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The Mendacity of Populism


Byron Orpheus

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Much to the impediment of progress as we continue through a reign of peace and prosperity in our world is the growing rise of the populist movement across our globe. Sadly, many a ruler has been swept up into this anarchic movement, placing stock into the rantings of the manipulators that plague our alliances. Do not think, however, that all those involved in this small fraction of nations are silly or unintelligent for buying into the lies they are sold; indeed, at first glance this populism seems like everything a person would want—the overthrow of an oppressive, tyrannical regime; the placement of power into the hands of the commoners; freedom, both of speech and of action. Yes, it does sound like a golden age that will be ushered in, and I admit that even I hear their silver tongues and, for a brief moment, consider to myself what a brave new world the populists promise us all. But then I see their methods, I look beyond their rhetoric and their empty promises, and I am aghast at the nightmarish reality that they want to thrust upon globe.

The overthrow of an oppressive regime? Certainly, if there is an overlording tyrant in our midst, let us cast him out into the darkness and never speak of him again; but, my fellow Bobians, no such man exists—they man that they would indict as this mythical “tyrant”, the esteemed Emperor Revenge, is a fair and benevolent ruler (and as great a friend as many could ask for) who works closely with his allies to establish a peaceful, pleasant atmosphere for all to benefit from—a Pax Pacifica, used as a searing curse by those too blinded with misguided hate to embrace the prosperity freely handed to them, which has allowed so many nations and alliances to grow in relative safety from rogues, raiders, and the savage, tribal unaligned. Where is this tyrant of which they speak, then? They fault Emperor Revenge because he must keep order in a judicious manner, because he and his allies must reinforce the peace from which we have all reaped rewards, they call him a villain. If it is villainy to step in from time to time and, with the aid of likeminded friends, keep order and dignity within our world by targeting violent criminals and dangerous extremists, then count me as a villain as well, for I have no qualms with the swift treatment of those who would try to destroy the world that so many have labored to build.

Placement of power in the commoner’s hands? Again, an ideal that all of us will associate with benevolent democracy, but is it? No, what the populists truly mean to achieve is to put themselves in a position of power by using your hard work and muscle as a weapon against those who truly do have your best interests in mind. Still worse, what they propose backfire on their insatiable desire for power and will plunge our planet into a dark age with no discernible order or friendship, with allies few and far between as our citizens cry from the wreckage of a smoldering state for help that will never arrive. Multipolarity—this is nothing but a code word for anarchy, friends, and is the very antithesis of what the world has been working to build for years now; you must consider whether you really want to be a part of a world that is either ruled by real tyrants that have spoken poisoned words into your ears, feeding off your emotion, or, still worse, to live in the bleak future that will actually result from these madmen’s quest for ultimate control. They have tried to convince you of something that in your heart of hearts you know to be untrue, and they will not stop until the world has lost all progress.

Freedom of speech, freedom of action. These are the last of the significant promises made to us by the populist movement; however, do we not already have these rights? Surely we are restricted, as are all civilized people, by the social contracts that allow us to live in relative harmony with each other. However, so long as I am not harming any of my peers, I am already free to do as I please. I am free to speak as I please—the populists prove this fact well enough on their own through their heated rhetoric that never seems to result in their destruction at the hands of the police state they claim exists. All alliances have the same restrictions on action and speech—so long as one does not threaten that alliance’s safety (again, no matter what alliance is being discussed), there is nothing to fear. This is standard for the civilized world, and Pacifica and her allies are no exception.

I hope that with these ideas in mind the world will be able to better see the threat it is facing; the populists speak as if they had the voice of the people, but in reality they are the voice of the select few. It is a common tactic for populists of any sort (not necessarily anti-Pacifican populists) to point to a mythical “elite” to demonize so that through this demonization they can obtain a membership base that would not be so large if they were honest with their goals and ideology to the membership. If you take nothing else from what I have written, remember this: do not allow yourself to become a pawn to the populist propaganda; do not allow these extremists to undermine what you have worked so hard to build, a prosperous golden age where alliances are stronger and wealthier than ever; use your Admin-given intelligence and make the right decisions—the future of the world depends on it.

