work that they did to foster positive OOC values. We also have had commendations that listed achievements from only one region so that should not be disqualifier either. Lastly, two songs are listed. Two really good songs that I would argue has inspired several others to song write in NationStates.

[McMasterdonia]

I mean, if they're gonna send out propaganda telegrams, they might as well try to actually write down the right guy getting the commendation (even if it is the same person).

lmao trying to commend a nation for destroying regions through raiding..and then once caught doing so, they attempt to make it seem like its for something else that a different nation (althou a puppet of the same dude) has done

big kek

The proposal itself mentions both nations as did the telegram. This is not a difficult concept to grasp.

[Kananji]

The Security Council is tasked with “spreading interregional peace and goodwill”, yet today is voting on a proposal that does the opposite of that. The proposal to “Commend Crushing Our Enemies” explicitly honors the nominee for engaging in the gameplay practice of raiding - where a foreign army enters a region en masse to seize control of the WA Delegate’s post and destroy the regional government. Raiding is anything but commendable, it is the destruction and defamation of regions by organizations who don't care about native communities. It is the utter lack of respect for regional sovereignty and the right to exist peacefully. I strongly urge a vote AGAINST “Commend Crushing Our Enemies”.

The nominee of this proposal, as this proposal states in the opening clauses, is a member of the Raiding Hall of Fame and a leader of The Black Hawks. While I don't dispute the fact that they may be worthy of commendation for acts in TNP, they most certainly are not worthy of commendation for leading one of Nationstates most destructive raiding organizations ever. The Black Hawks now hold two condemnations for their raiding actions, and are now trying to commend one of their own.

To demonstrate the harmful impact of raiding, I offer a testimonial from a raid victim of The Black Hawks from just last weekend.

Awesomeland012345 was WA Delegate of a region The Black Hawks raided recently. They wrote on their RMB:
“WHY DID YOU RAID US [...] pls endorse me so that I can restore everything that took 5 hours to do”
Due to a raid by The Black Hawks, another region like yours, with natives trying to set their own course, lost their foreign policy and regional architecture. The leaders of a new and aspiring region were cheated out of their shot at a community for their region by The Black Hawks.

Raiders will attack any region, at any time, for any reason. They will destroy small, innocent communities whenever and wherever they can. I ask you, is that a commendable activity?

The only reason this reached a vote is that The Black Hawks occupied regions to force a vote. That's right. They don't care about commending a worthy nation, they care about commending one of their own, so much that they are willing to use force to undermine the deliberative process of the Security Council.

They will try to coat this telegram as slander, they will try to vilify it. It is not slander, it is truth and they are afraid of you listening to the truth. Do not let them beat us, do not let them commend someone for raiding activities.



-President of Kananji

[Praeceps]

If you look at the telegram you'll see that we skipped all regions with the same laws as us, laws against non-consensual campaigning. If there was a region with such policies that I missed, I apologize and would appreciate it if you point them out to me so that I can directly apologize to their leadership.

As far as I know, TNP, Europe and Europeia were the regions excluded from the mass telegram. Funnily enough, none of these regions have a policy against mass campaign telegrams. The World Assembly Accord on Campaign Spam was terminated over 3 years ago, and 10000 Islands should know this since they were one of the original signatories.

I would expect The Minister of World Assembly Affairs for The North Pacific to have a passing knowledge of the laws of their allied regions—especially as it relates to mass campaign telegrams. Really, it only takes less than 5 minutes to find out that your statement has no factual base.

[Cormactopia Prime]

COE and I haven't always seen eye to eye on things, to say the least, but I'm glad to see this is passing now, albeit narrowly. I was disappointed to see it briefly failing shortly after it went to vote. Whatever you might think of COE's raiding, he's done a hell of a lot more than raiding. I've been playing this game for nearly eight years now and for the bulk of that I've known him not primarily as a raider, but as someone dedicated to TNP. To the point of frustration, sometimes, for those who would have preferred to see him return to more actively raiding and taking a more active role in TBH again, etc.

