I'm still not sure as to why we're doing this. Why abandon are comrades in arms? Can we at least start a dialogue before we do this?
This dialogue has been going on for months. They aren't our comrades, they're genocide deniers and people that harbor them. Lots of this is related to the discord, both in depth discussions on why we should leave NSLeft as well as the multiple occasions they've prominent NSLeft officials have come to our server and espoused authoritarian nonsense and then proceeded to get mad about our admin's "authoritarianism" when they were punished for violating our discord rules on totalitarianism. You should probably join if you aren't in yet, a large amount of our discussion happens there.
I'm still not sure as to why we're doing this. Why abandon are comrades in arms? Can we at least start a dialogue before we do this?
This dialogue has been going on for months. They aren't our comrades, they're genocide deniers and people that harbor them. Lots of this is related to the discord, both in depth discussions on why we should leave NSLeft as well as the multiple occasions they've prominent NSLeft officials have come to our server and espoused authoritarian nonsense and then proceeded to get mad about our admin's "authoritarianism" when they were punished for violating our discord rules on totalitarianism. You should probably join if you aren't in yet, a large amount of our discussion happens there.
if you think that tankies "aren't real leftists" as your signature indicates, im not sure youve read that much theory. you may disagree with it, but the idea of a "dictatorship of the proletariat" is an idea given by karl marx himself. i understand that you disagree with them on this, but to deny them being fellow leftists is ludicrous. we till have WAY more in common with them than with almost any other ideological group out there, and i dont see why we should go off on our own over disagreements like this.
1. I'm not very fond of Marx either. 2. If they don't respect human rights, then either human rights are not a core part of Leftism or they aren't Leftists. 3. Unless you're a genocide denier, and no, I'm not talking about the holodomer, they are not "your own".
Countless innocents have suffered at the hands of Authoritarians throughout history. This isn't an ideological difference. They do not care about human rights, and I'm not willing to accept anyone who doesn't as being a Leftist.
This dialogue has been going on for months. They aren't our comrades, they're genocide deniers and people that harbor them. Lots of this is related to the discord, both in depth discussions on why we should leave NSLeft as well as the multiple occasions they've prominent NSLeft officials have come to our server and espoused authoritarian nonsense and then proceeded to get mad about our admin's "authoritarianism" when they were punished for violating our discord rules on totalitarianism. You should probably join if you aren't in yet, a large amount of our discussion happens there.
To clarify, the stance against totalitarian advocacy isn't a Discord rule, it's in the charter itself, as part of the definition of Extraordinary Misconduct alongside fascist advocacy, far right advocacy, and general bigotry.
I keep seeing that thrown around, but can you clarify how that is considered Extraordinary Misconduct? Because according to the charter Extraordinary misconduct is:
Extraordinary Misconduct - behaviour which is extraordinarily distasteful or
damaging to the region. This includes, but is not necessarily limited to:
● Trolling or conducting arguments in bad faith.
● Harassment, especially that of a sexual nature.
● Promotion of fascist, racist, bigoted, reactionary, far-right or otherwise offensive views,
apologia or imagery.
● Use of derogatory, abusive, or degrading comments or language towards other
persons.
● Intentional misgendering or misuse of pronouns.
In what part of that would Marxist-Leninists fall under?
Secretary-General - 33rd, 35th Cabinets Director of World Assembly Affairs - 29th Cabinet Ambassador to Social Liberal Union - 28th, 29th, 32nd, 33rd, 34th Cabinets Ambassador to Europeia - 32nd Cabinet Cabinet Aide to MoDA - 33rd, 34th Cabinets
To clarify, the stance against totalitarian advocacy isn't a Discord rule, it's in the charter itself, as part of the definition of Extraordinary Misconduct alongside fascist advocacy, far right advocacy, and general bigotry.
I keep seeing that thrown around, but can you clarify how that is considered Extraordinary Misconduct? Because according to the charter Extraordinary misconduct is:
Extraordinary Misconduct - behaviour which is extraordinarily distasteful or
damaging to the region. This includes, but is not necessarily limited to:
● Trolling or conducting arguments in bad faith.
● Harassment, especially that of a sexual nature.
● Promotion of fascist, racist, bigoted, reactionary, far-right or otherwise offensive views,
apologia or imagery.
● Use of derogatory, abusive, or degrading comments or language towards other
persons.
● Intentional misgendering or misuse of pronouns.
In what part of that would Marxist-Leninists fall under?
