Bay 12 Games Forum
Other Projects => Curses => Topic started by: Kay12 on February 13, 2010, 07:58:06 am
-
Greetings fellow Liberals
Does anyone know what the two fellows mentioned in the title do (in game)?
-
1) Flavor.
2) Affect the actual political views of a non-C+/non-L+ President (such candidates have a chance of getting their view across and getting the President to vote "against" his political ideology, for example, a Conservative President voting to liberalize Animal Rights to Moderate.)
-
It's really just flavor. Mid-range alignment presidents do appoint Sec. State and Attorney General outside their alignment, and they will also sign and veto outside their alignment, but these are actually separate phenomena. One of the "to do" items that were still on the list when Toady stopped working on LCS was to make these fellows important.
-
As for the Attorney General, I'd imagine it would effect the degree to which ciminals, and the LCS in particular, are prosecuted.
The Secretary of State generally represents US interests abroad, so it is hard to say what degree they would have power. Perhaps they edge public support towards their views in regards to military spending and immigration?
EDIT: Actually, that's a really good idea, as currently the only way to liberalize the military spending issue is by recruiting several military sleepers (soldiers and army veterans). Having a Liberal or L+ Secretary of State push public opinion on military spending towards Liberal views would help shorten the endgame.
-
Yeah, it would be nice if they could have some real function...
Perhaps trials against people other than LCS could be included. For example, if the squad finds something really peculiar in the Intelligence HQ and manages to publish this, there could be a court case against the state. In which case a massive step towards liberalism can be taken fairly quickly.
On the other hand, what if kidnapped CCS members could be turned in to the police, and in case of arch-conservative Attorney General, they would represent the CCS in court, lowering chances of successful conviction greatly? And liberal Attorney Generals would prosecute them of course. A successful conviction could include some kind of a plea bargain (just tell us where the safehouse is and we'll let you go after 6 months).
-
The office of Attorney General was established by Congress by the Judiciary Act of 1789. The original duties of this officer were "to prosecute and conduct all suits in the Supreme Court in which the United States shall be concerned, and to give his advice and opinion upon questions of law when required by the President of the United States, or when requested by the heads of any of the departments."[1] Only in 1870 was the Department of Justice established to support the Attorney General in the discharge of his responsibilities.
So, the Attorney General could act as a mini-Supreme Court on "justice" issues (Prison Conditions, Torture, Police Behavior, etc.). The Attorney General can receive "questions" from the President concerning the interpretation of law (say, the definition of Torture), and the Attorney General can rule for Change (changing the law), or for Status Quo.
I actually think that, if you assume the Supreme Court is a policy actor, then the President should appoint a Solicitor General (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Solicitor_General), who can send legal arguments to the Supreme Court in an attempt to sway it. Since the Solicitor General has some prestige, he can help to 'bias' the Court to rule in a certain direction.
I think it's best to get rid of the United States Secretary of State, since the Secretary of State deals with foreign policy, and the LCS is a mostly terrorist group concerned with domestic policy (Military Spending aside).
-
The trouble with adding importance to these characters is that you have no control over what alignments they have -- it'll add behavioral noise to the simulation without making the interaction more compelling. Along with making these roles more important, I would want to make the LCS capable of interacting with them.
-
You do have control over these people, through elections. Elect a L+ or C+ President, and you ensure the alignment of the Cabinet in question.
Altough, I guess you might introduce LCS interaction partly. You might want to create tie the appointment of the Attorney General to political issues. Once you elect a President, the President appoints an Attorney General based on both his political ideology, the ideology of the Senate, and an AVERAGE of the "criminal justice" issues (Intelligence, Death Penalty, Prison Conditions, Police Behavior). So, even if you have an L+ President, if the Senate is liberal and the people are conservative on criminal issues, the L+ President may be compelled to nominate a Moderate Attorney General.
EDIT: We really do need more foregin policy issues to justify giving the Sec. of State a role. Military Spending and Immigration are two foregin policy issues, maybe I should re-introduce the "Human Rights" Issue LiteralKa and I tried to implement in Stalinist Comrade squad? Again, tie the appointment of Sec. of State to the average of "foregin policy" issues.
EDIT2: If we can get impeachment working, maybe that could be how the LCS could change Cabinet members as well.
-
LCS->Views->President->Cabinet is too many levels of indirection to say that you have a meaningful amount of control; there's a lot of randomness in between. I'm saying that for a mechanic on the cabinet to be meaningful for gameplay, it has to be disconnected from being a purely presidential decision and you need to be in there somewhere closer.
