NationStates

"The aristocrats of Europe have never truly died away. They just traded in the robes and crowns for suits and silk ties."

-- Julissa Hickman, Citizen.

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"The nations of Europe which have prospered most are those which have stayed furthest from Brussels politically. Rather than seeking outright membership they have only opted into agreements intended to suit their specific needs, and thus prospered greatly. This is why Switzerland now is the wealthiest, happiest nation in Europe according to the United Nations, with more growth and immeasurably less debt compared to various E.U. member states."

-- Dr. Karston Bell, Economist.

Bereia wrote:"The aristocrats of Europe have never truly died away. They just traded in the robes and crowns for suits and silk ties."

-- Julissa Hickman, Citizen.

"Such is the current fashion, trends do change; but, we reserve the robes and crowns for purely formal ceremonial of ceremonies. Of course, military uniforms remain timeless."
-Princess Wish Darling, aristocrat, and fashion designer and columnist.

"What made the Nationalists under Chiang Kai-shek different from the Old Guard of this party? Two things: they hid behind the thin veneer brought about by their supposed ideological goal more successfully, and they were on the other side."

-Said by an unnamed member of the Taisei Yokusankai during the mid-1950s Jiyūka period.

"Do you have a permit for this weapon, sir?"

"Yes, the pertinent Constitutional Amendment, and the other permit which the State of New York unconstitutionally requires me to possess." - Robert 'Bob' Newhart, Citizen in conversation with a member of the NYPD, the exchange was entirely professional and both went about their days after a few moments.

Some of us are sane, Frenco. Sort of...

"- amid news that Dr. Keller has emigrated to Ashkera. The esteemed scientist had reportedly fallen on hard times following cancellation of multiple research grants. Keller was responsible for the development of fungus-resistant crops to be used in underdeveloped Deradian countries, which many NGOs estimate may have been responsible for saving 4-10 million lives. Senator Jones -"
- news report, United States of Elan

"No, I couldn't make the rent on my apartment. ... No, YOU don't understand. I'm up to my eyeballs in debt, my car is about to be repossessed, and I haven't eaten in two days. These guys are going to pay me hundreds of Ashkeros a week in stipend as a 'Distinguished Citizen', and there are several job offers on the table. ... Well maybe if you wanted me to stay, you should have shown me you valued me by, you know, paying me, so I can eat. ... Well that's not my problem anymore, now is it?"
- Dr. Keller, phone call

"They just want bragging rights to say that anyone who did important science is Ashkeran, even when they had nothing to do with the research or the conditions that created the scientist responsible. To say that Keller is Ashkeran now is absurd, and the same goes for his research."
- pundit

"I think there are a few ways to view it. Ashkera does that whole 'elite governance' thing and they have a lot of emphasis on intelligence, science, and tech. So they might want to gather scientific elites together in the hopes that they'll produce something useful or create a next generation of excellent scientists. Or, they're trying to incentivize good behavior like curing cancer in thousands of third-world orphans and so on. I suppose it might also just be a PR thing."
- other pundit

"It's all about taking every grid there is on the map.

Well, there's more to that. It's also about losing a grid so you get to take more grids in the future, making the opponent unable to take any grids, drop your forces by absolute surprise into one grid behind an entire ocean of enemy grids so you destroy their order and basically get all the grids, etc."
-soldier

Bereia wrote:"The aristocrats of Europe have never truly died away. They just traded in the robes and crowns for suits and silk ties."

-- Julissa Hickman, Citizen..

"And then moved to America to make use of it's lower inheritence tax?"

-Mitch Goren, Chemistry Student

Bereia wrote:"The nations of Europe which have prospered most are those which have stayed furthest from Brussels politically. Rather than seeking outright membership they have only opted into agreements intended to suit their specific needs, and thus prospered greatly. This is why Switzerland now is the wealthiest, happiest nation in Europe according to the United Nations, with more growth and immeasurably less debt compared to various E.U. member states."

-- Dr. Karston Bell, Economist.

