blah the Prussian

Hello, and welcome... to the world at war. Episode 2: Building the Liberationist State Despite its high minded morals, Liberationism never really caught on with the majority of people across the world. The reason for this was obvious: humans simply benefitted too much from the consistent use of Pokemon to give it up. Even in Unova, the epicenter of Liberationist sympathies, this was true. Something clearly needed to change. That something came in the form of the 1985 Great Depression. For decades by that point, Unovan business had boomed in the aftermath of the Orre War and the diverting of resources from the military and into big business. Pokemon handled blue-collar jobs, while humans handled white-collar jobs. In hindsight, it should have been obvious that this couldn't have lasted. Thus, in 1985 the Great Depression hit, driving countless banks entirely out of business. This mass loss of jobs by the Middle Classes only led to resentment when all the blue collar jobs were taken by Pokemon. Enter Nicholas Juniper. Juniper had subscribed to the Liberationist ideology at an early age, and quickly rose to become the leader of the Party, achieving this in 1980, at age 25. 30 when the Depression hit, Juniper immediately saw a surge in popularity for his party. This was helped along by Juniper's fiery rhetoric. in the 1989 Presidential elections, with the economy getting worse and worse, Juniper easily defeated his opponents to become President of Unova. He was helped by the Liberationist Party's, um, special militia, the Whiteshirts. The Whiteshirts, in reality, were essentially a group of thugs who went around intimidating voters for the election. Did they play a role in Juniper's victory? Undoubtedly. But, despite anything that Unova apologists will tell you, Juniper won 55% of the vote against two other candidates, and with little to no media support. Juniper was clearly supported by the people of Unova. Still, there was a massive portion of society unhappy with his victory. Riots broke out across Unova against Juniper, opposed by Whiteshirt thugs, as well as the police. Juniper responded by getting the Unovan Congress to sign the Public Safety Act, which did two things: firstly, it made the Whiteshirts an official unit of the Police Force, and secondly, it gave the police force "emergency powers" to arrest essentially whoever it wanted and detain them indefinitely without trial. It goes without saying that these emergency powers would not be suspended until Liberationism itself fell. So, with this Juniper essentially solidified his control over the state. So, with all MPs who opposed Juniper um, guests, of the Whiteshirts, Juniper officially passed the Liberation of Pokemon bill. All Pokemon were immediately freed of their owners, of course a massive change. And yet, the people of Unova didn't strictly speaking care. They had jobs again; it was that simple. Juniper's next step was to sign the Pokemon Protection Act; that is, he banned all parties not explicitly committed to the liberty of Pokemon- that is, all other parties- from existing. With that, the Republic of Unova became a one party state. It would not be the Republic of Unova for much longer. On February 2, 1990, a month after being inaugurated, Juniper declared that the Republic of Unova was dead, and the Liberationist State of Unova was born. Juniper declared his commitment to "stamping out the vile slavers wherever we find them!" The Great Liberationist War was now an inevitability. Even if the rest of the world did not know this, Juniper definitely did. To this end, he created the Pokemon Liberation Army. The PLA would incorporate all-Pokemon units, working under commander Pokemon with heightened intelligence, such as Alakazams. Of course, they would all ultimately answer to humans. The Pokemon Liberation Navy and Pokemon Liberation Air Force were also created, and Unova's revitalized economy was concentrated entirely on military buildup. By the time the war started, in 1996, Unova's military was the best in the world. But, of course, I would be remiss if I didn't mention the most infamous of Juniper's programs. The Pokemon Liberation Army Special Manpower Assignment, or Team PLASMA, was the Liberationist's secret police. They were formed out of the Whiteshirts, and had the explicit goal of finding and utterly eliminating any opposition to Juniper's regime. They set about this task with brutal efficiency, under their leader, Ghetsis Harmonia. Harmonia was likely not a true believer in the Liberationist ideology, but rather saw it as a way to gain power easily. Juniper likely knew this, but didn't care. All he knew was that Harmonia was competent at crushing dissent. That dissent was becoming rarer and rarer, though, due to the extremely persistent propaganda campaign employed by the Liberationists. Juniper was quick to exploit religion in his quest for power. Propaganda posters, radio announcements, and television all declared Juniper as a new prophet, sent by Arceus to free His children from the vile claws of mankind. Schools, too, were filled with such propaganda. Families that had a long history of owning Pokemon were often attacked; that is, if they weren't sent to labour camps to repay their "debt to society". And so, by 1996, the transformation of Unova was complete. It had a massive army, a loyal population, and a fanatical secret police. Juniper decided that the time was now. On June 5, 1996, the Liberationist State of Unova, with the explicit goal of "liberating oppressed Pokemon" declared war on the Orre Federation. The Empire of Shoyo soon kept to Orre's defense. The Great Liberationist War had begun.