So I think to reduce this to "why are we commending a raider for raiding?" is sort of absurd and reductionist. We're not commending him for raiding.

[PotatoFarmers]

COE and I haven't always seen eye to eye on things, to say the least, but I'm glad to see this is passing now, albeit narrowly. I was disappointed to see it briefly failing shortly after it went to vote. Whatever you might think of COE's raiding, he's done a hell of a lot more than raiding. I've been playing this game for nearly eight years now and for the bulk of that I've known him not primarily as a raider, but as someone dedicated to TNP. To the point of frustration, sometimes, for those who would have preferred to see him return to more actively raiding and taking a more active role in TBH again, etc.

So I think to reduce this to "why are we commending a raider for raiding?" is sort of absurd and reductionist. We're not commending him for raiding.

I have a different issue from you here. I am not saying that we are reducing this to "why are we commending a raider for raiding", I am asking "why are we commending a person for his contributions, which includes raiding"? If that entire paragraph on raiding is removed, I would definitely vote for it. Put that section in and now I feel like we are setting a terrible precedent for future SC proposals. You cannot simply acknowledge the raiding history of someone in a commendation and expect to run away with it safely.

[Bormiar]

The Security Council is tasked with “spreading interregional peace and goodwill”, yet today is voting on a proposal that does the opposite of that. The proposal to “Commend Crushing Our Enemies” explicitly honors the nominee for engaging in the gameplay practice of raiding - where a foreign army enters a region en masse to seize control of the WA Delegate’s post and destroy the regional government. Raiding is anything but commendable, it is the destruction and defamation of regions by organizations who don't care about native communities. It is the utter lack of respect for regional sovereignty and the right to exist peacefully. I strongly urge a vote AGAINST “Commend Crushing Our Enemies”.

The nominee of this proposal, as this proposal states in the opening clauses, is a member of the Raiding Hall of Fame and a leader of The Black Hawks. While I don't dispute the fact that they may be worthy of commendation for acts in TNP, they most certainly are not worthy of commendation for leading one of Nationstates most destructive raiding organizations ever. The Black Hawks now hold two condemnations for their raiding actions, and are now trying to commend one of their own.

To demonstrate the harmful impact of raiding, I offer a testimonial from a raid victim of The Black Hawks from just last weekend.

Awesomeland012345 was WA Delegate of a region The Black Hawks raided recently. They wrote on their RMB:
“WHY DID YOU RAID US [...] pls endorse me so that I can restore everything that took 5 hours to do”
Due to a raid by The Black Hawks, another region like yours, with natives trying to set their own course, lost their foreign policy and regional architecture. The leaders of a new and aspiring region were cheated out of their shot at a community for their region by The Black Hawks.

Raiders will attack any region, at any time, for any reason. They will destroy small, innocent communities whenever and wherever they can. I ask you, is that a commendable activity?

The only reason this reached a vote is that The Black Hawks occupied regions to force a vote. That's right. They don't care about commending a worthy nation, they care about commending one of their own, so much that they are willing to use force to undermine the deliberative process of the Security Council.

They will try to coat this telegram as slander, they will try to vilify it. It is not slander, it is truth and they are afraid of you listening to the truth. Do not let them beat us, do not let them commend someone for raiding activities.



-President of Kananji

Is that entire post just copy and paste from Kuriko’s telegram?

[Cormactopia Prime]

I have a different issue from you here. I am not saying that we are reducing this to "why are we commending a raider for raiding", I am asking "why are we commending a person for his contributions, which includes raiding"? If that entire paragraph on raiding is removed, I would definitely vote for it. Put that section in and now I feel like we are setting a terrible precedent for future SC proposals. You cannot simply acknowledge the raiding history of someone in a commendation and expect to run away with it safely.

