Embassy of the South Pacific

[Glen-Rhodes]

I never said that no forum had been moved to before a vote - I said "No TSP forum before Hileville's has been accepted as official before the Assembly has voted to move to it". I remembered the IPB crisis.

Three things though are significant to remember about the IPB crisis: (1) the Zeta forum was actually unavailable, (2) you still felt the need to vote on the move in the Assembly, (3) soon after the move, the procedure for forum transitions would be added to the constitution to clarify how these moves were supposed to be done.

You are wrong yet again. The w11 zetaboards forum was not unavailable. SB, Milo, Bel, and myself decided to move to IPB. We had a very brief discussion on it and then moved. It was never voted on. After that move we added the clauses into the Charter for where the official forum is hosted.

Idk this looks like much more than "a very brief discussion." Looks kinda like a vote, really: http://w11.zetaboards.com/The_South_Pac ... 8454010/1/


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[Unibot III]

You are wrong yet again. The w11 zetaboards forum was not unavailable. SB, Milo, Bel, and myself decided to move to IPB. We had a very brief discussion on it and then moved. It was never voted on. After that move we added the clauses into the Charter for where the official forum is hosted.

Idk this looks like much more than "a very brief discussion." Looks kinda like a vote, really: http://w11.zetaboards.com/The_South_Pac ... 8454010/1/


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9-1, even.

[Hileville]

There was no Assembly vote. The move wasn't done by passing a law. There was a discussion with an opinion poll.

Don't forget the one true forum of TSP.

We should add that link to the archives.

[Mallorea and Riva]

There was no Assembly vote. The move wasn't done by passing a law. There was a discussion with an opinion poll.

Don't forget the one true forum of TSP.

We should add that link to the archives.

That you should.

[Consular]

Tried is such a strong word. Tried implies that he acted on it. Thought would be more correct here. And really, who doesn't think about getting friends into your region and into the government once?

Todd prefers his treason watered down. Me, I like it straight, but hey.

It had nothing to do with TEP's government, and I should think everyone with a shred of maturity is past that blatant display of consummate foolishness. That was 2014 for God's sake. Everyone already received their just rewards for playing around with the idea. And again, I reiterate, TEP's collective government was as dismayed about the whole thing as anyone else, particularly since it could easily have implicated TEP's participation as a region. Well, we didn't. Most of us wanted nothing to do with TSP. Being dragged into nonsense approaching two years old now is quite unwelcome.

I'm sure TEP's government would greatly appreciate you not involving us in this issue.

I really don't much care what TEP's government would or would not appreciate.

We all make mistakes. Something you should be extremely familiar with, considering you were sleeping at the switch during the Nazi Europe raid.

Ouch. So defensive.

[Cormac Stark]

<snip>

Why are you so hostile to TEP? What have they done that has prompted this latest asinine behavior from you? And most importantly, why does Albion keep putting you in high positions so when you antagonize people and regions for something that has nothing to do with you or Albion, it negatively reflects not only on you, but on Albion?

[Todd McCloud]

-snip-

FPNS wishes to thank you for your recent telegram, which made headline news for about a day. While I'm cautious, they believe that someone with as strong of a grasp on NS diplomacy as yourself must have written the document and possibly distributed it to other individuals. You are an inspiration everywhere across the gameplay spectrum, and no one can take that from you.

Based on what I've heard, a biography deal may be in your future. If I were you, which I'm not, I wouldn't take the first offer. Try to haggle a bit to see if you can get more out of it.

[Xoriet]

I really don't much care what TEP's government would or would not appreciate.

Oh, I'm sorry, I must not have phrased that clearly enough. TEP's government kindly requests that you mind your own business on issues involving TEP that have absolutely nothing to do with you or any region you are in. As much as we couldn't care less about your conspiracy-theorist level factual inaccuracies ourselves, there is no shortage of people who actually believe that sort of rhetoric and we'd prefer that they don't believe anything you say on issues you have nothing to do with and know nothing about, really.

[Disco Viking]

This is way too much TEP in a thread that was discussing an exciting TSP event.

[Tim-Opolis]

This is way too much TEP in a thread that was discussing an exciting TSP event.