The trouble with just tying them to a basket of views as well is that as interesting as it is from a system design standpoint, the player isn't going to see all of that. It's more fun for the developer than it is for the player. We need to get the player a little closer to the action, letting them directly affect cabinet selections and attack cabinet members, instead of holding them at arm's length and just calculating how generic LCS actions influence these things.
Regarding human rights, unless I misunderstand what you were going for, I don't think it was ever removed, just renamed to torture.
-
No, Human Rights is different from Torture. Human Rights represent America's foregin policy; at C+, Amrica protects dictatorships in the interests of national security, and in L+, America attempts to peacefully convince other governments to become more Liberal and adopt political and social reforms. Human Rights is tied to a basket of 'human rights' views (because for America to promote human rights abroad, it must first champion them at home). It was removed during the spilt between Liberal Crime Squad and Stalinist Comrade Squad. The Human Rights Law was made primarly to communicate to the player just how much the US loves/hates Human Rights; it was LiteralKa's idea, and I believed it has something to do with the Civil Rights debate.
I was thinking of displaying the information to the player via another Poll Question. You look at the Poll, and you can tell if people prefer a Liberal Attorney General (because the game does the issues calcuation for you).
I don't really got any idea of how to get players involved in the Cabinet selection any further than indirectly. After all, indirect influence is how the LCS already operates: it's how the LCS get laws changed through propositions, and it's how LCS get Liberals into Congress. Attacking Cabinet members would be bizzare.
-
Not sure I agree with you on "C+ America protects dictatorships in the interests of national security"...seeing as Bushy toppled two decidely violent and cruel dictatorships in the name of "national security" (and it can be argued that this made the world more dangerous instead of safer, and that the wars had nothing to do with "national security" and instead oil).
Generally, the only contries that have ever been "Off-Limits" to US intervention are those with Nukes. Kinda sets forth a double-standard, whereby the US states that it is against any new contries having nukes, but rewards those contries that DO achieve nuclear capabilities with increased maturity and decreased interference in foreign relations. No wonder all the petty dictatorships of the world want nuclear capabilities...
-
I have to agree with EuchreJack really, the US befriending dictatorships is a bit of an anachronism, with the possible exception of Saudi Arabia (technically a monarchy, but the difference is mainly in how legitimate the citizenry regard their government). It's a foreign policy pretty unique to the cold war policy of containment against communism. A dictatorship was not ideal, but the theory was that it was better than a Communist Revolution. Nowadays the only controversial issues I can think of for dealing with other countries' human rights issues are a) how the US should act with regard to China, and b) whether war is an acceptable response to genocide.
-
And Egypt. And the Gulf States. And Angola (especially its suppression of Cabndia). And Colombia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_rights_in_Colombia).
And Georgia (possibly if you believe Russian propaganda and allegations about the President suppressing protests and rigging elections). And Ubzekistan (the US wants to keep a military base there). And Turkmenistan (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turkmenistan_%E2%80%93_United_States_relations) (oil pielines). The US doesn't like its alliances, to be fair, and it does send press releases promoting human rights, but that's just press releases. It's not going to terminate its alliances over it.
I was trying to simulate a dynamic between Realism and Idealism, with C+ favoring realist policies and L+ favoring idealist policies.
-
You're using a much more loose definition of protecting, dictatorship, and befriending than I would agree with. It doesn't really matter though. More important is that the US no longer has a "national security interest" in propping up unstable dictators. Even if it did, pragmatism versus idealism doesn't really fit into the left-right dynamic anymore; modern neo-conservatism is violently idealistic.
-
When Arch-Conservatives intervene with foreign affairs, they use military force and seek political or financial gain.
When Elite Liberals intervene with foreign affairs, they use diplomacy and negotiations seeking human rights and social reforms.
C+: War on Terrorism is used as an excuse to seize foreign assets.
C: A substantial force is maintained for foreign interventions.
M: Military interventions require congressial approval.
L: New diplomatic policies are being implemented to replace military intervention.
L+: Fair negotiations and foreign aid are the sole methods of foreign intervention.
-
You're using a much more loose definition of protecting, dictatorship, and befriending than I would agree with. It doesn't really matter though. More important is that the US no longer has a "national security interest" in propping up unstable dictators. Even if it did, pragmatism versus idealism doesn't really fit into the left-right dynamic anymore; modern neo-conservatism is violently idealistic.
