Nationstates Leftybol

Last thread 404'd as I was engaging in proletarian weekend activities, so lets pick up from where we left.

So far this is what we have nationstates.net/nation=leftybol
The People's Republic of Leftybol is a tiny, environmentally stunning nation, remarkable for its public floggings, irreverence towards religion, and stringent health and safety legislation. The compassionate, democratic population of 14 million Buckoes love a good election, and the government gives them plenty of them. Universities tend to be full of students debating the merits of various civil and political rights, while businesses are tightly regulated and the wealthy viewed with suspicion.

The enormous, socially-minded, outspoken government prioritizes Welfare, although Education, Defense, and Healthcare are also considered important, while International Aid receives no funds. The average income tax rate is 70.0%, and even higher for the wealthy.

The basket case Leftybolian economy, worth 136 billion labour vouchers a year, is driven entirely by a combination of government and state-owned industry, with private enterprise illegal. The industrial sector is mostly made up of the Trout Farming industry. Average income is 9,753 labour vouchers, and distributed extremely evenly, with practically no difference between the richest and poorest citizens.

Citizens applying for their first jobs face fierce competition from the homeless, elections are won by the candidate who makes the best 'yo mama' jokes, immigrants who don't like the taste of Leftybolian Turnip Chips are immediately deported, and every week is blindness awareness week. Crime is totally unknown, thanks to a well-funded police force and progressive social policies in education and welfare. Leftybol's national animal is the spook, which frolics freely in the nation's many lush forests.

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nationstates.net/nation=the_proletariat_of_the_world
nationstates.net/nation=the_private_toothbrushes
nationstates.net/nation=the_celestial_socialist_republic
nationstates.net/nation=deseria
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ISSUE TIME:
Illegal street racing and racing-related injuries are on the rise, causing many infamous racers to begin rallying for an officially sanctioned racing series and track facilities in order to safely satisfy their need for speed.

“If you don’t let us race on real racetracks, then we’ll just keep running on the roads at night!” says racing fans’ favorite Renee McCarthy, at the wheel of a tricked-out Honda. “Would it kill you guys to build a couple of nice big race facilities? Think of the money you’d make on charging admission and selling drinks and stuff! And it’d be a lot safer than all of us tearing around on public roads! Forget about the people griping about the noise pollution!”

“Don’t tell me you plan to cater to these speed freaks!” police officer Winston Ramirez comments over coffee and donuts. “Encouraging this sport is only going to increase the street racing problem because all these punks who can’t afford to run the professional circuit are going to want to satisfy their lead feet the way they have been! What we need is more police funding to crack down on these punk hotrodders.”

One vote for racetracks, please.

I approve this choice. So glad that tankies didnt get in this thread first.

Next issue:
When ultra-cheap underwear imports from Maxtopia drove a local factory into bankruptcy, the newly unemployed factory workers surrounded you during a press conference to demand you protect local manufacturing by any means necessary.

“Save our jobs!” begs a recently unemployed worker, Carmen Snow, who seems to be on the verge of a nervous breakdown. “I put years of my own sweat into that factory textile job, figuratively and literally. It’s the only work I know. Please, Leader, implement tariffs or subsidies to keep alive the domestic clothing industry. Otherwise we’ll be thrown out on our asses, forced to buy shoddy Maxtopian undergarments.”

“We have the freedom to know what we are buying!” exclaims an unusually patriotic consumer advocate, while barging into the crowd of workers and ferociously waving a Leftybolian flag. “When I buy me a new pair of underpants, I wanna see that ‘Made In Leftybol’ tag to let me know I am getting the best of all possible underpants. Absolutely everything for sale should say where it came from. That way we’ll know to buy local, and this problem will probably fix itself.”

“Why have Maxtopian imports at all?” rhetorically asks Arnold Goethe, who runs the local store where you used the toilet without buying anything the other day. “Or, for that matter, from anywhere? We’ve been dependent on foreign imports for way too long. Leftybol needs to strive to be an economically and ecologically self-sufficient nation, where everything is made by our fellow citizens. Other countries might be able to make things cheaper, but no one works with as much pride as us Buckoes!”

“Wait!” interrupts Paris Kardashian, the owner of Leftybol’s largest department store, Humongo-Mart. “Okay, sure, maybe ‘Made In Maxtopia’ means slightly lower quality, but Maxtopian manufacturing is so very cheap! Sure, I had to replace my Maxtopian toaster three times last year because of a few teeny-tiny explosions, but that still cost me less than buying one locally-manufactured toaster! Have some common sense, Leader, and allow free trade.”

“There’s an easier way to appease the masses,” whispers your Minister of Foreign Trade, Falala Goff, while handing you the latest briefs. “Let’s keep importing things from other nations, but we can pretend that everything was made in Leftybol. Put flag stickers on every conceivable product, tell the people that we’re self-sufficient, and beef up the security at all ports. Then bam: the customers are happy, the department stores are happy, and our economy can keep importing essential resources. And of course anyone that mentions our hypocrisy aloud will be… punished.”

Why the hell are we spending so much money on "spirituality" when we are remarkable for our "irreverence towards religion"?

Anyway, it's pointless to figure out a decent economic policy since this game won't let us out of Basket Case at best unless we go full liberalism. Let's just go full isolationist and outlaw contact with the capitalist world. Not sure how we'd buy capitalist products with labor vouchers anyway.

Bunkerism here we comee!

A student was recently suspended by a school for posting negative comments about a fellow classmate on an online gossip column. The offensive message read “Clint’s dad is such a drunk, that he didn’t just lose his front door keys, he lost his whole front door… oh, and his house… and his job. Wow, sucks to be his son, huh?”. As both the suspended student’s parents are celebrities, there’s been a lot of media coverage of the incident, and now everybody is talking about it. Some are calling this harmless fun, while others are labelling it as cyberbullying. It seems like everybody wants to know where you stand on this.

“This is a complete violation of my rights,” shouts Rochelle Hamilton, the amateur columnist brat. “I can say what I want outside of school, as long as I like, don’t, like, harm anyone. Like, the whole free speech thing, you know. I wasn’t in school, so they can’t punish me. People just need to be allowed to say whatever. By the way, check out my latest roasting of this one geography teacher at my school who doesn’t take showers.”

“Schools need to be stricter,” whispers Robin True, worriedly looking around before nibbling on a bar of chocolate. “People used to use my name, but now I’m just ‘Ugly Fat-Face’. Please, make it stop! Schools should strictly punish students who say rude things online.”

“Kids these days, they’re geni.. geniei… uh… geniuses!” exclaims Kendra McKinnon, your Minister of Solutions. “This is the best idea we’ve had in a while! With elections coming up, we can hire a few of these prodigies of the put-down, and pay them to work for us. The kids can, as they say, ‘roast’ the other politicians, and make you look great in comparison!”

Free speech. Cyber bullying is a joke.

We can't seriously be expected to thought police every public space. Free speech, and let the teachers deal with such conflicts in a way that doesn't require the Stasi to intervene.