Damn, I forgot about Iran. You win this round, Tuvarkz! *shakes fist angrily*And isn't the whole point of the left's position on racism that not having oppressive laws doesn't cut it, and that microaggressions or so,e shit still happen? I'm not definitively on the left or right, in any case. If minorities are oppressed by the law, violence isn't justified except in cases of genocide, and at that point the purpose of the violence would hardly be self defense; more like take a few down with me.

1. Fair enough. I am in favor of police reform, but that is for another topic. 2. That really doesn't count. I don't count military coups, for obvious reasons; this entire thing refers to civilian resistance. Also, Japan didn't restore Xuantong, they installed the Republic of China-Nanjing.

Police officers, ideally at least, are acting according to the law, which is concrete, set in stone (literally in the case of Rome) and not susceptible to the desires of the mob. You can justify terrible things by arguing that you are defending your rights. I don't trust the people to not go too far in defending their rights. I do trust the law to not be oppressive. Also, name me one instance of successful nonviolent overthrow of tyranny that went to hell afterwords. I'm waiting.

Well, the majority of the stuff in this post is off topic anyway, so that's for a different thread. Regarding the Declaration of Independence, the worst way to protect rule of law is to use violence. This is because the use of violence essentially replaces rule of law with rule of force. There have been very few violent revolutions in history that have ended well. The only ones I can think of are the American and Romanian Revolutions, and American democracy was essentially entirely at the mercy of George Washington. So overall I can say with confidence that violence is disastrous for rule of law.

It is absolutely criminal that I haven't noticed this before. What can I say; I know the pain of not having anyone comment on your LP and I let it happen to another. Regardless, to say that this IMPROVES the story of Fates doesn't quite do it justice. Virtually anything would improve the story. No. This is a good story. I love the black comedy, I love the writing, I love the character of Dakota especially. Keep up the good work!

Nope, there's a clear difference. The Black Fang are assassins. They kill because they choose to. No matter how much of a dick the person they're killing is, it's always them who are the aggressors. There is a clear difference between that and killing an enemy soldier on the battlefield. And, while individual Black Fang killings might not be evil, the group overall is, for their vigilantism.Edit: So to be clear, I object to the whole "kill in cold blood and with no trial" thing they have going on.

WHAT? I never at any point indicated that I supported sexual slavery, and I have no idea where you got that. Oh yeah, and also it helps to mention that the only two countries that practiced Eugenics were Nazi Germany and, problematically, the USA, niether of which were Monarchies. I think that, save perhaps for the Saudi King, you will be hard pressed to find a single monarch today who supports any of what you listed. Hell, you'd have to go way farther back than 1900 to find a single European monarch in support of sexual slavery. Regardless, the maintnence of order is of course necessary for society to function. If rebellions spring up every time someone doesn't like something, the state collapses. Of course it's okay to disagree with the government, but this shouldn't be done violently, not in democracies, anyway. If you don't like the law, you work to change it, you don't use violence against it. And no, America isn't the antithesis of my ideology; I'd say that Jacobin France fits the bill better. Maybe you should work on those mind reading abilities. I don't appreciate being told what I think.

I am not in support of a complete ban on guns, so that addresses all concerns except guns being used against a tyrannical government. I'll leave it to people more knowledgable on the specific mechanics of firearm operation than myself to decide s should be allowed and which shouldn't. As for rebellion against a "tyrannical" government, that causes more problems than it solves. Look at, for example, Cliven Bundy. There's no way you can argue what he did was okay. I'm much more in favor of limiting the ability of people to BREAK THE LAW than I am giving the people the ability to, if they're lucky, kill a few soldiers on the off chance the government becomes oppressive. Also note that oppression is subjective. The idea that you have the right to rebel against laws you disagree with is dangerously disrespectful towards rule of law. As to your opinions on freedom, I dislike arguing philosophy because everything is subjective. Suffice it to say we have different opinions on freedom.