Edit:

At the request of a person who will remain anonymous, a tl;dr: This argument can't be condensed

Edited by Byron Orpheus
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Something stands out here to me:

to grow in relative safety from rogues, raiders, and the savage, tribal unaligned.

This peace that has come over Bob, may have allowed us to "Grow in relative safety from rogues, raiders, and the savage, tribal unaligned," but it has also created many of those rogues, and raiders. The unaligned have never been a true threat for alliances (with exception to Walford's NONE which was more like an alliance anyway and was never really fully successful). The control of the game, however "peace-bringing" it may be, has encouraged us to raid unaligned's, not really letting them live in the way we look toward alliances for. They are not the ones endangering the aligned, the aligned are the ones endangering the unaligned. I'm not saying that is wrong, I am simply saying that the unaligned have never really been a problem for aligned nations, before this hegemony, during this hegemony, and after this hegemony.

Very well written post, and I am not going to state my opinion on any other part of it, but that just stood out to me.

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Something stands out here to me:

This peace that has come over Bob, may have allowed us to "Grow in relative safety from rogues, raiders, and the savage, tribal unaligned," but it has also created many of those rogues, and raiders. The unaligned have never been a true threat for alliances (with exception to Walford's NONE which was more like an alliance anyway and was never really fully successful). The control of the game, however "peace-bringing" it may be, has encouraged us to raid unaligned's, not really letting them live in the way we look toward alliances for. They are not the ones endangering the aligned, the aligned are the ones endangering the unaligned. I'm not saying that is wrong, I am simply saying that the unaligned have never really been a problem for aligned nations, before this hegemony, during this hegemony, and after this hegemony.

Very well written post, and I am not going to state my opinion on any other part of it, but that just stood out to me.

I agree. We do not fear the unaligned because we have the strength to destroy any who would threaten one of our nations (this applies for all alliances). As far as the raiding, that is a separate issue.

Edit: I see more what you are getting at, now that I re-read. Perhaps it would be more helpful if I explain that I mean a great many people may leave alliances and be unprotected in the wild, or that a catastrophe could leave many alliances weakened for a time and thus have greater difficulty dealing with rogues.

Edited by Byron Orpheus
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I agree. We do not fear the unaligned because we have the strength to destroy any who would threaten one of our nations (this applies for all alliances). As far as the raiding, that is a separate issue.

Edit: I see more what you are getting at, now that I re-read. Perhaps it would be more helpful if I explain that I mean a great many people may leave alliances and be unprotected in the wild, or that a catastrophe could leave many alliances weakened for a time and thus have greater difficulty dealing with rogues.

Ah, that makes more sense. Yes, I do agree that many people might leave alliances and be unprotected and possibly leave alliances weakened.

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I'm not sure I understand what you are implying or referring to specifically.

My bad.

I am free to speak as I please—the populists prove this fact well enough on their own through their heated rhetoric that never seems to result in their destruction at the hands of the police state they claim exists.

shaneprice, Jonathan Brookbank, etc.

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I am free to speak as I please—the populists prove this fact well enough on their own through their heated rhetoric that never seems to result in their destruction at the hands of the police state they claim exists.

Yes, because nobody has ever been attacked for disagreeing with GGA or Pacifica.

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I think we will have to agree to disagree on this point, since you insist on just typing the same two names over and over.

shaneprice committed no crime against the Grand Global Alliance other than considering a move away from Pacifica and One Vision. Jonathan Brookbank committed the crime of giving a public view into the machinations of the same bloc.

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shaneprice committed no crime against the Grand Global Alliance other than considering a move away from Pacifica and One Vision. Jonathan Brookbank committed the crime of giving a public view into the machinations of the same bloc.

Shaneprice: the threatening of One Vision's solidarity

Jonathan Brookbank: That sounds suspiciously like treason to me.

Of course the extremists want to make this all about Pacifica, when really it is about the cancer of populism that is trying to kill our peace.

