Too Raider? Let's get real.

Foreword:

I apologize in advance if this is a bit too rant-like, it is likely huge rant. Anyway, I've decided to post my own views on Moderatism and the UDL, with the perspective being my own. Personally, I found it interesting to think about moderatism more in depth and hope you find it interesting as well.

Moderatism

In recent weeks, this idea of moderate has emerged. According its proponent, it’s light raiding and this idea that the removal of embassies and tags are too much let alone regional destruction. Abbey harkens back to the days when Euro did multiple raids in an update that it did raid. However, this view is inconsistent considering that one of the groups she criticizes is The Black Hawks.

The whole raiding system that Europeia had in late 2010 to mid 2011 was based on The Black Hawks raiding system. This was Halcones system, this was the way The Black Hawks raided and many of the things Abbey criticizes are in fact staples of The Black Hawks. When she states that she wouldn’t likely build ties with new groups, I highly suspect that she means The Black Hawks, a group whose members have been critical of the idea of the moderatism advanced by herself.

The strangest part for me about moderatism, is that Abbey states she has no issue with any Europeian raids and most of the raids Europeia supports. Her qualm was that she was being ordered to support those few raids. The Europeian response led by myself and then-President North East Somerset was to include Abbey within the current structure and deal with her concerns as a whole by allowing her to create her own group within the Navy. This however was rejected and subsequent offers of teamwork were also rejected. I think the trouble with Abbeys moderate movement is that it has established itself as being distinct from the current Navy and from it’s roots with The Black Hawks.

The Issue with the UDL

Our foreign policy should be based on more than simply raiding and defending. This has been consistent both in Foreign Affairs and on the military side of things. After all, our Navy was used to build ties with The South Pacific and other game created regions and the treaties we signed were with non-raider regions. This whole idea of increased militarism and move into raiderdom is not supported by the facts. In fact, it is difficult to say where this view even came into being. After all, we moved away from Halcone (The Black Hawks) flash raiding and into a more independent focus. What were our proudest achievements last term?

Military

Working with The South Pacific.

Re-Founding A United Kingdom, the descendent of a former FRA region.

Foreign Affairs

A treaty with Lazarus

Advancing our ties with independent and neutral regions

Yet, somehow it has been stated by some that opposing the UDL in foreign affairs is an example of extreme-raiderism. This is despite the fact that the reasons for advancing this view never touches upon the fact that it’s due to they’re raider. It’s due to the fact that they hold anti-Europeian policies.

Their leader, Unibot, has been willing to oppose Europeia in any spectrum due to the fact that we raid. Our values do not matter and the fact that we’re a democracy is taken a slap in the face to them. After all, how can those who impose tyranny on natives (Note: UDL rhetoric) be non-tyrannical? According to Unibot, our system is built for those tyrants and not a true democracy. Hence, according to the UDL, Europeia must be opposed and punished for its crimes. Any acceptance of Europeia on the world stage is a legitimization of its “bullying” and “intolerance”. The lengths he will go to oppose anyone associated with raiding are long and bizarre.

Recently in The South Pacific (he’s a judge there), he lobbied all the UDLers (many of them inactive) in the region to vote against the upcoming TNI treaty due to the fact that it raids. Another UDLer joined TSP simply to vote against that treaty, although the UDL claims that he did this on his own accord and wasn’t ordered to influence the regions vote. He accused former Delegate Southern Bellz (the Delegate disposed in Sedge’s coup of the region) of working for DEN. Another long time citizen, Antarial, with no ties to The New Inquisition was secretly a TNIer according to Unibot.

In Balder, similar election dirty tricks were employed to try to prevent anyone with raider ties from gaining a position. As well, his brazen recruiting of members from other regions and organizations is also a cause for concern. But my biggest qualm with Unibot is the abuse he levels at those who oppose him. It is here, that I’m likely biased towards the organization, perhaps too much so. But the stuff he says to people at times is extremely hateful. It is here that I call hypocrisy on this idea that the group was created to prevent bullying. Unibot has commented that he says what he says because “people get in the way”.

Is this really a raider/defender phenomenon as those moderates label it as?

Defender stalwarts, TITO will not work with them and refuse to have relations.

The defender org and alliance, the FRA, according to Unibot and other UDL higher-ups are utterly corrupt. (Unibot resigned from the FRA as Arch-Chancellor). The FRA is not kind to the UDL in turn.

