Breaking our laws

[DAVOUT]

Any breaking of our laws requires a particular attention when committed by our President. Our laws have been designed to help all of us, including him, and a whole chapter concerns him only.

Forgetting quickly, or forgiving blindly does not help the finding of an effective solution; I say solution because a breaking of law is a problem, and we have a problem since our laws did not prevent him to make a fault.

Many of us believe that if the fault resulted in good, everything is OK; they are wrong, that just opens a door to the worst: the ends do not justify the means. And the negative consequences of breaking the laws cannot be appreciated in the short term, even if it seems to be positive right now.

We know that, even if The Court was willing to instruct a case - which does not seem to be true-, it would take too long to be of any use. We appreciate also that any punishment ordered by the Senate are either illegal or have discouraging side effects. So, we are left with few possibilities; one of them would be that, if such an occurrence would have to be experienced again, the Senate issues a bill nominating a Special Senate Envoy in charge of attending all the chats until the end of the President mandate, for warning him of potential breakings of laws which could happen during the chat.

As for Aggie, he should be put under house arrest in the Arc de Triomphe to prevent him from surreptitiously resigning.

[GodKing]

As a member here I speak, not as a justice.

Just what would you expect the court to do? Impeach Aggie? Rest assured, if this had occurred 2-3 weeks ago, he would be. Regardless of whether what he did was right or wrong in the end, I personally am outraged that with Rome invading us, the game was not halted and a large bold headline thread started saying “Rome Invades Us – War with Rome”. At this time however, what sort of “punishment” would the people expect us in the court to hand out? Also, what about all of those who were in the chat with Aggie? Although Aggie was the one playing the game, how much actual authority did he have? What responsibility do the others who were there have in regards to the events that took place? I have not yet had the opportunity to look at the logs yet (abet rest assured that I will), but there were several other people there for at least parts of the time, including Togas & E_T.

I have the utmost of respect for Aggie as a person. Please understand that from the get go. He has worked a ton for months now in this game, where it is hard to find people to even run in elections. From what I have pieced together, at the middle of the chat Rome invaded, and people just said “well, we were going to war against Germany in two turns anyways, all we have to do is just change who we go out and kill now.”

This all goes back to why we have a constitution in the first place. This is such a basic concept, that it often gets lost. You can easily substitute the words “game rules” in place of “constitution” because that is what it really is. IT IS A SET OF RULES WE AGREED TO PLAY THIS GAME BY SO THAT ANYBODY AND EVERYBODY KNOWS WHAT IS GOING ON AND WHY. The court system is designed only to interpret these rules. Not to punish transgressors. That is why the courts (and rightfully so I think) stay away from this. If we wish to change how the court functions, fine. But it is not that way right now.

The reason we have these rules is to help protect the people here who have a passing interest as well as the people who are regulars such as me. When I go away for vacation for two weeks, I like to think I know what types of things will occur and how the people here will respond. If I was one of those infrequent lurkers here (like I am on the strategy threads – I look but hardly ever post, and when I look it is often only once or twice a month) I would be lost without such a document. The fact that many people here seem to have forgotten this is why I am ranting and raging. I go away for the weekend and look what I find when I come back….

So, from a perspective of how this affects the game, well, it doesn’t. Everybody has stated that when all was said and done, it probably would have all worked out to be the same. From a so called punishment issue, well, I am not sure what could be done, or even if it should be. Let’s just do it like this – if you were at the chat, your punishment will be…….. You must run for office next term.

OK. I am done ranting and raving. It is first and foremost a game, to be played for fun and for learning how to be better at this means of having fun. Please let all of us remember this and do our best to let everybody enjoy this game.

GK

[Arnelos]

GodKing:

Indeed, the constitution exists primarily as a protection to the public (especially the many lurkers) to make sure they remain informed and consulted on major national issues.

That said, I fully agree with you, as I stated in the thread that publicly posted this, that I felt that any action against Aggie would be "meaningless".

As for people present at the chat, you will discover that I was rather pissed when I showed up during 1250 and discovered that the chat had not been stopped 2 turns earlier when Rome declared war on us... I had to heatedly argue with a number of people there to get the chat stopped in 1250 (and the war had started in 1230!) just so I could get the Senate to look at whether they and the FAM wanted to sign alliances against Rome (for which I had no authority). Just convincing people that this was necessary was a headache enough in itself... I was already pissed at that before I never KNEW about the illegal MPP's!

[Hot Mustard]

Originally posted by Arnelos
"I was already pissed..."

Am I the only one that chuckles at the thought of Senator Palpatine saying "pissed"?

Maybe this is just because I watched Episode I and II last night.

[Aro]

I watched last week.

[joncnunn]

I bought the DVD to #2 the day the DVD came out and watched the movie with the comentary a few days later.

In #6, Palpatine would simply electricute the offender, but in #1 & #2 he would arrange for some one else to do the dirty work.

[Aggie]

For the record we stopped the chat the turn rome declared war on us. There troops entered our territory on turn 1, but war wasn't declardd then. We then stopped the chat the same turn after we had taken military response to them. I made some mistakes but going on after the war was declared wasn't one of them.
Now for the punishment, I offered to resign so a precedent would be set, ie if the president or any official does something like this he better be D#$M sure that the people will support it, because he should offer his resignation immediately afterward as I did. That was the main point in my resignation offer, to set precedent. If I had gone against the will of the people rest assured I'd no longer be president. So if an official is in the position again he MUST ask himself, what is the will of the people.
Aggie

[E_T]

Some people have the Sequences of Event Incorrect.

Turn 1 (1230) Rome started moving forces into our Territory. We signed MPP's and Traded Electricity For Furs, Corporaton and Money with several Civs. We also Traded Corp for More Money. We forgot to Trade Electricity to Japan and declined Selling it to Germany for just Cash. Army was formed and place at Avignon.

We decided to let Rome come into out parlor, so to speak, and we would drain them of LPT for as long as we could stand (we are getting 126 LPT from them). We also upgrade ALL of our Muskets to Rifle (except for a couple on Uber, we missed them). That way they will be ready to move the next turn, if needed.


Turn 2 (1240) Rome Continued to Advance and more Roman Units moved in. We moved Units to the points on the RR that connected Hole in the Wall (and that part of our country), to block further advance and to keep the Rail line clear for any needed Troop movements. More Troops moved to HitW & Dijon.


Turn 3 (1250) More Roman Units (14 total now) are on our land, with 5 more THAT WE CAN SEE across the border. A Russian Cossack also Crosses the boarder and we feel that the situation has gone on long enough.

We Contact Rome and tell them to leave, They Declare War! We destroy 12 of thier forces, but leave the two Rifle in the Trees. We decide NOT to contact Russian (and make matters worse) to tell the Cossack to leave.

It is during this time, that FAM Arnelos showed up. We had just finished mopping up the last of the Roman Forces that we had destroyed. Pres Aggie was wanting to go to the next turn, so that the MPP's would activate and that he could possibly make a sortie into Roman Territory. The Chat was halted at this time.

We had been at War for only part of that Turn, no longer!

E_T

[GodKing]

Thanks E_T for helping to clear this up.