The proposal isn't commending him for raiding though, it's commending him for leadership of a raider region, and those two things are different. What you do in leadership of a region, even a raider region, is more than just raiding. Whatever you may think of TBH's raiding, the fact of the matter is it stands out as the most professional and respectable raider region currently in existence, and possibly in the history of this game. That simply can't be denied. Compare and contrast TBH's response to Predator, for example, with the responses of DEN and its affiliated regions and individuals. That's just one of many examples of how TBH is simply better than other raider regions, and it's better in large part because COE was in its leadership and made it better.

I don't see any reason that shouldn't be commended. If a raider makes a raider region more professional, more respectable, more willing to play by the rules and treat others fairly within the boundaries of what we're doing here, why shouldn't we commend that? That doesn't mean you're commending the act of raiding itself. Nowhere in this proposal is a single raid mentioned as commendable. We shouldn't confuse commending members of raider leadership with commending raiding. Where does that stop? Should Delegates of Osiris be considered no longer commendable because Osiris is a raider region and its Delegate is the commander-in-chief of its military? It's absurd. It's reductionist. And 10000 Islands frankly looks ludicrous right now.

Also, to anyone asking who we're supposed to condemn if we start commending raiders: Still raiders. It's not like the two badges can't exist side by side. If someone has done enough commendable and condemnable things to warrant commendation and condemnation, give them both. Don't just ignore everything commendable they've done and try to force them into a black and white box forged by 10000 Islands, one of the most extremist regions in this game.

[Imperium Anglorum]

As far as I know, TNP, Europe and Europeia were the regions excluded from the mass telegram. Funnily enough, none of these regions have a policy against mass campaign telegrams. The World Assembly Accord on Campaign Spam was terminated over 3 years ago, and 10000 Islands should know this since they were one of the original signatories.

My thanks to XKI and TNP for respecting Europe's expressed preferences. Europe remains the only signatory to the Accord, which is domestically enforced as the Telegrams (World Assembly) Act 2016.

[HumanSanity]

The proposal isn't commending him for raiding though, it's commending him for leadership of a raider region, and those two things are different. What you do in leadership of a region, even a raider region, is more than just raiding.

In terms of the effect on the global community, this is still promoting actively raiding. It doesn't really matter who is running point. It does matter who is creating enabling conditions for raids to occur - which COE actively does according to the proposal.

Whatever you may think of TBH's raiding, the fact of the matter is it stands out as the most professional and respectable raider region currently in existence, and possibly in the history of this game. That simply can't be denied. Compare and contrast TBH's response to Predator, for example, with the responses of DEN and its affiliated regions and individuals. That's just one of many examples of how TBH is simply better than other raider regions, and it's better in large part because COE was in its leadership and made it better.

What if, I realize this is radical, we recognized raiding is still bad and did not condemn raiding regions.
In terms of interregional peace and goodwill, the best case scenario is that TBH is a weak organization with few members, no incentives, and disorganized leadership. I realize this sounds malicious - it isn't. It's just the end point to the belief that raiding is wrong.
There are no gold stars for not being DEN and literally cheating the game. Raiding still does not spread interregional peace and goodwill.

Should Delegates of Osiris be considered no longer commendable because Osiris is a raider region and its Delegate is the commander-in-chief of its military? It's absurd. It's reductionist.

Sigh. In case it's not clear, I'll clarify. I can't speak for every person in 10000 Islands or its government, but I can say that I personally have no problem Commending people with some raider affiliations for a collective body of high quality work. COE's work in TNP is impressive and I trust TNPers in their collective assessment of COE's meaningful contributions.
I also trust natives in their assessment of the damage TBH has done to their communities. I personally would vote For a Commendation of COE that does not include references to work in TBH or raiding.

And 10000 Islands frankly looks ludicrous right now.

Don't just ignore everything commendable they've done and try to force them into a black and white box forged by 10000 Islands, one of the most extremist regions in this game.

We believe a thing. Centrism is not a sign of strength, it's just another position.
Even if you don't agree that raiding is immoral, raiding is not in line with the goals of the Security Council. 10000 Islands did not forge this box, the role of the SC did.
We're just fine with how we look. The subject of the thread is the proposal to Commend COE currently at vote. 10000 Islands' WA Delegate, on behalf of the region's government, is opposed to the proposal. Please yeet your unsolicited opinions about our foreign policy.