The word "totalitarian" is missing from the third bullet. It was included in the passed law, Wiley forgot to include it a couple of times I asked in the past, so do me a favor Alvero and add the word in that section. Maybe this is the word you are missing, along with the "reactionary" part that is already there.
"reactionary" and "totalitarian" are part of extraordinary misconduct, no one's throwing those terms around
Secretary-General - 1st Council President & WAD - 33rd, 34th and 35th Cabinet Minister of Foreign Affairs - 32nd Cabinet Minister of Domestic Affairs - 30th and 31st Cabinet Minister of Immigration and Regional Promotion (Defunct) - 28th Cabinet
I keep seeing that thrown around, but can you clarify how that is considered Extraordinary Misconduct? Because according to the charter Extraordinary misconduct is:
Extraordinary Misconduct - behaviour which is extraordinarily distasteful or
damaging to the region. This includes, but is not necessarily limited to:
● Trolling or conducting arguments in bad faith.
● Harassment, especially that of a sexual nature.
● Promotion of fascist, racist, bigoted, reactionary, far-right or otherwise offensive views,
apologia or imagery.
● Use of derogatory, abusive, or degrading comments or language towards other
persons.
● Intentional misgendering or misuse of pronouns.
In what part of that would Marxist-Leninists fall under?
The word "totalitarian" is missing from the third bullet. It was included in the passed law, Wiley forgot to include it a couple of times I asked in the past, so do me a favor Alvero and add the word in that section. Maybe this is the word you are missing, along with the "reactionary" part that is already there.
I'll note that one version had it and then the next didn't and I'm not sure how it slipped back out. The word "totalitarian" should be in there. I'll make the note that authoritarian =/= totalitarian and I don't think many in NS Left value totalitarianism as a concept, even if they're more authoritarian in policy. We're blanketing the term here for NS-political reasons a bit in my opinion, at least a good portion of us. I don't want to see the "totalitarian" note be used to shove entire just-fine ideologies out the door, even if we do leave NS Left. (Which we shouldn't! <3)
President in the 26th Cabinet Sec-Gen in the 28th, 30th, 31st and 34th Cabinets MoRP in the 25th and 26th Cabinets MoIRP in the 28th Cabinet Administrator Emeritus 21 November 2018-9 April 2019 Ambassador to The Communist Bloc 9 Augest 2018-1 November 2018
I'm honestly so confused. what exactly did NSA left fo to us?
There was no triggering event. A portion of the region has been against our relationship with NS Left due to occasional conflict that was had for some time, particularly with TI. We broke embassies with TI a few weeks ago over the frustrations within our relationship but kept with NS Left because NS Left =/= TI. I was hopeful that we would work with NS Left and warm relations with TI and the rest of NS Left. I thought we were well on our way to being able to bring us all closer together before this was dropped. There are a few different arguments against them, but one of the biggest ones is claiming that NS Left harbors totalitarians, and we don't like totalitarians. I think this point is very exaggerated personally, but it's something I've seen a lot on here. Vote as you'd like, but I personally would urge you to vote to keep membership within NS Left so that we may work to try and fix our relationship.
Tl;dr it's a mess but there was no triggering event and the relationship has slowly corroded without us try to really fix it yet.
President in the 26th Cabinet Sec-Gen in the 28th, 30th, 31st and 34th Cabinets MoRP in the 25th and 26th Cabinets MoIRP in the 28th Cabinet Administrator Emeritus 21 November 2018-9 April 2019 Ambassador to The Communist Bloc 9 Augest 2018-1 November 2018
I'm honestly so confused. what exactly did NSA left fo to us?
NSLeft's rules permit totalitarianism, ours do not. That isn't just because of the letter of the law: Many of us feel totalitarianism shouldn't be allowed in our region. This is a major clash in philosophy between us and NSLeft, and has caused massive tensions for a long time, which have culminated in this vote.
I'm honestly so confused. what exactly did NSA left fo to us?
There was no triggering event. A portion of the region has been against our relationship with NS Left due to occasional conflict that was had for some time, particularly with TI. We broke embassies with TI a few weeks ago over the frustrations within our relationship but kept with NS Left because NS Left =/= TI. I was hopeful that we would work with NS Left and warm relations with TI and the rest of NS Left. I thought we were well on our way to being able to bring us all closer together before this was dropped. There are a few different arguments against them, but one of the biggest ones is claiming that NS Left harbors totalitarians, and we don't like totalitarians. I think this point is very exaggerated personally, but it's something I've seen a lot on here. Vote as you'd like, but I personally would urge you to vote to keep membership within NS Left so that we may work to try and fix our relationship.