Thank you for this thrilling contribution to the debate dynamic of this thread. Given that The East Pacific, in this specific instance, was from how I read it brought up relation to Operation Brave Little Toaster, something very much relevant to The South Pacific, I'm not sure what the issue is with a continued extrapolation on an event that was rather significant to the general dynamic between The South Pacific and one of their fellow Feeder regions.

[The Silver Sentinel]

This is way too much TEP in a thread that was discussing an exciting TSP event.

Thank you for this thrilling contribution to the debate dynamic of this thread. Given that The East Pacific, in this specific instance, was from how I read it brought up relation to Operation Brave Little Toaster, something very much relevant to The South Pacific, I'm not sure what the issue is with a continued extrapolation on an event that was rather significant to the general dynamic between The South Pacific and one of their fellow Feeder regions.

I want to know who came up with the name for that operation.

[Hileville]

Thank you for this thrilling contribution to the debate dynamic of this thread. Given that The East Pacific, in this specific instance, was from how I read it brought up relation to Operation Brave Little Toaster, something very much relevant to The South Pacific, I'm not sure what the issue is with a continued extrapolation on an event that was rather significant to the general dynamic between The South Pacific and one of their fellow Feeder regions.

I want to know who came up with the name for that operation.

The South Pacific used a challenge system for Delegate up until 2011. The name of the forum that you would announce your challenge for Delegate was Brave Little Toaster. So Brave Little Toaster came from that.

NOTE: I had absolutely no involvement in OBLT and wasn't around during that mess.

[Glen-Rhodes]

There was no Assembly vote. The move wasn't done by passing a law. There was a discussion with an opinion poll.

Don't forget the one true forum of TSP.

We should add that link to the archives.

And if people didn't approve of moving forums, you'd have done it anyways, I'm sure.


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[Unibot III]

Unfortunately some of the debate surrounding how significant s.1 is, is my fault actually. You see s.1 under the Forum Administration section was quite new when I was Speaker. Nobody had really dealt with it. I was speaker and I was trying to be a stickler for the rules but, I think, I made a grave error in interpreting the law - since then I've studied RL constitutional law far more and have become more accustom to thinking through laws more substantively and less literally. The Admins in 2014 had wanted to move the forum to a different server which would change the forum's url and cause the url to be a different url than the one in the constitution. Taking s.1 literally as a full-on declaration of the url which belongs to the official forum, I advised the players in the debate that if they wanted to move the forum to a different server, a constitutional amendment to change the url in the constitution would probably be necessary because the url would be wrong in the constitution. This marked a year-long discussion on the merits of private-ownership of the forum that stalled a community decision over whether to move servers - since no constitutional amendment ever had precisely enough support it needed to pass.

Nowadays I think s.1 can be interpreted differently as a descriptive clause - just something that expresses the current circumstances - the url of the official forum. This way of interpreting the constitution sees a forum as something structural - like the roots and stem of the tree: the content of a forum is the branches that grow organically like a community, the server space is the soil, the name of the tree is the url (the identifying factor) - but the forum is identifiable as the same forum no matter how many branches (content) you clip off, or what people call it, or what they carve into the tree, or even where the tree is situated - it's the same tree until it isn't. That's the unifying feature that establishes the continuity between when a forum is the same forum and when a new forum has started. Under this way of thinking, s.2 and s.3 are really the significant procedural clauses - because those clauses outline a simple two-step algorithm, a process, under which anyone can identify which forum is official. Since s.1 is basically descriptive - cosmetic - a speaker would be allowed to update it with the official forum's url using their discretionary powers without even a vote, because the url isn't important, what's important is that the url belongs to the official forum and that the official forum is, in fact, official.

Not all of this is strictly relevant to the discussion because s.3 was clearly violated by Hileville's Cabinet. But this other way of interpreting the clause gets rid of the paradox of what happens whens one forum was approved by the Assembly and another's url is in the constitution, but it wasn't created under a process that was constitutional. If I had interpreted s.1 this way years ago, we probably wouldn't have had to go through such a long debate over private ownership and in some ways I'm kind of embarrassed I hadn't thought of it before last night. I'm mentioning it with the hopes of passing the theory on to the current and future Justices tasked with the challenge of interpreting that awful url clause.

[RiderSyl]

What basically just happened in TSP:

Hileville is the white cat

[Icecream Princess]

Do you believe in miracles?