I disagree vehemently. The US have many reasons to prop up dictators (need for the secure passage of oil, ensuring stability in a unstable region, stopping terrorism, etc.). Still, you are right about neo-conservatism, and while I consider it "liberal interventionism", most people won't. Kay12's idea seems more useful in that regard.
The main problem though is that I'm sure LiteralKa still wants to see some sort of law that would track Human Rights. The Human Rights law was made partly as a compromise over the debate on the 'Civil Rights' law; while civil rights have a narrow definition in LCS (meaning african-american and minority rights), liberals view civil rights to mean a wide majority of things, so LiteralKa wanted some sort of measurement of Human Rights. I remember one of the ideas LiteralKa had was to tie an Human Rights issue to a variety of issues...so that the Civil Rights law was based on Human Rights and Civil Rights, Immigration was based on Human Rights and Civil Rights, etc.
I proposed the Human Rights law as another solution, a law that represents how strongly the US supports human rights abroad, by acting as a marker for US' support for "human rights" at home.
EDIT: Here was my original proposal for handling foreign affairs issues, posted in "Rethinking the issues":
---LAW_DIPLOMACY && LAW_IDEOLOGY: This affects the foreign policy of the government, dividing it into two laws. LAW_IDEOLOGY focuses on what is America's goal in the international community: Promoting American freedom/'interests' (C+) or Promoting Human Rights (L+). LAW_DIPLOMACY focuses on how America seeks to achieve the goals set out in LAW_IDEOLOGY, either being adverse and confrontational (C+) or cooperative and willing to work within the international framework (L+). Perhaps a bit too complicated, but due to the complexities of how the two ideologies view "international politics", it seems better to just have two scales.
The only problem is, I don't know of exactly how LAW_DIPLOMACY && LAW_IDEOLOGY can really affect America back at home. So it does seem a tad stupid
LAW_MAD: (subset of foreign policy and nuclear power, dealing with nuclear weapons)
Arch-Conservative: Tactical nuclear weapons are frequently used by the military in combat situations.
C+: The government relies on nukes to deter potential enemies, within and without.
L+: The US has no nukes whatsoever.
-
You're using a much more loose definition of protecting, dictatorship, and befriending than I would agree with. It doesn't really matter though. More important is that the US no longer has a "national security interest" in propping up unstable dictators. Even if it did, pragmatism versus idealism doesn't really fit into the left-right dynamic anymore; modern neo-conservatism is violently idealistic.
These ideals are also highly mutable depending on the situation. One reason neo-conservatism is so idealistic is because it's working for them at the moment.
Keep in mind that much of the work the US has done with dictators in the past has been swept under the rug, or done under the guise of disposing of another tyrant. I can certainly see it happening again, especially in a C+-style environment, if it were at all practical.
-
Um...
It's really just flavor. Mid-range alignment presidents do appoint Sec. State and Attorney General outside their alignment, and they will also sign and veto outside their alignment, but these are actually separate phenomena.
...Jonathan...
if(l==434)
{
if(yesvotes_s>=51)yeswin_s=1;
if(yesvotes_s<67 && killbill[c]==-2)killbill[c]=0;
if(yesvotes_s==50)
{
//TIE BREAKER
int vote=(exec[EXEC_PRESIDENT]+
exec[EXEC_VP]+
exec[EXEC_STATE]+
exec[EXEC_ATTORNEY]+LCSrandom(9)-4)/4;
if(law[bill[c]]>vote && billdir[c]==-1)yeswin_s=1;
if(law[bill[c]]<vote && billdir[c]==1)yeswin_s=1;
//ASSURED SIGNING BY PRESIDENT IF VP VOTED YES
if(yeswin_s)killbill[c]=-1;
}
}
for(int c=0;c<bill.size();c++)
{
char sign=0;
if(killbill[c]==1)sign=-1;
else
{
int vote=(exec[EXEC_PRESIDENT]+
exec[EXEC_VP]+
exec[EXEC_STATE]+
exec[EXEC_ATTORNEY]+(short)LCSrandom(9)-4)/4;
if(exec[EXEC_PRESIDENT]==2)vote=2;
if(exec[EXEC_PRESIDENT]==-2)vote=-2;
if(law[bill[c]]>vote && billdir[c]==-1)sign=1;
if(law[bill[c]]<vote && billdir[c]==1)sign=1;
if(killbill[c]==-1)sign=1;
}