[MDP] Dam-busting
Xander Kross
Recently, there has been some unpleasantness involving me, McVicker and my friend Thedillpickl. I have made my semi-private apologies to Dill for the abrupt tone of the discussion, but for the rest of you, I should like to relate my side of this situation.
As we all know, Prince Sheogorath has/had been working against eCanada for months, building an army of foreign invaders inside our borders to further his own anti-Canadian agenda. Sheogorath has gone away (for now, at least), but has left his invasion force inside our borders, concentrated within the party once called Libertatia and later renamed the Shaved Beaver Party. Not every member of that party was a member of the foreign invasion force, but the bulk of the party was.
Unfortunately, that party had grown in size, large enough to enter the top 5. This is an obvious danger to national security, as the bulk of the party still consists of the invasion force brought in by Sheogorath and his hired lackeys. Should that party gain enough influence, they could potentially elect harmful congressmen, including individuals who have been blacklisted and permanently banned from eCanadian congress.
Further complicating this problem, Dill was trying to make the best of a bad situation and turn the party legitimate. I have no problem with Dill trying to run a legitimate party, even if it means more competition for MDP, but attempting to legitimize that party while that invasion force still sat within it was premature and likely to cause problems.
Essentially, we had three ways to deal with this situation:
1) Ignore it and hope it goes away and everyone lives happily ever after, because the world is full of magic and sparkle-ponies.
2) Shuffle people into the party, artificially inflating that party's numbers, in order that the Party President can run "blockers" for congress to keep the malcontents and terrorists from gaining political power they could abuse.
3) Relocate legitimate people away from the party, and shuffle people into the number 6 party so the two parties switch places, thus preventing the "bad" party from appearing on the Congressional election ballot.
Amputations are seldom pretty, but sometimes necessary.
Thedillpickl was engaging in plan 2). I have no doubts as to his sincerity in the matter, and believe absolutely that he would have gone through with the plan to run blockers and to encourage people to vote for a party other than his.
But let us look at this situation by way of analogy.
Imagine you have a loaded pistol on a table in a room full of curious babies. You can engage the safety, apply a trigger lock, cram a bolt down the end of the barrel, wrap the thing in boxing tape, etc. But the loaded pistol is still on the table, and the room is still full of curious babies. Even with all the safeguards in place, there's still a potential for disaster.
The safest thing to do is to remove the loaded pistol from the room and lock it away, out of reach. That way, tiny fingers cannot find their way into danger, and no babies get shot or maimed. Obviously, the safest thing to do is to unload the gun, take it apart and store all the pieces separately, but removing the loaded gun from the room full of babies is the first step, because that's the immediate situation. Get it out of there so harm cannot be done.
This is why I opted for plan 3). And we accomplished this not by threat of force or ultimatums (though some of my arguments may have initially come across as such). We did it with reasoned discussion. Points were presented and weighed and a decision was ultimately reached. As a result, the invasion force party will not appear on the Congressional ballot, and therefore there is no risk of terrorists and blacklisted miscreants accidentally finding their way into Congress due to acts of Plato, political instability or voter shenanigans. The loaded pistol has been locked away in the gun safe, and no babies will cause a terrible boo-boo.
Even the hippies would be horrified at the results of leaving the loaded gun in the room full of babies.
Again, it is not because I think that Dill would have done something foolish or harmful, or would fail to meet his promise of putting the "bad people" at the bottom of the list and the "good people" at the top. My goal was to eliminate risk, not patch it with good intentions and hope.
Those of you who don't like what I did or how I did it can suck it up and move on. I'm not going to apologize for it. And I won't bother to pretend that the remaining members of that party are all just poor, misunderstood, oppressed victims of tyranny. We know who and what they are, and so do they.
I am a goal-oriented person; when I see a problem, I find a way to fix it. I did what I felt was necessary given the situation, and would do the same thing again. It was not the popular, easy, "feel-good" approach, but it was the one that is effective and gets shit done. You can all thank me later when we're not under the thumb of Sheogorath's invasion force.
In the meantime, I'm happy to be vilified by the terrorists, miscreants and malcontents who have taken up arms against eCanada, who have proven themselves to be nuisances at best and traitors at worst. Your protest only underscores the need for such actions to be taken against you. And I will continue to do so in the future.