Actually an idea I had for that was it would target ALL Pokemon, including your own. Either that, or it would have a MASSIVE power penalty, so it would be impractical unless all three opponents are in red. The latter is more likely, TBH.

If things have progressed to the point where a rebellion of the people would be morally correct, presumably this little restriction would have been bypassed. And the latter sentiment seems awfully complacent. Yes, the military may refuse to act now, but in a decade or two, who's to say they would still be motivated by such noble patriotism. Finally, who the fuck would your hypothetical rebels be fighting if not the military?

Oh my god, Battle Royal looks amazing! Unfortunately it probably wont be very prevalent in multiplayer.

There's another problem with this, which is that if you accept that the people have the right to revolt against an oppressive government, you must be prepared for people to revolt against a government that they consider oppressive, but that you do not; the American Civil War is an obvious example. Are you prepared to accept that? Also, I am perfectly okay with hunting rifles being allowed. I draw the line at handguns. Why? I simply don't want private citizens having access to weapons possessed by the police. I want any confrontation between law enforcement and criminals to be skewed in the favor of law enforcement.

So, to Duff: you say that as I am not American (I actually am, but I've been living in Prague for a while now, and I also don't particularly care about American values if I disagree with them) then I'm not shying away from the fact that gun control tries to restrict freedom; this is true. But now you have to answer me this: what practical benefit do guns bring to society? Why, beyond that they are what America stands for, should citizens have access to them. Don't say "Its their right". Rights can and should be violated; for example, incitement to violence doesn't fall under freedom of speech.

You know, I'm surprised this doesn't get brought up more often, but maybe the Founding Fathers were wrong about some things? I mean, they sure as hell were wrong about slavery, and I think they were wrong about Monarchy. They had some good ideas, particularly with regard to due process, but a bunch of their ideas were, simply, wrong. The Second Amendment is very clear that the people do have the right to bear arms. That shouldn't be the conversation. The conversation should concern whether or not the Second Amendment should continue to exist.

Well, this election WILL make a fascinating history book.

Right then. I think Clinton is the better candidate. The problem with her as I see it is that America at this stage really needs to address the rise of Trump and take steps to address some of the concerns of his supporters by improving the employment prospects for his power base (and their prospects do legitimately need to be improved). I don't see Clinton doing that. I see Sanders doing that. That's why I'm voting for Clinton only grudgingly, because I know that even if she wins I'll have to vote against Trump again in four more years, and he'll only have gotten stronger.

Ah, okay, that they should bother asking Apple first, which I agree with. On the other hand if Apple refuses they're perfectly justified in going into his phone.

Hold on one second. What is wrong with the FBI "fucking up the shooters phone"? It seems like a natural response to me.

I wasn't disputing that things were slowly getting better. But the same conflicts that were killing people 50 years ago are still killing people today, and are joined by new ones. Anyway, this has gotten off topic and I need to go to bed, so let's leave it at that.

The world being better than it used to be doesn't make it good, and the core problems facing the world since the end of WWII essentially all remain. I guess I'm looking big picture and you're looking slightly less big picture.Edit: to be clear here, I am referring to geopolitical problems, eg Israel vs Palestine, the conflicts in the Middle East, India vs Pakistan, former Yugoslavia, etc.

The world is getting better, to be sure, but it's been getting better in the easy problems. What do you do about LGBT rights? Sign a law allowing them to get married, simple as that. What do you do when an asshole like this guy murders 50 of them, and immediately people like Trump rant more about Muslims, and the NRA is making up some dumb excuse, and Congress is too paralyzed to do anything? That's much harder.

Have to agree with Rommel here. To say that the world is mostly good is naive. There are a bunch of fucked up problems without easy answers facing us, and I don't claim to know what to do about most of them. This isn't because individual people suck, though. The culprit is mob mentality.

Yes. I don't know when I implied against that. All I was saying was that he did appear to be inspired by Daesh. I'm not bashing Muslims; I understand full well that the vast majority of them aren't terrorists. Just wanted to make that clear.Edit: based on the info others have put up, it's possible he swore alliegance to Daesh more out of being edgy/common hatred of gays, than actual subscription to Fundamentalist Islam.

Yep, this sucks, and, unfortunately, the gunman appears to have been inspired by Daesh; he called 911 and swore alliegance to Daesh before carrying out the attack. I think that the father saying it wasn't inspired by religion is pure bs. It obviously was. On the other hand, the solution remains seeing how someone like him had access to a gun in the first place.