”You’re confusing cause with effect again dear.
The economy isn’t everything, and the EU is far from perfect. But it has to be said that every current member nation has benefited massively economically from joining, from east to west and from north to south… And there are other benefits as well, it’s another level of accountability in government, another safeguard against governmental tyranny. Are your Prime Minister’s new laws taking your rights away? Well if so the EU supreme court can block them!
Plus, Switzerland, Norway and even my beloved Yorkshire, it must be said, do not ‘opt in whenever it suits them,’ they, or rather, we, follow literally ever trade rule the EU has, and have zero leverage. They say jump, we say Oui Monsieur!”
”

-Satirist Ezekiel Thrombosis

"If the 'nations of Europe which have prospered most are those which have stayed furthest from Brussels politically' - then this must be ultimate proof from the Bereian's mouth that American Constitutionalism is a foolish and degenerate ideology, given that is what the E.U is devoted to forcing on the European peoples with economic concerns being purely a means to this end. I mean I really do wish the E.U was this sinister cable of faceless technocrats...then I could easily vote for it with a clear conscience, but its not: it was set up after the War with the expressed ideological intent of ensuring the supremacy of liberal-democracy on Europe with the knowing backing of American Marshall Plan tax-dollars. "

-Zilkas Soekthar-Mesok

"General, is it true that you cut your inspection tour short to investigate last night's helicopter crash?"
"We're calling it a hard landing. The Air Cavalry has a Review Board that investigates all accidents. I'll be reading their reports but I won't be taking any active part in the inquiry."
"What's the difference between a hard landing and a crash?"
"You can fly away from a hard landing. As I understand it, that possibility has not been eliminated."
"What about the injuries?"
"The aircraft was fully loaded; that's at least ten people and there were only four injured who required hospitalization, so we can be thankful for that. I'll be visiting the hospital later today."
"Can you tell us anything about the cause of the crash?"
"We're calling it a hard landing. The Review Board will consider every possibility: weather, mechanical failure, human error...."
"What's the difference between a hard landing and a crash?"
"You're circling the airfield. Come up with some new questions and I'll talk to you later."

-- part of a conversation between General Marie-Louise Castro-Stalina and a group of reporters.

"On the next episode of Forty Years of Conflict:

California joins the Great War as the Allies hold steady along the Belkan and Northern Fronts. On the battlefield, fearsome new weapons are introduced, and a fearless soldier risks everything to rejoin the fight. And even when peace is reached, new rivalries begin and new rebellions are born." - Preview to the second episode of a documentary series titled Forty Years of Conflict, which covers every war in Rostil from 1912 to 1953.

"We are the children of a great legacy, yes. But, is it not the desire of the son to outshine his father? Discounting the Orthodox of course, bowing to their quiet god." - Alec Lien, Philosopher, 2100 Anno Domini

"It's no secret the government's incompetent. They barely managed to contain the Flood effectively. I guess people are too happy with their lives to do anything." - Gerar Logartson, writer.

"That's what I'm telling you. 'A sinister cabal of faceless technocrats' is actually the traditional form of government for Ashkera, from the mid-to-late medieval period, through the Renaissance, and onwards. The two democratic periods are really the aberration."
- historian

"Most people are idiots, Carl. Democracy therefore means rule by idiots. Why would you want that when we have perfectly good rule by smart people already?"
- militarist

"Ashkera is apparently an opposite land where democracy breeds civil war and authoritarian oligarchy stifles it."
- Bernician historian

"Am ... am ... am I the ... am I the only person who thinks it'd be literally the greatest thing ever if we, like, infected someone with the Zika virus, got her pregnant, got the resulting baby nine months later, dipped him in green paint and put little trumpet-ears on him? We'd, like, have our own baby Shrek! Greatest idea ever!"

~ Grand Curator Prokhor Stahlrim (he was high on marijuana at the time).

"Fairness is simply the creation of conditions for the disclosure of merit from equal starting-points, once the superior personalities have made themselves known - they owe no moral obligations to the inferiors, but command full license to visit upon them every enterprise of cruelty, torture or extermination where their numbers are superfluous. Indeed were it ever discovered that intellect were inherent and hereditary, it would require nonsensical moral positions to deny that those determined by genetic law to stupidity should be eradicated."

-Premier Lithastir Mythurin, in one of his Social Darwinist moods.

"Henceforth it shall not be within the legal purview of any Federal, State, County, Municipal, or other agency to require a Citizen to possess any form of legal documentation to exercise their right in this country to keep and bear arms. The language of the Constitution of these United States does not allow for these requirements."

-- Chief Justice Dalton Renwick, U.S. Supreme Court.