Tl;dr it's a mess but there was no triggering event and the relationship has slowly corroded without us try to really fix it yet.
1. It isn't exaggerated. To take an example, several prominent members of NSLeft have openly supported North Korea, a totalitarian government. They were not punished for support of a state capitalist state.
2. This relationship can't be fixed. Either the party in the DSA that NSLeft wants gone, the part with the fundamental difference in philosophy, leaves the region, or we cut ties. The group of people with major disagreements to NSLeft's tenants of "Pan-Leftism" can not remain in the DSA while having good relations with NSLeft.
I urge the people of the DSA to vote FOR this as NSLeft is no longer beneficial for us and does not mesh with our region's charter very well. Certain elements within NSLeft also attack us any chance they get as to purposely attempt to stir up trouble. I feel that by remaining with NSLeft, we open ourselves up to even more of the toxicity.
Also, for those of you who are newer or aren't in the discord and so might have an issue forming an educated opinion on this subject: Please note that even our Minister of Forum Affairs wants to withdraw from NSLeft.
Post by studentloandebt on May 12, 2020 5:30:52 GMT
Aight, I'll throw my hat into this.
I don't like this bill, largely due to the circumstances surrounding the bill.
The DSA may have over 500 nations, but I don't think most of them even know we have a social community. Our community that we can even consider "Active" is like 30 people. The issue I have with this bill is a numbers issue. This bill got 22 cosponsors before it even got proposed. That's a major issue for me. Not that people support it, but because of the circumstances of those cosponsorships.
One can go into DMs to request cosponsorships. That is fine, absolutely. However, 22? With an active community of 30 people, you got 22 people to cosponsor the bill before it even went to vote? You got a super majority of the community to say they support the bill before it even went public. You got a super majority of the region to look at the bill early, EARLY. You got a super majority of the region to say they fully support the bill. Even if not intended, you went and ensured that the bill will pass before you even offered any opponents a chance to give criticism. They didn't even know that the bill was going to be put forward.
That's the other part of how exclusionary it is even if unintentional. Most of congress knew about the bill before it became public. It essentially became a open secret. Issue, however, is that you excluded a portion of congress from that majority who knew. When you have the majority of congress know about the bill, you should just talk about it in public. By doing it in DMs, you let most of congress know except any opposition.
I know you didn't do it with this in mind and I'm not saying you did this, but IRL, if this was possible to do, it would look like you were trying to form a giant wave of support before making the bill public so that the opposition would have no chance of convincing others and no chance of possibly striking down the bill.
And then the Cabinet, who put forward the bill, continued to talked about it in private. Even though the majority of the region knew about the bill, they did not talk about it in public. Instead of using the #open-door-cabinet channel made specifically for them on the Discord server, they used #closed-door-cabinet, further making it impossible for opposition to get a word in before you ensure that the bill will pass through cosponsorships alone.
Then let's talk about the NSLeft Plan. Remember when we found out about how the SLU made a bill to break off embassies with us and we didn't find out until it went to vote? Remember how pissed off everyone was when (1) they didn't even tell us they were making this bill (2) we only found out after it went to vote, thereby entirely excluding the DSA from giving an opinion on our relationship being broken off from? We were rightfully pissed, so I don't understand why the Cabinet intentionally wanted to do the same to NSLeft. The original plan was for the DSA Cabinet to not notify NSLeft about the Cabinet's intentions to form a bill that would break off relations. The DSA Cabinet would not tell them that they proposed the bill. The DSA Cabinet would also wait to tell NSLeft about the bill until after it had gone to vote, which is exactly what SLU did to us. SLU were being assholes to us and the Cabinet thinks it is an okay thing to copy them and do the same to others? Nah, that's messed up.
Congress does not know how much I, the Administrator-Emeritus, had to fight the Cabinet to even allow NSLeft to know beforehand about the bill, and even then the Cabinet only allowed NSLeft to know about a day before. Not to mention that this compromise wasn't even solid because apparently the Cabinet decided that they could revoke that compromise if NSLeft responded badly, which would obviously happen.
So what are the circumstances surrounding this bill? (1) Majority of Congress already knew about the bill and yet it was continually discussed in secret and not in public for all of congress to see. (2) This secrecy silenced any opposition from getting a single word in before the bill was put forward, a bill that was effectively guaranteed to pass by getting as many cosponsors as possible. Only reason any opposition got to know was because of me. (3) The bill didn't come from a place of neutrality. It came from a place of frustration and pettiness. While I am not accusing all of the Cabinet of this, it seems like this bill was made with a grudge and, despite my very vocal opposition, was planned on being implemented in a very passive-aggressive manner of not wanting to even tell the organization that we are leaving until it has gone to vote, effectively silencing NSLeft from getting a word in since they wouldn't even know about the scrutiny period.
