How the New Order Protects Your Democracy

I've often spoken of the New Order's commitment to preserving individual liberty, freedom of choice, and representative government. My election to the position of supreme ruler of highsec was 100% democratic. Still, rebel miners often express doubts about the legitimacy of my election, the imposition of the Code, and the fairness of New Order governance in general.

The rebels' objections stem from an imperfect, incomplete understanding of what democracy is and how individual rights manifest themselves in a practical context. For example, each person has a right to cast his or her own vote. This right was exercised when I voted as proxy on everyone else's behalf. This step was only necessary because the voters were, at the time, unable to cast a vote that would reflect their interests--which is the whole point of having a vote.

That much is common sense and, I think, pretty well understood. Yet some rebels take their objections a step further, and they call into question the legitimacy of my voting as proxy in the first place.

I recognize that the New Order and its Code naturally stir up varying emotions among the people of highsec. I myself am even the subject of the occasional controversy. I would caution those who have doubts, to put their emotions aside. Let's put the baggage away for a moment, and let reason alone sit before us. I'm confident that if everyone looks at the question in a thoughtful, rational manner, we can unanimously conclude that my sovereignty over highsec is the result of free choice and democracy, not some egotistical power grab.

Democracy is about more than merely having the right to an opinion. Democracy involves voting. But it can't stop there, can it? Voting, by its very nature, carries certain other requirements. You can't vote without some mechanism to cast your vote (paper ballots, marbles in a jar, computerized voting booths, whatever). You can't vote without some means by which to count the votes. Nor can you vote for a candidate without there first being some candidates for whom to vote. And would your vote have any meaning unless the candidates had some office into which they ascended, after having been elected? Would that office have any meaning without an institution of which it was a part? And would any of that have meaning unless there was some way to enforce the system's continued existence?

The "right to vote" sounds like such a simple thing, until you take a deeper look into what that right entails. Other rights must flow from the right to vote. Voting is meaningless apart from the existence of ballots, candidates, offices, institutions, and enforcement. Therefore, the right to vote also requires the right to ballots, candidates, offices, and so on.

Now consider the implications of these rights, as they apply to EVE and highsec.

As we all know, highsec is awash with bots and bot-aspirants. Having existed in a state of anarchy for so long, highsec is on an unsustainable course. Highsec life--if you can call it life--is increasingly automated. Bots and bot-aspirants can mine a lot of ice and ore, but they can't do much else. One need only visit the average system in highsec to see the truth of that. The systems are dead. Local is silent. Ore and ice are being collected, but there's not a trace of humanity.

How does democracy exist in such an environment? Where are the institutions? Where is the enforcement? For that matter, where are the voters? Only humans can exercise free will, not bots. Not even humans, if they are AFK. Everyone has a right to vote, yet that right necessarily depends upon the preexistence of so many other things--to which everyone also has a right.

If democracy cannot exist in highsec's current environment, and if the people have a right to democracy, then the people also have a right to change the environment. Democracy demands that highsec be saved from its current state. To be saved, highsec must have a Saviour. Highsec must have the institutions of an Order, which operates according to a Code, which is enforced by Agents of that Order.

Logic and reason leave no other conclusion: The principles of liberty, free choice, and democracy demand that everyone in highsec has a right to the New Order, a right to the Code, and a right to the Saviour of Highsec. These rights are inalienable. They cannot be taken away. No rebel or resistance movement, no matter how much they desire to oppose us, can deprive anyone of their right to be ruled by the New Order and receive the benefits of its leadership.

One Order, One Code, One Saviour of Highsec. No opposition or dissent. That is the meaning of freedom.