Bereia wrote:"Henceforth it shall not be within the legal purview of any Federal, State, County, Municipal, or other agency to require a Citizen to possess any form of legal documentation to exercise their right in this country to keep and bear arms. The language of the Constitution of these United States does not allow for these requirements."

-- Chief Justice Dalton Renwick, U.S. Supreme Court.

"Really, though, why ban the concept of gun licenses? Are, say, driver's licenses an undue restriction on the individual's freedom of movement? I mean, automobiles and firearms are both inanimate objects that can be used for totally innocent, legal, and non-criminal purposes, but could also be used- intentionally or unintentionally- to harm others. In both situations, all a license does is verify that you have been instructed how to use the object in a safe and courteous fashion, to the benefit of those around you. And where I live you require either a license or supervision from someone who has a license to drive a car or shoot a firearm. I'm just... why?"

"Well, if you had actually listened, you might have been able to infer that Justice Renwick is a strict constructionist, which means he interprets the Bereian constitution as a non-living document with strictly defined and unbreachable parameters for government. And I'm no expert on Bereian jurisprudence or law, but my guess would be that he is not alone in that opinion, at least in Bereia. By contrast, Ruridova's justice system tends towards a far more living-document interpretation of its laws, and while many Ruridovan laws do explicitly forbid certain government actions, especially in areas where certain critical rights could potentially be threatened, the laws generally allow the government wide purview in the areas where it is not expressly forbidden from action. There's also the fact that Bereians prize their right to firearms as the chiefmost of their liberties, whereas in Ruridova the right to bear arms isn't really viewed as particularly important. Really, we're talking about two vastly different political cultures and judicial systems."

"..."
- Leopold Dietkrech and Agata Novotny, in conversation

"Bereians did what now?"

"Basically they said the folks can carry swords."

"Ah, okay."

"Oh, they elected a new King too." - Two Imperials conversing about recent Bereian policies as far as they can understand them from their limited world view and general lack of education.

"Water sources and good banter are the keystones of advanced civilisations."

-The DMIOE to Neumond Wernicke

"Magic regulation? The Church did that for hundreds of years by censoring dark magic and having influence on how it is taught. Pre-existing laws already forbade magic being used to murder or to steal."
-Prince Regal Stallion, whenever magic regulation gets brought up in Vienna

"The most effective foes of despotism have never been "The People", but the well educated elite with the arrogance and selfishness necessary to think themselves far more intelligent then the governing elite. The People march only for the cause of their stomachs, they have demanded only material concessions from the established order, never its overthrow, the People start riots or rebellions - it takes an elite, a vanguard party, to start a revolution. Thus you see the poison of egalitarianism, the alliance of the super-rich and the dependent poor - against whom? Anyone who dares rise, who dares question that he might be boundlessly better prepared for ruling himself then his democratically-elected, serving-the-community proligarchs. You see it in Latin America, you see it in Africa and in Eastern Europe, stupid, populist despots-in-elect enjoying limitless powers from an even stupider populace. Freedom is not a constant, freedom is the subjective feeling of power, the anarchist and the dictator are psychologically identical insofar as each enjoys positing himself as rightly above the law, one man's freedom will always threaten another man's freedom, and hence you see that equality can only occur in equal servitude."

-Z.Maglos

"The individual cannot claim any rights against the state, as it is the state that grants him these rights in the first place."
-DmitrI Kasparov

"We landed in a cotton field, cotton everywhere, like a blizzard; couldn't see a thing. The slavers didn't put up much of a fight; they usually don't. The ones we could catch we zip-tied their hands and feet and left them to their just desserts. We burned the main house and all the other buildings. We rounded up about a hundred slaves and jammed them in everywhere. We were way overloaded and the ground was soft so we had to use JATO to get airborne. That set fire to the cotton."
-- anonymous member of Raiding Force (Romeo Foxtrot), talking to reporters after an "extraction".

"In the right circumstances a sharp mind is of more utility than the sharpest of blades."

-- President Gabriel Lawford, 1844.

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Bojikami wrote:"The individual cannot claim any rights against the state, as it is the state that grants him these rights in the first place."
-DmitrI Kasparov

"The state would not exist were it not for the individual granting it consent. It has no rights but those granted it by the people, and it is they who properly control the relationship."

-- Julissa Hickman, Citizen.