The Rejected Realms is infamous for it’s rivalry with Unibot, stemming from Unibots accusation that they have always had it in for him and had forced him from the FRA. The issue of harassment by Unibot in TRR for example, is denounced as politics by those within the UDL.

Clearly, it is not a raider perspective to oppose Unibot and the UDL. There is a reason why people have such fervent dislike of the organization and why its members often have to state they are only with it to defend and are willing to put aside their qualm with the actions of Unibot and its leadership. Yet, there are those within the region who are willing to degrade the conversation to say that to oppose the UDL is an example of how raider we are. Does that make TRR really raider as well? It’s an untrue argument.

I realize that, I have obsession with the organization and leader stemming from my own personal dispute with Unibot. I don’t think my thought process is that of an extreme raider and in fact, never touch upon that issue. For me, I have no issues with defenders or those who defend. My issues with the UDL as an organization stem from the actions of Unibot and the UDL beyond the R/D game as well as my own personal dispute with Unibot.

It is extremely annoying to see these dismissed as simply raider and this is a large reason why I loved being a neutral, because people couldn’t bring that word in to dismiss your arguments. I’d also like to point out that the rhetoric from the UDL has been damaging to the R/D game itself and have in fact galvanized more people to fight it.

Back in the Moderatism

I disagree with many of the premises to the moderate movement, namely the fact that those in it seek to degrade our relationship and interaction with the UDL to simply raiding and defending. It is more than that. What is the line?

The idea of moderatism shouldn’t be one of opposition. It is not new; it is not special; it is not even deep. Similar movements have always been in Europeia, but have always been held by those who are able to look at the NS world as more than simply raiding and defending. The premise is simple: We don’t let raiding get out of hand. That is moderatism. How in the world does that deal with what I’ve stated about the world of Foreign Affairs? It is too limited. You need more. You simply can’t use it to try to advance ideas.

The Rejected Realms was brought up. So, according to moderatism, we should sign a treaty with them right and if we don’t we’re extreme raiders?

But what about the fact that long time TRR stalwart Sedge couped Southern Bellz of The South Pacific and that TRR didn’t support aiding the region? This was directly in conflict with our own support of The South Pacific.

Whoops, sorry moderatism… didn’t mean to demonstrate how limited you are.

Anyway, my main issue with how it is that it has been used. It’s not a foreign policy and it’s not effective at looking at our region whose actions are based on a complex combination of values and how we look at the world. It’s an idea for how we should raid and that’s what it should remain. Ever heard of “Honourable Raiding” moderatism? It’s the same idea, but one that didn’t decide to make itself more than it was and decided to work within our Foreign Policy. Making decisions based on our values rather than for raiding, moderate or not. This is what is happening.

It can be useful and beneficial for the region, but not in the way that it has been presented. Why not work with Honourable Raiding and push for a set of new raiding standards for Europeia? Boom! That’s how you get the changes you want by bringing those ideas to the Presidential candidates, it’s not that hard.

Next up: Part II
 
StGeorgie said:
How Europeian.

A mostly decent post was ruined right about here. Here you were, arguing decently against some parts (I dispute one or two of them, but in general it was a fairly solid response), and then you were foolish enough to throw that out there. Oh well.
I fear everyone has missed my point there. :(
Oh yes, it could have been sarcastic, but if so it was a gamble to put it like that and I think you lost :p
 
Seriously, seriously doubt it.

You can doubt it all you want, but the facts are simple.

- Pages of PR material promoting this group, including implied criticism of raiding groups such as the ERN, has been published. Yet the group itself has only conducted one raid, consisting of two people, one of whom is a defender.

- Abbey said that Europeia was not her Number 1 priority, and that Europeian interests were not a significant factor when rejecting the offer to have a Regiment here which allowed her (and other Europeians) to engage only in what she considers to be ethical raiding, and which unquestionably would have achieved more for both Europeia and her goals.

I will draw my own conclusions. The notion that Abbey is an evil conspirator with the UDL is of course preposterous and I doubt very much that is the case. However the fact is she has implicitely abandoned Europeian interests now she finds most of her friends residing in regions with interests contrary to ours, and yet expects her external policy opinions to be warmly received here. The notion that she has criticised Europeia for being unwelcoming and nasty due to a situation entirely of her doing and choosing - is however, pretty much exactly on the money.
 
StGeorgie said:
How Europeian.

A mostly decent post was ruined right about here. Here you were, arguing decently against some parts (I dispute one or two of them, but in general it was a fairly solid response), and then you were foolish enough to throw that out there. Oh well.
I fear everyone has missed my point there. :(
Before you posted this I was about to suggest that you were trying to turn the argument that Unibot = UDL backwards into whoever you said that to = Europeia.