[Ambroscus Koth]

Do you believe in miracles?

YES!

[New Emeritus]

Do you believe in miracles?

Yup.

[Kazmr]

So is this still "not a coup"? Because holy shit, removing your political opponents with no democratic basis, and expelling your justice system because you disagree with their ruling is, well, exactly that... Hopefully any of the other regions still supporting Hile (if there are any) get out of there fast and realize that the coup we could all see coming was just made official.

[Zadiner]

To the nations of NationStates. If any of you are confused, this is a coup, and Hileville and his Government have committed illegal act after illegal act. He and his VD have banned our current Justice for goodness sake. I have pointed this out in my recent RMB post if anyone wants to see.

[Pacific Sopo]

The Transitional Government of The South Pacific

Delegate: Hileville
Vice Delegate: Imkitopia
Minister of Defense: Siberian Districts
Minister of Regional Affairs: Scyllaland
Minister of Foreign Affairs: Pacific Sopo
Legislative Liaison and Convention Co-Chair: SJS Republic
Legislative Liaison and Convention Co-Chair: Awesomiasa

For years, The South Pacific has faced a constant cycle of crisis, inactivity, and feuding. Various Delegates, Assemblies, and Great Councils have attempted to find solutions to the years long struggle for order and peace in TSP, yet over time, TSP’s institutions have continued to diminish and ultimately fail. Corruption, manipulation, and tyranny by majority have been overlooked and even accepted as the community has struggled to create a functioning system of government.

On January 21st, the Cabinet took the first step toward positive change. The unelected admin team of TSP’s myBB forum, specifically Kringalia (Kris) and Sangaoguo (Glen-Rhodes), had shown themselves unwilling to cooperate with the elected Cabinet, the Charter, and admin policy. After weeks of stalemate and with a unanimous vote of the Cabinet, the community moved to a new forum with a new admin team, resolving to reform the community’s relationship with their forum admins. Since the move to the new forum, numerous former citizens have felt liberated to return to The South Pacific, no longer fearing persecution by the former admins. A poll on the regional forum showed approval for the new forum exceeding that of the old.

Unfortunately, the reform efforts faced a setback on January 28th, when Justice Farengeto ruled that the forum move was inconsistent with the Charter, despite requests that he recuse himself due to conflicts of interest. The ruling was quickly put under scrutiny because of Farengeto’s close relationship with the former admin, Kringalia, with whom he had run for the Delegacy with just two months before. This conflict of interest represents a “Miscarriage of Justice” as defined by the Charter.

Because the institutions of the Coalition of The South Pacific have consistently proven themselves inadequate, broken, and corrupt; and because certain individuals have made a concerted effort to circumvent legal actions undertaken by the elected government; the Cabinet of The South Pacific has voted unanimously to take the drastic action required to restore the rule of law to our community. The Cabinet hereby:

1) dissolves The Coalition of The South Pacific, replacing it with The Transitional Government of The South Pacific.
2) removes Sandaoguo (Glen-Rhodes) and Kringalia (Kris) from the region for their determined effort to create strife in the community and increase their own personal power through illegal and unethical actions carried out as administrators of the forums.
3) temporarily removes Farengeto from the region until such a time that the situation has normalized and a new democratic regime is legally in place.
4) commits to creating a fair admin and moderation policy enshrined in law and accountable to the people and the Courts.
5) resolves to work via a Convention to create a functional, balanced, democratic system of government rooted in the ideals of the former Charter but free from its corrupting influences.
6) assures members and citizens of The South Pacific that no further removals will take place unless the sovereignty of the region is threatened.
7) seeks the support and patience of our allies during this time of transition.

Friends, allies, former and current citizens are all welcome on the region’s forum, http://thesouthpacific.org/index/, where we will begin holding a convention to draft a new governing document. We look forward to a period of fruitful development and renewal for our home, The South Pacific.

[Kazmr]

A translation of this statement:

For years, The South Pacific has faced a constant cycle of crisis, inactivity, and feuding. Various Delegates, Assemblies, and Great Councils have attempted to find solutions to the years long struggle for order and peace in TSP, yet over time, TSP’s institutions have continued to diminish and ultimately fail. Corruption, manipulation, and tyranny by majority have been overlooked and even accepted as the community has struggled to create a functioning system of government.