[Cormactopia Prime]

In terms of the effect on the global community, this is still promoting actively raiding. It doesn't really matter who is running point. It does matter who is creating enabling conditions for raids to occur - which COE actively does according to the proposal.

And so has every Delegate of Osiris since September 2013. Should they all be ruled out too? Where does this invisible line against "raid enabling" end?

What if, I realize this is radical, we recognized raiding is still bad and did not condemn raiding regions.
In terms of interregional peace and goodwill, the best case scenario is that TBH is a weak organization with few members, no incentives, and disorganized leadership. I realize this sounds malicious - it isn't. It's just the end point to the belief that raiding is wrong.
There are no gold stars for not being DEN and literally cheating the game. Raiding still does not spread interregional peace and goodwill.

"Spreading interregional peace and goodwill" is a slogan. When you move beyond slogans and into practical reality, we recognize varied people for nuanced contributions all the time, and if we were going to go by the metric of who has advanced interregional peace and goodwill and who hasn't, there are a lot of commendations on the books that need to be repealed. Most people have a mix of things they've contributed to this game. Here, I'll give you one example: Astarial, whom I think most can agree has on balance made a positive contribution. But she also authorized creation of the Sekhmet Legion of Osiris, Osiris' raider military, and permitted it to engage in extremely destructive raids. Should we repeal her commendation too?

Again, I guess I want to know where your invisible moral line begins and ends. Who's ruled out of bounds by 10000 Islands' little inquisition?

Sigh. In case it's not clear, I'll clarify. I can't speak for every person in 10000 Islands or its government, but I can say that I personally have no problem Commending people with some raider affiliations for a collective body of high quality work. COE's work in TNP is impressive and I trust TNPers in their collective assessment of COE's meaningful contributions.
I also trust natives in their assessment of the damage TBH has done to their communities. I personally would vote For a Commendation of COE that does not include references to work in TBH or raiding.

A commendation that didn't include references to COE's work in TBH or raiding would be an incomplete commendation, because whether you and 10000 Islands like it or not, some of the contributions he's made there have been positive not only for TBH but for the game. I realize this doesn't fit your region's black and white extremist worldview, and that it has long been your region's first inclination to dismiss and ban anything and everything that doesn't fit your narrow parameters, but be that as it may, COE's positive contributions to raiding are commendable and should be in this commendation.

We believe a thing. Centrism is not a sign of strength, it's just another position.
Even if you don't agree that raiding is immoral, raiding is not in line with the goals of the Security Council. 10000 Islands did not forge this box, the role of the SC did.
We're just fine with how we look. The subject of the thread is the proposal to Commend COE currently at vote. 10000 Islands' WA Delegate, on behalf of the region's government, is opposed to the proposal. Please yeet your unsolicited opinions about our foreign policy.

What I'm saying here isn't even "centrism." I'm not defending the act of raiding. I'm just being reasonable about commending that which is commendable and condemning that which is worthy of condemnation, based on its merits rather than some imaginary line between raiding and defending. I have no interest in observing some invisible moral line drawn by 10000 Islands between what you folks think is right and wrong, and neither should anyone else.

Your region's foreign policy became part of this discussion when your region's government signed a counter-campaign telegram. That's how it goes.

In regard to yeeting my unsolicited opinions, no one's been able to do anything about my unpopular opinions for going on eight years now. Sorry!

[Unibot III]

Europe remains the only signatory to the Accord, which is domestically enforced as the Telegrams (World Assembly) Act 2016.

Not big on freedom of expression, thought, or choice in Europe, I see.

I'm surprised such an Accord would even pass S1&2 of TNP Bill of Rights ... but then again, their ruling on "the TNP Flag as a National Flag" makes you wonder.