But yeah, the internet makes snide and sarcastic comments pretty much worthless. :p
 
If he had used a Smilely, he might be able to make that claim with some legitamicy.

Or mabye italics.
 
Instead of pretending to be neutral, how about we change our motto to 'neutral only when it's convenient to us.'

Or better yet:

'We do what we want!"
 
unibot said:
Well, I question how many people join Europeia as raider sympathizers versus how many people are merely "educated" by the social establishment of Europeia into thinking raiding is a good idea without questioning this dogma; I use the dogma as a negative word, one that it is criticizing the lack of internal dispute over the principles held true more so than to criticize the content of this so-called "dogma".

I question how many newbies join the UDL and don't receive this kind of education :lol:

You have explained in your post, why I *don't* need to do any sort of re-education ... the organization is called The United Defenders League; why would someone join a defender organization if they didn't already want to be a defender?

Europeia on the other, ties raiding to it's "complex political simulation" and it's "self-interest" rather arbitrarily; as you've said in your post, the people joining Europeia aren't necessarily raiders, they just come for the politics and the Europeian crowd has decided for them that to be a politician you ought to believe piling random regions across NationStates and thereby distributing your WA Members is in your region's best interest . Very little of your recruitment ad promotes raiding, but many of your members, not all, but a lot become raiders. From the outside, this looks like a deceptive mechanism.

I love it when unibot plays intellectual. Highly entertaining ^_^

The pleasure is all mine.
 
distributing your WA Members is in your region's best interest

First of all, not everyone things the WA is in of itself the most important or even close part of the game. Here in Europeia, its rather tacked on, sort of secondary to all the other politics of the region.

Secondly, given that only TITO has more endorsements than us - we have more endorsements than every single feeder and sinker - I'm not too worried about the WA endos of the small handful of our Regional Population.
 
distributing your WA Members is in your region's best interest

First of all, not everyone things the WA is in of itself the most important or even close part of the game. Here in Europeia, its rather tacked on, sort of secondary to all the other politics of the region.

Secondly, given that only TITO has more endorsements than us - we have more endorsements than every single feeder and sinker - I'm not too worried about the WA endos of the small handful of our Regional Population.
The auto-recruiter craze has only masked the damage that redistribution was going to inevitably cause -- you can't move sizable chunks of your population, tell them to fly the Europeian flag instead of their own, do hardly nothing at all for a week or more in some random region that some other raider group decided to hit for little reason and not expect players to begin becoming a little, erm, disenchanted with the whole, "complex political" aspect of Europeia.
 
Look, you've made your point Unibot. You have very little respect for Europeia. That's fine. I have no respect for the UDL either. It makes two of us eh. But I don't go over to your forums and rub it in and criticise your organisation. In fact, I doubt you would give me permission to do that to start with. I guess that's just one of the things which make Europeia a better place.
 
Look, you've made your point Unibot. You have very little respect for Europeia. That's fine. I have no respect for the UDL either. It makes two of us eh. But I don't go over to your forums and rub it in and criticise your organisation. In fact, I doubt you would give me permission to do that to start with. I guess that's just one of the things which make Europeia a better place.
This. One of the many things.

Unibot, you're simply wrong. But what's new, right? We don't require ideological uniformity in order to be involved in politics here. There were several prominent voices who stood up and said that whether they agreed with Abbey on soft or moderate raiding or not, they saw no reason why she was a bad choice for a leadership role in the foreign ministry or elsewhere in government. We also don't require participation in the Navy in order to be involved in politics. I myself have had only limited involvement with the Navy and yet nobody even mentioned that when I was running for Senate. Maybe you should actually know what you're talking about before wagging your finger at us.
 
sizable chunks of your population

Sizeable Chunk? What sizeable chunk?

Our population, even before scripts, had topped a thousand. Our military, is, at best, twenty-some people, counting active reservists, etc, if I had to guess at this very moment.

And apart form the Reservists, they don't already have any WA nations here to begin with.

Now, if we were moving large numbers of the people endorsing Vinage moving around on military exercises, your point might be something more then hot air.

But we're not. And so that's all your point is.

How UDLer.
 
'We do what we want!"

That Is Europeia's foreign policy. A neutral region is a region that neither defends nor raids.
Spot on.