In response to what we feel are years of corruption and tyranny we, the executive, are arbitrarily taking power to put an end to it.

On January 21st, the Cabinet took the first step toward positive change. The unelected admin team of TSP’s myBB forum, specifically Kringalia (Kris) and Sangaoguo (Glen-Rhodes), had shown themselves unwilling to cooperate with the elected Cabinet, the Charter, and admin policy. After weeks of stalemate and with a unanimous vote of the Cabinet, the community moved to a new forum with a new admin team, resolving to reform the community’s relationship with their forum admins. Since the move to the new forum, numerous former citizens have felt liberated to return to The South Pacific, no longer fearing persecution by the former admins. A poll on the regional forum showed approval for the new forum exceeding that of the old.

Our political opponents ran the old forum, so we got rid of them. We're going to say that they ignored the constitution to distract from the fact that everything we've done has no standing under it whatsoever. We also conducted a poll on the new illegal forum of people who chose to follow us. Our supporters and co-conspirators are quite in favor!

Unfortunately, the reform efforts faced a setback on January 28th, when Justice Farengeto ruled that the forum move was inconsistent with the Charter, despite requests that he recuse himself due to conflicts of interest. The ruling was quickly put under scrutiny because of Farengeto’s close relationship with the former admin, Kringalia, with whom he had run for the Delegacy with just two months before. This conflict of interest represents a “Miscarriage of Justice” as defined by the Charter.

The courts ruled in a way we didn't like, so we removed then! How progressive, forward thinking, and democratic of us! "Some people", ie "we", put the ruling under scrutin, so our actions are obviously legitimate and not a blatent violation of the charter

Because the institutions of the Coalition of The South Pacific have consistently proven themselves inadequate, broken, and corrupt; and because certain individuals have made a concerted effort to circumvent legal actions undertaken by the elected government; the Cabinet of The South Pacific has voted unanimously to take the drastic action required to restore the rule of law to our community. The Cabinet hereby:

The assembly is supposed to be the highest power in the region, but we don't care! We'rw the cabinet! No such thing as executive overreach!

1) dissolves The Coalition of The South Pacific, replacing it with The Transitional Government of The South Pacific.

Trust us, its totally legal for the cabinet to unilaterally dissolve the constitution with no vote!

2) removes Sandaoguo (Glen-Rhodes) and Kringalia (Kris) from the region for their determined effort to create strife in the community and increase their own personal power through illegal and unethical actions carried out as administrators of the forums.

Trust us when we say that sending our opponents into exile is not at all illegal

3) temporarily removes Farengeto from the region until such a time that the situation has normalized and a new democratic regime is legally in place.

The executive is unilaterally dissolving the courts and expelling the justice so that we can make the region democratic and have no one with authority to call our actions illegal!

4) commits to creating a fair admin and moderation policy enshrined in law and accountable to the people and the Courts.

We want an adminustration team responsible to the people and courts because we ourselves aren't!

5) resolves to work via a Convention to create a functional, balanced, democratic system of government rooted in the ideals of the former Charter but free from its corrupting influences.

We're going to use our bew illegal forum filled with our supporters to make a constitution that will be totally favorable to us!

6) assures members and citizens of The South Pacific that no further removals will take place unless the sovereignty of the region is threatened.

Dont worry, only those who oppose us will be banned!

7) seeks the support and patience of our allies during this time of transition.

We hope other regions togally ignore our blatently illegal actions and join us in saying "this is not a coup".

Friends, allies, former and current citizens are all welcome on the region’s forum, http://thesouthpacific.org/index/, where we will begin holding a convention to draft a new governing document. We look forward to a period of fruitful development and renewal for our home, The South Pacific.

We want all our friends to join us in propping up our new dictatorship!

[Zadiner]

^ You took the words right out of my mouth
This is a coup

[Pacific Sopo]

All I will say in response to the above is that sometimes it is necessary to take radical steps when something has failed to work for so, so long. When problems are deeply rooted, they can't be solved in traditional ways. Yes, this is uncomfortable, and it is difficult. It's not ideal. But short-term upheaval will bring about long-term stability and democracy.

[Zadiner]

But when it's done in the way your government has done it, it is very wrong.
I might have supported a change in TSP if it wasn't secretive and was handled in a different way, by different people.