NationStates Jolt Archive

Okay my legislation to seize a goldmine in an issue just passed... and it reduced political freedoms!!!!! Why? Surely, since the issue clearly stated the goldmine was on government land, it would only either increase the size of the government's coffers, and maybe have an impact on the economy as a whole, seeing as there would be more gold on the market. I don't see the connection between the government mining a goldmine (since my government owns all the industries anyway), and political freedoms going down.......

You're reducing the pollitical freedoms of big bisuness by telling them what they can't do.

I think only the economy should suffer for that, personally... But eh.

All the business in my nation is owned by the government, so there are no big businesses to tell what to do.

And you wonder why pollitical freedoms went down...

Political freedom has nothing to do with nationalisation of industry, nor anything to do with ability to mine natural resources. All it means is that the government runs the industry, as opposed to money-grabbing capitalist businesses. In my country, industry was already owned by the government, and the government's decision to mine the gold itself as opposed to letting individuals mine it somehow made political freedoms go down.

I've just had another issue go through legislation, which I answered by choosing the option that would ban corporations from donating money to political parties. Despite the severe lack of corporations in my country (i.e. zero), this actually affected the political rights counter; my nation description now has the line "and political parties are banned from advertising or receiving donations" ...... which is a long way off what I chose to do. I chose to restrict corporations from giving money to political parties, not restrict the parties from receiving donations altogether, and I certainly didn't say to stop them from advertising!!!!

What about the pollitical freedom to own your own ore-mining bisuness?

That's a pretty hefty impingment on their rights, there.

And I like the outcome on the pollitical parties one, so... :P

Freedom to own an ore-mining business isn't a political freedom. And the choice I made didn't affect anyone's right to own such a business anyway, that had been banned long ago. Property rights are civil rights, not political rights.

You like the outcome of the political parties one? But it's misdescriptive! :D The choice I made clearly stated that businesses would lose the right to give donations to political parties, but the outcome banned parties from RECIEVING donations at all, and also banned them from advertising.


[EDIT: On a side-note, when do I get a chance to stamp out these enterprising fourteen-year-olds selling lemonade? :D :eek: :mp5: ]

As soon as my military budget goes up some more, remind me to roll you up and liberate your poor opressed people under a banned of red and gold.

As soon as my military budget goes up some more, remind me to roll you up and liberate your poor opressed people under a banned of red and gold.

:D Heheh. They're not oppressed. They have every civil right I get the opportunity to give them, and every political right I get the opportunity to give them, The latter, of course, being restricted by the silly results of some of these issues. The only thing I ban is capitalism, and that is why private enterprise is banned.

Which is of course, banning their pollitical rights to make industry and get ahead for themselves. Which in turn results in everyone working in government factories, with one set wage, which means they really have no rights at all. They have One choice, or death. That's it. You are so going down.

Ownership of a company isn't a political right, it's a civil right. It's the only civil right I do not allow in my nation, as it seldom leads to anything better than the rich ruling over the poor and stopping them from getting any better income than they currently earn. It is a right witheld to improve the conditions of my people, not to damage them.

The difference between the people working for corporations and them working in the exact same industry doing the exact same thing, but under the government-owned companies instead of capitalist-owned companies, is that the government isn't trying to make as much profit as possible by downsizing wages, and hence can afford to pay the workers a better wage. To reduce their status of improved wages to a choice of death or work is the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard since "Busted are a real rock band" or "Vote Bush".

To reduce their status of improved wages to a choice of death or work is the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard since "Busted are a real rock band" or "Vote Bush".

Clever.

In response to the original question, in the FAQ, it says responses to issues can have a much more drastic effect on your nation than what you had thought, and everything is really extreme. On second thought, I'll get the quote.


My decision had unintended consequences!

Yep, that'll happen. For one thing, see "Why is my nation so weird?" above. For another, pretty much every decision you make will involve a trade-off of some kind. It's kind of an exercise in choosing the best of a bunch of bad options. You might find this frustrating, especially if you're the kind of person who thinks the solutions to all the world's problems are obvious.


So this doesn't really answer the question, and it doesn't mean it's not nonsensical, but that's how the game works. Once I answered an issue, and much to my dismay, my political freedoms went up!

Hehe. Yeah I get the unintended consequences thing, and I've no problem with it, surprise is, errr, the spice of webgames, or something. But I just noticed that in the two cases I posted about in this thread, the unintended consequences could only have actually happened if I had chosen some sort of "Hidden Option #4", as the required actions weren't in the option I chose. If I choose an option in an issue for the government to legalise and sell drugs, and the unintended consequence is that all the pharmecists go out of business, then that's fine, 'cause that could actually happen. But my problem was that I chose to ban corporations from donating to political parties, and the result was a ban on political parties from recieving ANY donations, and an additional ban on parties advertising. Unintended consequences is one thing, and I think it's a good thing, but unintended legislation defeats the object of being allowed to choose the legislation you pass.