MDP Gets Shit Done.
EVER FORWARD!
Comments
Of course there were a few other alternatives, like don't stick your nose into another party's business; or move a bunch of your loyal members to the Beavers and let Dill do a great job without any risk at all; or invite public participation and discussion; or persuade the sufferers to go Beaver; or make threats and enemies; or .... all of which gets shit done. Presently, my biggest question is which PP were included in the discussions preceding those with Dill? Since I am myself a party member I am particularly interested in Quentin... he part of the discussion and okayed your method?
Welcome to eCanada.
Thanks buddy, seems very nice here. Were you initially worried that Dill was going to get a big group of PicklesPatriots in his Beaver party, all loyal and great Canadians of course, but would cause a drain on other parties? That seems to make sense to me, especially from your previous comment in reply to Dill, elsewhere.
That would have got shit done too.
I am quite honestly impressed with the change in your personality since you first appeared. Now, much more reasonable, even tempered and rational. Kudos.
kind regards.
It was too soon to grow the party big, given that the bulk of that party was still the rotten apple core. The leader of that core is in another country now, and those guys might seem "rudderless" and therefore open for negotiation or conversion, but Sheogorath has reach. They can still be directed to vote a certain way from afar.
When those people follow their leader to whatever 3rd world craphole accepted him, or go inactive, or are otherwise gotten rid of, the party is no longer a threat. I don't care who leads it then. In the meantime, we have to keep it out of the top 5, and keep legitimate parties, with active, pro-eCanada membership, in the top 5.
I never once claimed it was a multi-party cooperative effort. McVicker mentioned it in his article, but he also calls himself the leader of the eCanadian Reich - take anything he says with an entire shaker of salt.
The people who saw the problem dealt with it. The ones who did not, did not. Are we supposed to take polls and have group-hugs everytime we want to get things done? Or would that be a waste of time when time is an important factor?
This isn't a simple matter of "sticking my nose into another party's business." This is a matter of national security. We take appropriate steps or we learn to speak Serbian.
Yes I understood your position a long time ago. Mind you I misunderstood that part about the PartyPresidents, likely through my own fault, which has morphed into ' me and Denis ' .
To my mind, Dill had a superb solution to the problem and yours is second best. Both get shit done. One was adopted. I am sure we will hear about national security quite often. We always do. It is so very convenient, elastic and nebulous. So are its synonyms: patriotism, valour, courage, legitimate, and PTO. Yet eCanada is a team, not a country. And teamwork is not a waste of time, nor an orgy of group hugs and fuzzy ponies.
So, whatever threat existed to team cohesion has been largely scotched. Some rancor remains and may soon dissipate. Knowledge has been acquired. Most of those things are good. Carry on.
Patching things up with blockers is the "friendlier" approach, but it has to be done every month and is subject to political instability, voter malfeasance, user error and crappy eRep coding. As much as I am sure Dill was set to do the right thing and set things up properly using that method, I would much rather eliminate the chance of accident or exploitation. Taking the option of voting for the "bad guys" off the table entirely ensures that accidents cannot happen. And if it works as intended and the message is sent unambiguously, we only need to do it once.
Dill took up the thankless task because he was asked to do so. I do not question his good intentions, nor those of the Pickles who followed him into the party. It is unfortunate that he is the one who got caught in the middle, because he was only doing it as a favor and trying to make the best of a bad situation.
You have explained your position previously, and I understood it, and I believe it is a good second best plan. Dill appears to have thought so too. He was not caught in the middle however. He expressed his position and was strongarmed. You were there. Well, I suppose if he was in the middle of the two of you, he might be said to have been caught... by the two of you... 🙂 Listen, the point is not that you are wrong or right. It is that you have an opportunity to reflect privately.
I am here on Friday night, have a bit of free time and am waiting for another epic battle. Thank you for a very pleasant conversation, which has now run its course. Kind regards.
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You dumbass he woulda supported me for next months presidency.
We still got Brits to kill, goats to evict and some others who need visited with prejudice. Damn straight I would have. 😃
How come DMV and Muglack were given option 3 with the UF and Dill was given option 2 with the shaved Beaver?