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Your peace is just as much a lie as is your essay. Let us examine it in greater detail, so we might understand fully why this is so. Come.

Much to the impediment of progress as we continue through a reign of peace and prosperity in our world is the growing rise of the populist movement across our globe.

That you evidently blame the upcoming conflict on those like Vox Populi, does wonders for revealing your misunderstanding of world affairs. Indeed, even if it were they who incited the world to the brink of war, it would be folly to place the fault at their feet. They are not the source of your troubles, they have not made the times what they are. They aremerely the symptom of the larger underlying flaws in the current world order.

Yes, it does sound like a golden age that will be ushered in, and I admit that even I hear their silver tongues and, for a brief moment, consider to myself what a brave new world the populists promise us all.

It is ironic that you would choose to defend the status quo in this way, being that your allusion most would damn your world. After all, is it not you that would prefer to sacrifice freedom, conflict, and struggle itself to maintain some boring, cowardly stability? Sadness and death are a small thing to risk to for that glimpse of eternity called virtue, virtue which can be found only in struggle

the esteemed Emperor Revenge, is a fair and benevolent ruler (and as great a friend as many could ask for) who works closely with his allies

Works with? I seem to recall some logs from your very own alliance that seemed to suggest even cursory disagreements weren't allowed. Also, that if you question them you get booted as a trium. At least closely is right. I hear they have a tendency to show up in the gov channels' of their allies. Or at least whoever they've got left as allies.

to establish a peaceful, pleasant atmosphere for all to benefit from—a Pax Pacifica,

For all? What about the "allies" of theirs which they cannibalized in the process? It seems that more must be killed in rollings to maintain this "peace" than would die during regular times of war. Oh, and of course non allies get rolled too. See: the Continuum-GPA war, in which an alliance of hippies was bushwhacked.

used as a searing curse by those too blinded with misguided hate to embrace the prosperity freely handed to them,

Byron, you're like a modern Aristotle. Everything you have to say is brilliant and also utterly unsupported by empirical analysis. Need I point to the blood that was spilled to maintain amusement for this "peace" or the freedoms that have been stolen for it? Just look to your own alliance and Dephire's announcement in the shaneprince thread for further proof. Worst of it all, the blood is spilled in vain. It is not lost in some grand struggle but drained from the bodies of sacrificial lambs, lambs who have been deprived of the right of an honorable struggle.

which has allowed so many nations and alliances to grow in relative safety from rogues, raiders, and the savage, tribal unaligned.

Curious. Rogues were never really a threat to (major) alliance members. Ever. At any time.

If it is villainy to step in from time to time and, with the aid of likeminded friends,

Likeminded? Read: coerced.

then count me as a villain as well, for I have no qualms with the swift treatment of those who would try to destroy the world that so many have labored to build.

Then I find myself glad to know that I need never face the dishonor of being your ally, for this declaration strikes me as calling for my death just as well as it seems to for my alliance. I spit on your world order and the false peace it brings, for even if successful it would produce only stagnation. As the failure it is, however, we face not just this stagnation but also a facetious web of treaties, one which is maintained through the treacherous cannibalization of its own young. That it is unraveling is not the result of some menacing populism but rather a result of the weight of its own lies.

No, what the populists truly mean to achieve is to put themselves in a position of power by using your hard work and muscle as a weapon against those who truly do have your best interests in mind. Still worse, what they propose backfire on their insatiable desire for power and will plunge our planet into a dark age with no discernible order or friendship, with allies few and far between as our citizens cry from the wreckage of a smoldering state for help that will never arrive. Multipolarity—this is nothing but a code word for anarchy,

Give us that! Give us wreckage, let us attempt to satiate our lust for power and, most of all, give us true war! All these things we want for their end result is nowhere near what you imagine it to be. It is the stagnancy of a false peace that gives, and always has given, way to dark ages- never the innovation that conflict requires!

Freedom of speech, freedom of action. These are the last of the significant promises made to us by the populist movement; however, do we not already have these rights?