Something else to throw in here. I better not be seeing any replies of something like "The bill may not be perfect, but it is better than what we have now. Besides, we can always just make an amendment later" or anything along those lines. We got to see just how much that didn't work few months ago with the LSA bill. Lots of people said this and voted yes to it. I made an amendment slightly different than requests but still super close, got shot down. Wileyshire made an amendment that was exactly what people requested, and those same people shot it down for reasons I don't understand. Either we're going to have a good bill or we should vote no. You can't just pass a law you know is bad and pass it under the expectation that it will be different later. Same with this bill. If you have the feeling that "The bill may not be perfect, but it is better than what we have now", then don't vote For and we can make a better version.
I've made a lot of group accusations about the Cabinet in this post, all true but not something to apply to every member. If any Cabinet wishes to say that they didn't do one of the things I have accused, they can do so because the Cabinet is not some hive-mind council but individuals with their own thoughts and as such not all the same.
I very much agree on what Student says in the post above. For the very reason that this bill was only discussed in closed doors Cabinet and was deliberately a shared secret in a group that consists of the majority of Congress' active voters, I am inclined to vote AGAINST. I acknowledge the problems that many people in the DSA have with NSLeft, some of them may even be justified, but I don't want this Act to set a bad precedent in the history of our democratic process. I asked repetedly explanations about how it was handled, but I have to say that the replies were few and unsatisfactory. An apology would've sufficed, but was not given. I hope you understand we're not saying this because we oppose the bill, we are saying this because we care about inclusiveness and transparency in the DSA.
First off I’d like to address some of the concerns of some of the posts here:
This was not an open-secret. This was discussed many times in the #regional-affairs channel of the discord, in #open-door-cabinet, and (for those us in the Cabinet) #closed-door-cabinet. It was discussed with various members of our so-called active community and at some point the majority (I would say 95 to 98%) voice their opinion on the matter during these last few months. The bill itself was discussed by the cabinet in a closed door session to approach the subject as a neutral entity and give congress the chance to decide our fate with NSLeft. This is not something we were given the opportunity to do initially when we decided to join that organization. We should have considered that possibility earlier.
Second, some of the sponsors take a different view of sponsorship. For those of us here in the US, sponsoring something means something completely different to those who are overseas. A person who is not in the US might have sponsored the bill, not because they believe strongly in the bill, but rather because the agree that the bill needs to be discussed. So this hang up on a supermajority DOES NOT MEAN that we achieved a super majority to pass the bill. It simply means that a large group of people thought that it needed to brought to the forefront to discuss the issue at had. I personally take that view. To take the other is simply discriminative at maximum, and nationalist at minimum.
Thirdly, I as a nation have been here for 9 years. Longer than almost everyone at this point. I know what this place was like long before NSLeft came along. We were fine then and we will be fine now. In my opinion, we are seeing the death throws of a community on the verge of change. The majority of the community have voice their opinion and have said that they “do not care about other regions”. Otherwise the latest bill would not have passed. This is simply a transition period. For those that don’t like it, well tough. Evolve. I’m honestly tired of certain people criticizing what the majority of the community wants. Democracy is the rule of the majority and a direct democracy even more so. We developed this community to act as a democracy and are transitioning it to be even more so. You should not be criticizing that. You should be praising that.
The Honourable Edward McMillin Prime Minister of The United Kingdom of La Pays de Soliel Minister of Domestic Affairs for the 35th Cabinet
Post by Gallo Republic on May 12, 2020 14:10:26 GMT
Look, I may not have been here long, but I want to make something clear. The main argument against voting to leave is RPing. I say you can RP anyways, but our membership in the NSLeft alliance is not beneficial.
Look, I may not have been here long, but I want to make something clear. The main argument against voting to leave is RPing. I say you can RP anyways, but our membership in the NSLeft alliance is not beneficial.
What? What does this have to do with RP? NSLeft is trying to start an RP world, yes, but Role Play has nothing to do with this. I’m confused
Post by studentloandebt on May 12, 2020 17:01:33 GMT
But NSLeft doesn't even have an RP. NSLeft only exists in DSA RP as a building in the DSA Capital and I don't think anyone even knows that. NSLeft is non-existent in DSA RP