The Debating Room

[Voltaire]

Originally posted by Kirov
Voltair, what you call "romantic idealism" is a foundation and agenda of our faction, the characteristics that distinguishes us from other factions. Imagine that Miriam imposes a secular way of government becomes it's more efficient, or Morgan runs Planned (I know he can't, but that's not the matter) because he wants to pop boom...

I’ve been against romanticism since the start, and even before the planetfall I’ve argued for the abandonment of old Earth ideals of governance, and the adoption of scientific and rational means of governance. Yes, if secular government would be more efficient for Miriam, she should adopt it; Morgan should run planned if it is of benefit at the time. We shouldn’t restrict ourselves to our ideals, but rather govern in accordance with reason and logic. If something is reasonable at some point in time, and even if it contradicts our ideals, we should not be prevented from carrying it out simply because of this. We must be flexible and adaptive in the way we govern, and no rigid as we are becoming.

Originally posted by Kirov
I do consider invasion of the Hive as "liberation", but it is not his political system what gives us excuse to invade - it is the fact he declared war on us himself. Whatever we do on that matter, we are defending ourselves.

Invasion for defensive purposes, I can buy it. Invasions under the pretenses of liberation, is just BS. Ultimately we will not be going into the Hive to liberate the people, but to defend ourselves; lets not pretend that we have some altruistic motives when we don’t.

[Drogue]

Well, BS in your opinion. I still think it is a valid reason if the person who states it actually believes it. I believe it, I think we should liberate them, and I do not BS. It is only a small reason, and not enough on its own to launch a war, but nevertheless, I do believe it still.

Why should we not rule according to our ideals? We want to unite Planet under the banner of democracy, if we abandon that (as you seemed to suggest with saying Morgan should abandon FM if Planned does better) then we lose the point of our mission. To win, and to qin under the banner of democracy, we must both convince or conquer the other factions to our belief, and convince ourselves. If we win without using democracy, even if at a point it is not the best option, we have not won at all. It is now you who is denying human nature, in saying we should rule without 'romantic idealism'. Our ideals, our beliefs are an integral part of who we are. We should not rule solely by them I agree, but, whatever the situation, we should always be running democracy. You say to keep all options open, but if we do that we never make a decision. We should remove all options that we disagree with morally. For instance, when running an election campaign, killing the other candidate in order to win should never be an option. Our whole society is based on democracy, if we abandon that, we have no society. There should be [b[some[/b] options that are never used. In this sense I support the motion.

If we take out our idealism, what purpose have we left on this Planet?

If we are allied, then we obviously do not have strong disagreements with the faction, and, unless they give us reason, we should never attack them. I do not agree with absolutes on almost any issue, but on this, I make an exception. Therefore, I support the motion.

[Voltaire]

Originally posted by Drogue
Well, BS in your opinion. I still think it is a valid reason if the person who states it actually believes it. I believe it, I think we should liberate them, and I do not BS. It is only a small reason, and not enough on its own to launch a war, but nevertheless, I do believe it still.

Fine, but as I’ve stated time and time again we’re being presumptuous assuming that everyone in the Hive wants to be liberated.

Originally posted by Drogue
Why should we not rule according to our ideals? We want to unite Planet under the banner of democracy, if we abandon that (as you seemed to suggest with saying Morgan should abandon FM if Planned does better) then we lose the point of our mission. To win, and to qin under the banner of democracy, we must both convince or conquer the other factions to our belief, and convince ourselves. If we win without using democracy, even if at a point it is not the best option, we have not won at all. It is now you who is denying human nature, in saying we should rule without 'romantic idealism'. Our ideals, our beliefs are an integral part of who we are. We should not rule solely by them I agree, but, whatever the situation, we should always be running democracy. You say to keep all options open, but if we do that we never make a decision. We should remove all options that we disagree with morally. For instance, when running an election campaign, killing the other candidate in order to win should never be an option. Our whole society is based on democracy, if we abandon that, we have no society. There should be some options that are never used. In this sense I support the motion.

You’re correct in stating that it was an oversight on my part to human nature when I stated we should rule without letting our ideals get in the way. That’s not probably, and even if it were, our faction is dedicated to democracy. We should always run democracy, but does democracy always prohibit war, even wars of aggression? And I’ve stated this before, in democracy we have to have choice, for that is what democracy is all about. Can we really deny our citizens the right to choose what they want to do if we are to maintain the ideal of democracy? And it is true that we should strive to never use certain methods of achieving our goals, but that does not mean we should not consider the methods. In regards to the issue of the Morganite invasion proposed by DBTS, our citizens will most likely vote it down, and it seems that it has already fallen apart, but the point was that the choice of attacking Morgan was given, and the citizens made a decision. We need to have these sorts of debates to keep ourselves in line, if for no other reason. The government should not rule unchallenged, it must be made ready to defend its actions and its positions.

Originally posted by Drogue
If we take out our idealism, what purpose have we left on this Planet?

If we look beyond our idealism we see reality. And I believe that reality should be the founding principle for all our decisions. As stated above, we cannot, nor should we eliminate all our ideas, but nor should we govern by them alone. In this regard I agree with you.