You don't. Just ask your former alliance triums.

Surely we are restricted, as are all civilized people, by the social contracts that allow us to live in relative harmony with each other. However, so long as I am not harming any of my peers, I am already free to do as I please. I am free to speak as I please—

The most hopeless slave is the one who thinks himself free. You are free, yes, but free to act, think, and speak only while you are in agreement with your "benevolent" leaders. Indeed, the very state of stability and "peace" is profoundly unfree and stifling by nature

the populists prove this fact well enough on their own through their heated rhetoric that never seems to result in their destruction at the hands of the police state they claim exists.

Was vox or fan or someone like that given peace while I wasn't paying attention?

I hope that with these ideas in mind the world will be able to better see the threat it is facing; the populists speak as if they had the voice of the people, but in reality they are the voice of the select few.

"The structure is sound!" says the architect as the Tower of Babel crumbles before him.

If you take nothing else from what I have written, remember this: do not allow yourself to become a pawn to the populist propaganda;

Yes, become a pawn to byron's propaganda.

do not allow these extremists to undermine what you have worked so hard to build, a prosperous golden age where alliances are stronger and wealthier than ever

For all the utopic qualities you associate with our present day, I find it amusing that you can only sustain it through the violence, the rollings, and P/EZIngs that you so try to justify at the outset of your great sophistry. Indeed, as the number killed in the name of "stability" and "prosperity" rises rapidly above the number of nations for whom those things are preserved, I can only wonder at what point you will realize that your words are powerless in the face of those realities and facts which our eyes can plainly see.

Edit: While I wrote the above, Byron announced the following:

Perhaps it would be more helpful if I explain that I mean a great many people may leave alliances and be unprotected in the wild, or that a catastrophe could leave many alliances weakened for a time and thus have greater difficulty dealing with rogues.

In what world is it safe to be without an alliance? One can hide as a protectorate of the NPO on red, sure, but for the most part there is no such safety. Especially considering that many of the enforcers of the Pax Pacifica allow for tech raiding of the unaligned. (Not that I oppose the tech raiding, of course. I am merely against the Pax.)

Oh yes, and any alliance that can't handle rogues is no alliance. If you join anyone besides your GGA, I get the feeling that fears of an alliance which can't handle rogues would be rather needless.

Edited by heggo
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Shaneprice: the threatening of One Vision's solidarity

Jonathan Brookbank: That sounds suspiciously like treason to me.

Of course the extremists want to make this all about Pacifica, when really it is about the cancer of populism that is trying to kill our peace.

Threatening of solidarity? It's an alliance's choice whether or not it wants to remain with its current "friends". If you judge that I'm threatening One Vision's "solidarity", it's okay to attack me, right?

A lot of things sound like treason to GGA members, apparently.

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who works closely with his allies to establish a peaceful, pleasant atmosphere for all to benefit from—a Pax Pacifica

You may or may not have a point there, but either way that sounds like an aweful atmosphere. Maybe over on planet Earth thats all good, but not here. Bob thrives on war, debate, rivalry, and every other kind of politics that gets thought up.

Peace, teddy bears, and marshmellows aren't good things for Planet Bob.

Edited by SpoiL
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Your peace is just as much a lie as is your essay. Let us examine it in greater detail, so we might understand fully why this is so. Come.

That you evidently blame the upcoming conflict on those like Vox Populi, does wonders for revealing your misunderstanding of world affairs. Indeed, even if it were they who incited the world to the brink of war, it would be folly to place the fault at their feet. They are not the source of your troubles, they have not made the times what they are. They aremerely the symptom of the larger underlying flaws in the current world order.

I blame any conflict in the near future on those that have been lead astray by the hateful rhetoric, a symptom of those that would disrupt the existing order only for their own personal gain.

It is ironic that you would choose to defend the status quo in this way, being that your allusion most would damn your world. After all, is it not you that would prefer to sacrifice freedom, conflict, and struggle itself to maintain some boring, cowardly stability? Sadness and death are a small thing to risk to for that glimpse of eternity called virtue, virtue which can be found only in struggle

I sacrifice nothing and seek to maintain nothing but that which is of the greatest benefit for all--the warmongers can find their conflict amongst the unenlightened.