Not the right farm team?
Because Dills black of course.
Sheogorath was still in the country at the time.
I wonder why CPF and others are more focused on this obfuscatory non-issue than they are on getting rid of the PTO invasion force which is still the root of the problem. We need to be encouraging those people to leave the country. It's kind of frightening that you'd rather score political points by picking at minutiae than deal with this problem.
Don't drag the whole CPF into this.
ED asked a legitimate question that needs to be answered. Why did you and DMV decide on option 2 rather than option 3? So you guys decide whats best for all of us now?
To be fair, it's been CPF people taking the side of the terrorists that has urged me to write this article.
Everyone else had ample opportunity to address the problem. The way I see things, the #2 solution is a short-term stop-gap patch that provides an easy workaround but does not address the core problem. The #3 solution is less pleasant and more difficult to achieve, but provides a more effective long-term solution by eroding membership and taking that party out of the equation.
If CPF had wanted things done differently, you could have done so. And I would still have attempted to reason with Dill and convince him to kill the party rather than grow it with terrorists still in it.
Action was needed. I took it. I'm not willing to compromise the security of the nation for the sake of taking polls and asking how everyone feels about it. Elections are at hand and swift action, not tedious and circular debate, was required.
When Muglack took over UF, Sheogorath was still in the country. And he immediately set up a new party, Libertatia, when his old party was taken away. The steps taken by Muglack and McVicker drove the remaining SHOE people out of UF and into Libertatia. Now, Sheogorath is no longer in the country to buy a new party. The head is gone, now the body needs to either follow it elsewhere (which can be encouraged by actions such as this) or grow a new head and continue being dangerous - which, again, we can discourage by actions such as this. When we demonstrate to these people that they are not permitted to seize and hold power here, they have no incentive to stay.
Some CPF people were just wondering what you and the others thought differences were in the two situations.
This was already done and decided before most of us heard anything about it so there was no chance of us doing things differently.
Thank you for explaining your point of view, unlike the others involved. There was not a completely wrong choice and this was the easiest one, as you say, it's just Dill had made another one originally, so I wanted some clarity.
We could care a less about that party, we care about Dill and the other good people with him.
No need to drag MDP/CPF 'he said' 'she said' into this. It's over and the reason I rolled over was to prevent the BS.
thank you
voted because you talked about a world with sparkle-ponies
And I voted your comment because you pointed that out 🙂.
Xander speaks the truth. For all the haters, I am sorry the truth doesn't conform too what you want.
Truth has no agenda.
Please do not attempt to speak for me. I do not condone the message presented in your anti-Dill article.
Did I say you did?
Containing the PTO has been accomplished. Nobody wants repeat the same methods with a legacy ATO that's become too overbearing.
*too disruptive.
It is contained, and now it must be bled off. This was not the time to make that party larger, but rather to separate it from power and keep its members from doing further harm.
I think this is the most words you have ever written. Damn you for making me read them all.
Really all of them? What was that like?
Yep. Like being stuck in your bathroom because you ate too much cheese in one meal. You want to leave, but you know you can't.
Really nice explanation, I agree that what was done was safest and probably best method. Staying out of top 5 will probably disperse and demoralise invaders even more than staying lower on the list but in top 5. Most of the people want to succeed fast, and when they dont (they stay out of top 5) they loose interest fast, and go back to homelands. Staying in top 5 would "feed" them with hope.
You know... while you were faffing around making deals that serve only to harm your interests, we'd already agreed with CPF to leave Canada. I find it hilarious how over-involved you've become with fighting a threat that CPF had already eliminated BEFORE your discussions took place. 🙂
I'd rather not hinge our security on your backroom deals, and the notion that you might keep your word. The fact remains, your people are still here, and they were in a top 5 party. Not going to take chances. Snicker about it all you like. We just want to be done with you and yours so we can close that boring book and move on.
Look, it's over and done with. I ain't real happy but that is neither here nor there. I did what needed done to keep peace. I know the situation will be discussed and should be discussed openly. Xander has been honest with me through it all and has not changed his opinion or position. While I may have a differing opinion I do not deny him the privilege of having one. His intentions are good and that is what matters most.
I go away for a couple weeks and you guys go and cock everything up.