[Imperium Anglorum]

Come over and lobby on the RMB if you really want to make your case. WA residents in Europe voted through the Accord when it was proposed; freedom of choice is not a right that is lost simply because people come together and choose for themselves.

[Lord Dominator]

I'm surprised such an Accord would even pass S1&2 of TNP Bill of Rights ... but then again, their ruling on "the TNP Flag as a National Flag" makes you wonder.

Which looks to only apply to resident nations, which the vast majority of those sending campaign tgs are not.

(note, it was later repealed for policy rather than legal reasons)

[Arkoudan]

From the perspective of a young region striving to implement democracy, I strongly oppose this commendation. While small regions like Slatos work hard to build open communities and protect their own sovereignty, raiders like [nation=noflag]Crushing Our Enemies[/nation] are a constant threat. They endanger the development of democracy and threaten small regions. As an advocate of such regions, King [nation=noflag]Arkoudan[/nation] of Slatos opposes this resolution and encourages others to do so.

[HumanSanity]

A commendation that didn't include references to COE's work in TBH or raiding would be an incomplete commendation, because whether you and 10000 Islands like it or not, some of the contributions he's made there have been positive not only for TBH but for the game.

Well, no. It would be complete because it would include the full set of Commendable things that COE has done. Activity in TBH is not Commendable. Region-building in TNP is.

I realize this doesn't fit your region's black and white extremist worldview, and that it has long been your region's first inclination to dismiss and ban anything and everything that doesn't fit your narrow parameters, but be that as it may, COE's positive contributions to raiding are commendable and should be in this commendation.

A positive contribution to raiding is not a positive contribution to regional sovereignty, communities other than TBH itself, and broader interregional peace. It is a contribution to a narrow subset of the community which has fun at the expense of others.

Additionally, I reject these characterizations about my "region's first inclination to dismiss and ban anything and everything that doesn't fit [its] narrow parameters". As someone who was banned from 10000 Islands, was subsequently unbanned after service to other defender regions and allies, and then returned several years later, I resent this. I resent when 10KI bashers invoke this idea to discredit a region that is simply governing its own affairs as they see fit.
People in 10000 Islands can and do express alternate viewpoints. If they didn't, I would've been re-banned. Like five different times. Instead, I'm a member of the political leadership of the region. In fact, through expressing my view points, which are "reformist" some things have changed while others haven't. That's politics, that's the way it goes, and I'm really tired of people outside our region acting like because reformers suited up for a battle and lost therefore the region is clamping down on dissent.

In regard to yeeting my unsolicited opinions, no one's been able to do anything about my unpopular opinions for going on eight years now. Sorry!

[Kananji]

Congratulations! We're winning by a sliver. Keep it up. We cannot let this evil nation get Commended.



-President of Kananji

[Xeknos]

I think that "Lol it's just a video game" is a piss poor justification for destroying something people have worked hard to build. Hard against.

[Kananji]

We're winning by 200 votes! It's gonna be a close one. Keep it up.


-President of Kananji

[Kananji]

I think that "Lol it's just a video game" is a piss poor justification for destroying something people have worked hard to build. Hard against.

I AGREE! FULLY!

-President of Kananji

[Bormiar]

We're winning by 200 votes! It's gonna be a close one. Keep it up.


-President of Kananji

We?

[Strobemark]

Everyone vote against this resolution, COE has pointlessly destroyed thousands of small regions like mine for his own sadistic pleasure.

[Bormiar]

Everyone vote against this resolution, COE has pointlessly destroyed thousands of small regions like mine for his own sadistic pleasure.

Emphasis mine. I call bull.

[Green Days and Equality]

I am strongly against this. Even if you are commending his contributions to the raiding community and not directly endorsing raiding, the two go hand in hand!!! All you are doing is using COE as the middle man because by endorsing someone who helps raids you are not directly doing it.

[Warden Roavin]

The perfidious thing about this resolution is that it has been soiled by being a thinly-veiled advertisement for TBH and thereby undermining an otherwise great resolution for a wholly deserving nominee. If I was COE, I would be absolutely furious at Jakker.