Henry has unwittingly hit the nail on the head. We are not "neutral". And we don't claim to be "neutral". We do what we want, that's our philosophy.
Actually, at some point we decided that Europeia would be as neutral as possible with a raider military, since people couldn't just give up the whole R/D game altogether and be truly neutral. Instead of moving forward toward getting along with people, though; Europeia seems to have reverted back to a stage where it just wants to fight with them. We're moving back toward an extreme raider military with every step we take and it won't be too long before we're completely at odds with Defenders again.
 
'We do what we want!"

That Is Europeia's foreign policy. A neutral region is a region that neither defends nor raids.
Spot on.

Henry has unwittingly hit the nail on the head. We are not "neutral". And we don't claim to be "neutral". We do what we want, that's our philosophy.
Actually, at some point we decided that Europeia would be as neutral as possible with a raider military, since people couldn't just give up the whole R/D game altogether and be truly neutral. Instead of moving forward toward getting along with people, though; Europeia seems to have reverted back to a stage where it just wants to fight with them. We're moving back toward an extreme raider military with every step we take and it won't be too long before we're completely at odds with Defenders again.
Rubbish.

We're not "reverting" to anything of the sort.

Europeia is not an "extreme raider military" and never will be. We're further away from that right now than we have been at several times before in our history, for instance when Savaer of Unknown (then a "pure" raiding region) was Grand Admiral. We have an independent military run by Europeians. And that is exactly what we should look to retain and build upon.
 
'We do what we want!"

That Is Europeia's foreign policy. A neutral region is a region that neither defends nor raids.
Spot on.

Henry has unwittingly hit the nail on the head. We are not "neutral". And we don't claim to be "neutral". We do what we want, that's our philosophy.
Actually, at some point we decided that Europeia would be as neutral as possible with a raider military, since people couldn't just give up the whole R/D game altogether and be truly neutral. Instead of moving forward toward getting along with people, though; Europeia seems to have reverted back to a stage where it just wants to fight with them. We're moving back toward an extreme raider military with every step we take and it won't be too long before we're completely at odds with Defenders again.
Rubbish.

We're not "reverting" to anything of the sort.

Europeia is not an "extreme raider military" and never will be. We're further away from that right now than we have been at several times before in our history, for instance when Savaer of Unknown (then a "pure" raiding region) was Grand Admiral. We have an independent military run by Europeians. And that is exactly what we should look to retain and build upon.
Then prove it and don't take part in this 'war' at all. If you mean what you say then ensure that the Europeian Navy only runs into Defenders in meaningless skirmishes; or disband the military permanently and move on to full neutrality. War becomes too personal, as we can see from the barrage of posts from very angry people in the past couple of days.
 
'We do what we want!"

That Is Europeia's foreign policy. A neutral region is a region that neither defends nor raids.
Spot on.

Henry has unwittingly hit the nail on the head. We are not "neutral". And we don't claim to be "neutral". We do what we want, that's our philosophy.
Actually, at some point we decided that Europeia would be as neutral as possible with a raider military, since people couldn't just give up the whole R/D game altogether and be truly neutral. Instead of moving forward toward getting along with people, though; Europeia seems to have reverted back to a stage where it just wants to fight with them. We're moving back toward an extreme raider military with every step we take and it won't be too long before we're completely at odds with Defenders again.
The time when some people were espousing what you are talking about (that "independent of the axis" stuff) was actually during a time of significant raider sentiment amongst our allies (it was around the height of the battles against the FRA). I believe this push here was to specifically distance ourselves from the extremism of the time, back when there was a much heavier influence upon our foreign policy by our allies.

Now, that time has passed, we have waxed ascendant, grown powerful amongst our friends and with more than two years of formative discussion, debate, and internal strengthening, we are more sure of ourselves on matters such as these and capable of expressing ourselves better with them. It's the same reason why the average defender in Europeia doesn't have nearly as much trouble making a living here as in times previous: we haven't become more extreme, rather have solidified and grown self-confident that we as a Republic know what we are about. Back then, defenders or anyone who did not toe the raider policy line had a much harder time of it here, back when there was still concern that spies or other defenders were here to try to subvert our interests. In reaction (subconsciously, I'd say), some argued for this faux-neutrality you remember fondly, as a concentrated push away from extremism.

Now by comparison, that is no longer needed. Extremism holds little quarter here, our more extreme allies and acquaintances hold little influence for pushing an extremist agenda, and years after those times of uncertainty, we know who we are, what we are about, and have no problem in saying so. We are Europeia. We raid. Don't want to? That's okay.
 
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