Works with? I seem to recall some logs from your very own alliance that seemed to suggest even cursory disagreements weren't allowed. Also, that if you question them you get booted as a trium. At least closely is right. I hear they have a tendency to show up in the gov channels' of their allies. Or at least whoever they've got left as allies.

And yet I am not the one protesting. It has been a source of interest to me that the alliances allied with Pacifica are the ones who are being told how to actually feel, yet their own opinions on the subject are readily dismissed.

For all? What about the "allies" of theirs which they cannibalized in the process? It seems that more must be killed in rollings to maintain this "peace" than would die during regular times of war. Oh, and of course non allies get rolled too. See: the Continuum-GPA war, in which an alliance of hippies was bushwhacked.

I would have to review the causes of that war to speak intelligently on it.

Curious. Rogues were never really a threat to (major) alliance members. Ever. At any time.

That has already been addressed in this thread, although if you feel it is an unsatisfactory explanation I am more than willing to continue the discussion.

Likeminded? Read: coerced.

I do not feel coerced in the least. NPO has never forced me (or even asked me) to do anything.

Then I find myself glad to know that I need never face the dishonor of being your ally, for this declaration strikes me as calling for my death just as well as it seems to for my alliance. I spit on your world order and the false peace it brings, for even if successful it would produce only stagnation. As the failure it is, however, we face not just this stagnation but also a facetious web of treaties, one which is maintained through the treacherous cannibalization of its own young. That it is unraveling is not the result of some menacing populism but rather a result of the weight of its own lies.

The treaties are a reaction to the obsolete need for tight alliance security and, as we have seen elsewhere, will work themselves out over time.

Give us that! Give us wreckage, let us attempt to satiate our lust for power and, most of all, give us true war! All these things we want for their end result is nowhere near what you imagine it to be. It is the stagnancy of a false peace that gives, and always has given, way to dark ages- never the innovation that conflict requires!

Where you see stagnation I see prosperity. Those desiring warfare should commit themselves to weeding out the extremists and the treacherous from our midst.

The most hopeless slave is the one who thinks himself free. You are free, yes, but free to act, think, and speak only while you are in agreement with your "benevolent" leaders.

If I were to write a scathing remark about the NPO right now I imagine I would remain unscathed.

Was vox or fan or someone like that given peace while I wasn't paying attention?

I was not referring to the Vox extremist group that rightfully find itself as a target. I was referring more to the Vox-sympathetic rhetoricians that spew their bile across the board.

For all the utopic qualities you associate with our present day, I find it amusing that you can only sustain it through the violence, the rollings, and P/EZIngs that you so try to justify at the outset of your great sophistry. Indeed, as the number killed in the name of "stability" and "prosperity" rises rapidly above the number of nations for whom those things are preserved, I can only wonder at what point you will realize that your words are powerless in the face of those realities and facts which our eyes can plainly see.

Prosperity, peace, and stability are not attributes that are purchased lightly; Pacifica and her allies will from time to time be called forth to defend their freedoms.

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You may or may not have a point there, but either way that sounds like an aweful atmosphere. Maybe over on planet Earth thats all good, but not here. Bob thrives on war, debate, rivalry, and every other kind of politics that gets thought up.

Peace, teddy bears, and marshmellows aren't good things for Planet Bob.

I am talking about peace and prosperity for the majority. As another individual has commented, global war is just as harmful as perpetual peace. So consider peace as "peace".

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Your central plank is that the Pax Pacifica is good for everyone. FAN, GPA, GATO and many others throughout the history of the Pax (essentially GW3 to today) show that that is not the case. With the postulate removed, all your flowery logic is nothing but hot air.

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I am talking about peace and prosperity for the majority. As another individual has commented, global war is just as harmful as perpetual peace. So consider peace as "peace".

Thats a matter of perspective. Usually the losing side isn't too happy.

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