Originally posted by Drogue
If we are allied, then we obviously do not have strong disagreements with the faction, and, unless they give us reason, we should never attack them. I do not agree with absolutes on almost any issue, but on this, I make an exception. Therefore, I support the motion.

All perfectly fine, nevertheless I still stand opposed to the absolute never, even in this case.

[Aaron Blackwell]

Voltaire,

I am sorry, but there is a lot of difference between the idea of a war with Yang and the idea of a war with Morgan.

Being a former member of the hive, I know how accurate the word liberating is, when speaking of overthrowing Yang in his own cities.

I was born there and lived there. The conditioning and the repression is so inhuman there ... it has to be stopped.
I was perhaps the only one to have been lucky enough to be able escape the hive and look for a place where human rights would mean something.

As for Morgan, on the other hand, Seeing that he has done us no harm, is one of our allies and runs a democratic government, I see no justifiable reasons to attack him. This could drastically worsen our reputations and could prevent us from gaining advantageous comercials reliationship with him or other factions.

I may not totally agree with their FM policies, but at least, it was chosen democraticaly within their faction and not imposed by Morgan ( which was intelligent enough to convice its people to support rather than force them).

[Drogue]

Originally posted by Voltaire
Fine, but as I’ve stated time and time again we’re being presumptuous assuming that everyone in the Hive wants to be liberated.

Yes, but they should have the option. If they want Yang bacl, they vote for him, and hey presto, there he is.

Originally posted by Voltaire
We should always run democracy, but does democracy always prohibit war, even wars of aggression? And I’ve stated this before, in democracy we have to have choice, for that is what democracy is all about. Can we really deny our citizens the right to choose what they want to do if we are to maintain the ideal of democracy? And it is true that we should strive to never use certain methods of achieving our goals, but that does not mean we should not consider the methods... The government should not rule unchallenged, it must be made ready to defend its actions and its positions.

Exactly, we should rule by our people. I was merely stating my opinion on the issue. If the people feel differently, then we will do that. War is not directlyprohibited by our current ideology, but I'm saying maybe it should be. I wanted to see peoples feelings about war. It is nice to have a range of views too.

Originally posted by Voltaire
If we look beyond our idealism we see reality. And I believe that reality should be the founding principle for all our decisions. As stated above, we cannot, nor should we eliminate all our ideas, but nor should we govern by them alone. In this regard I agree with you.

Reality is whatever we make it. I think we have enough support for our ideals that we can make them reality.

Originally posted by Voltaire
All perfectly fine, nevertheless I still stand opposed to the absolute never, even in this case.

That is good. I look forward to debating with you on it when the time comes for non-hypothetical talk of war.

[Drogue]

Since this seems to have run out of steam as most arguments have been heard, would everyone who wants like to sum up their opinion and argument in brief. So we know what we believe.

[GeneralTacticus]

Ok, mine:

1) We should not attack our allies under any circumstance,s as long as they remain our allies.

2) We should not go to war without some form of provocation.

3) We would gain little overall from invading Morgan right now, as he has very little worth taking and is worth more as a source of commerce.

4) We should invade the Hive once it becomes possible, because until we can eliminate them, we will never know peace with them; and because we will also gain half a continent in doing so, along with freeing the Hive people.

[Drogue]

I am for the motion, and agree with GT We should not attack without provocation. I also believe we should cancel all treaties, as opposed to surprise attacks. We should not attack until they areb no longer our allies. I agree with all of GT's points, except I think we should wait a while before attacking the Hive.

[GeneralTacticus]

That's pretty much a given, since we have no transports and no army as it stands, and we need to get Doc:Init & SFF before we really start a buildup. D:AP would be helpful, too.

[Voltaire]

We need to have all options available for use, even undesirable or morally reprehensible ones. Furthermore, we need to offer our citizens more choices, and more opposing viewpoints to choose from. Let us not utterly dismiss even something such as an attack on our allies, for we should always have the choice to do so, even if we are never to use it.

[Drogue]

First post updated for new topic:

This faction believes that not repeating the mistakes of Old Earth is more important than winning as easily as possible.

What's more important, that we win, or that we stay true to our ideals and do not repeat the mistakes of Old Earth?

[GeneralTacticus]

I don't think that's a very good way to put the topic, as no-one wants to repeat the mistakes of Earth; those who you think do (such as me) merely disagree on what the mistakes were and what would be repeating them.

[Kirov]

GT is right. The word 'mistake' is inherently negative, so there is no such a person who would like to actually 'repeat mistakes'.

I'm against the war, because:

1. Our ideals are far more important than better situation in game (tho they are slightly less important than victory - we couldn't change anything if eradicated).

2. We shouldn't betray our friends just as we shouldn't betray our ideals.

3. It would divert our mineral output from infrastructure to troops.

4. Morgan bases are too pathetic to be considered as a benefit from such a war

5. If Hive would, by any chance, land on our shores while war with Morgan, then our days are counted.

[GeneralTacticus]

Numbered, not counted. Just a correction.

[Kirov]

Thanks. I'd appreciate more often corrections (esp thru PM/mail).