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About a year ago, I wrote an article entitled “What Does the Federalist Party Stand For” ? In that article, I challenged the actions taken by then party president fingerguns – essentially she pulled the support for the very well-respected and official party candidate, Desert Falcon, in favor of another party's candidate. I was pretty upset by that, and have never apologized for the things I said about the Federalist Party or the people in charge of it. Things took their course, and after outrage upon outrage, I left the Feds. And never looked back.

I'm writing this article, because I am starting to see some danger signs within my newly adopted party, the Socialist Freedom Party, that suggest the same kinds of issues. For those who don't remember this – or don't care – the issue I had with the Feds was that they were becoming more like a club than a political party. There was no discernible message, much less an ideology. Under the guidance of some pretty hardworking and competent party presidents, expediency became the rule rather than the exception. Discussion of principles, much less first principles was not just frowned upon, it was actively disdained. People who wanted to advance in the party were pressured to do specific things, like joining the party militia and working in its communes, as a precondition for office within the party, or for nomination for national office. As much as my 18th century roleplaying character liked the idea of a successful and dominant Federalist party, I never felt at home there. And I left. Quietly. In the summer. When everything else had gotten pretty messed up in the eUSA. But not before making a quixotic run for party president. Boy, did the party regulars get mad about that ! You would have thought that I'd insulted their mothers.

Along the way, I was making some new friends. Among those were Cold Hearted Snake and George Armstong Custer and Phoenix Quinn. This was the heyday of SEES, and there were things going on in the eUSA that were very disturbing, even for, perhaps especially for an old Tory cleric such as myself. I had come to believe, as I still do, that there was a kind of conspiracy of the actives, of what we call the elite, to repress and oppress the weak, the inarticulate, the poor and the unpopular. SEES was at the forefront of all that.  The quintessential fascist movement, SEES actively and aggressively attacked its designated scapegoats, intimidating and bullying anyone who stood in its way. For the most part, the “elite” fell into line. The prominent and popular in the eUSA lended legitimacy to SEES's worst initiatives and ideas – suspending elections, blacklisting candidates – the charade just got worse and worse, and no one in power seemed to care. After it all, this is just a game, right ?

So I became a revolutionary. Or a counterrevolutionary. Or maybe it was a counter-counterrevolutionary. Or even counter- counter-counterrevolutionary. In the eUSA of Fall 2011, you really could not tell. Our political system had devolved into a kind of anarchy. It is interesting to do a kind of role call of my enemies and critics. For example, system0101, who just couldn't stand the fact that I gave away food and gifts to perfect strangers and asked nothing back in return – that guy died in Croatia, no doubt one of the lost boys who took the journey to save that beleagered land from Serbia's depredations. (While I, on the other hand, stayed put in eVirginia, where I've always lived.). His last article can be found here and says:

http://www.erepublik.com/en/article/revelation-omega-1478718/1/20

“SEES is Legion. It will consume you all”

And what of the Great Woxan himself ? Well, he too is a dead citizen. Permanently banned. And he didn't even leave anything worth quoting.
Where is Gaius Julius ? Died. In New Zealand.
Josh Frost ? Alive, in Colorado. A Philippine citizen.
PigInZen ? In the Philippines. A citizen of the Philippines.

For a good while, I took a vow of inactivity in protest to what was going on. In some ways, I am still under that vow. But this is certain. There is no one in this game who is going to make me get active in ways that I don't believe in, don't have the time to do a first class job doing, or otherwise compromise my character. When I finally broke down and joined the SFP, after a lot of soul searching and recrimination, I found it to be everything the Feds were not – intellectual, laid back, and disorganized, but in a good way. I found it to be a place where one could put one's talents to work – and they did. Somebody figured out that I could run an enterprise; I had been a company owner before, and that is always one of the better aspects of this game. I tore some pages out of the employee-owned company that I once worked for, and we put together the structure of the anarcho-syndicalist communes that the SFP has now adopted. This is a lot of fun, and has kept me focused outside of politics. Maybe too much so.

As of this writing, PQ has written an article endorsing his opponent, Emerick, in the April POTUS election here:

http://www.erepublik.com/en/article/why-i-support-emerick-for-president-1733051/1/20

while at same time, a prominent INCI citizen had written an article endorsing PQ:

http://www.erepublik.com/en/article/-tr-en-potus-endorsement-ccc-eusa-ba-gan-nerisi-ccc-1732747/1/20

I cannot help but think that these two articles are somehow related. Now, I can confirm, at least in part, some of what Phoenix states as being true. He entered the election at the behest of the party leadership, and not of his own – well, volition would be too strong, since he did take the action willingly. But I'm certain it wasn't his idea. I actually don't care one way or the other, but here is what I would like to say.

We have had some success lately in the SFP. We have a committed cadre of experienced players who want to take their game – and the eUSA to a new and higher level. I'm not convinced we actually have a plan, and frankly whether we do or not, that won't necessarily be something to discuss in a public newspaper article. So you'll just have to take it on my word if I said that we don't have a plan to take over the nation. In my opinion, the problem is more the opposite. I see us getting dragged into the morass that is eUSA politics – and we are not even one of the Top Five yet. The last thing my party needs – or the country needs – is for the SFP and its most prominent figures to be playing around with the former fuehrer of the SEES or his iNCI compadres. Now, I want to be fair about this....as has been discussed both in public and private channels, the iNCI have every right, under the rules and mechanics of this game, to do what they have been doing and to keep on doing it. As fellow outsiders in eUSA politics, the iNCI, both individually and as a group, have shown a fairly clear grasp of what has been going on. No, we don't speak Turkish any more than they speak English and that is a problem. But there is also a rather foul underside to iNCI behavior, just as the SEES did not play fair. I'm pretty sure that the undeserved forfeit point I got from the admins for “spam” was assessed in response to one of their complaints. For quoting Machiavelli, for heavens sake.

Here is the bottom line...the more we get bogged down in personalities rather than principles, the more we become just another failed political party. We need to review everything we are doing, constantly. We need to reinforce what works and reject what is not working, but we also need to expand our vision beyond the obvious and mechanical aspects of this game. Where are the young and idealistic players who want to help build a just and equitable virtual world – because they realize that if they can do it in this game, they'll learn something about doing it in real life ? Some of us, including the honorable Mr. Quinn, fancy ourselves to be social critics, and truth to tell, some of us are quite good at this. But where is the self-criticism and the attitude of collective responsibility that we need to have ? Are we playing our roles in a good, strong convincing manner – or are we just going through the motions, playing with tongue-in-cheek, as if to say, wink-wink, nod-nod, “This really is just a game. We don't really mean it.”

While the admins regulate the size and shape of the frame, it is our self-portraits we paint in this virtual world. It is our beliefs, attitudes, and norms that we act out, and it is our character that fills out the texture and shades of the colors reflected there.