The Federation Must Die.

[Paradon]

How would you like it if a stranger started meddling with your personal affairs? They could potentially screwed your relationship with the people you know, like your friends and family. That's why psychologists and psychiatrists practice doctor's and patient's confidentiality. People get pissed if they don't and it makes the person even more screwed up! [chuckle] Now imagine a foreign government that install someone in power of a country because they thought that person is worthy enough to run the country that the foreign government was trying to influence in order to bring peace and prosperity. Most people think they can manipulate people and the whole country in the right directions, but people problems and society problems are far more complex than most people realize. You can't just change a country over night. There are a lot of things that you need to take in to consideration, every person in the country is affected some how, because something you do like banding certain things could make that group of people go out of business or make them vulnerable to attacks by other factions. You need to take your time and fix the problems one step at a time. Let's face it! Something you just can't rush and at present time is out of your control. The perfect people who are suited to fix the problems are the native people because they are familiar with all the societal and political problems. all we can do is diplomacy and maybe doing some business with them (if they aren't run by a bunch thugs) to try to improve the living standard of their people. When nobody dies and people are getting enough, you will find that they are more willing to listen to your idea. That's why diplomacy works the best. That is the reason for the Prime Directive. Trust me! If something went wrong (and it often does) and thousands and millions of people end up dead, blood will be on your hands.

[cwl]

RyuRoots wrote:

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What gets me is the insinuation that the Federation wanting others to join is SHOCKING AND CORRUPT AND TERRIBLE. ...it's a freaking alliance of worlds. The more members you have, the better the position of the Federation as a whole is, and it's mutually beneficial both for the whole (since that's another source of innovation, thinkers, resources, etc.) and for the world in question (more support, inclusion in beneficial treaties, etc.). I never understood why being nice to worlds in hopes of eventual membership is somehow underhanded and dastardly. Isn't that generally a good way generate interest in membership? By showing benefits and being a trustworthy ally?

And for that matter, when does the Federation EVER, in all of filmed canon Star Trek, PUSH ITSELF on other worlds? The only times we really see prospective worlds (that I can think of! feel free to correct me if I'm missing something) are in the TNG episode "First Contact" where THEY AGREE TO LEAVE FOREVER at the aliens' request, and with Bajor, who wanted the Federation to oversee the fallout from the occupation.

The Federation once described by the Klingons as a 'homo sapiens only club' is not an alliance of worlds but a Federation of worlds. Which implies some sort of top down rule. a lot of the smaller worlds could be seriously impacted by membership in a negative way by policies they dont agree with.

[MrBorg]

I admit I over-exaggerated a bit on how the Federation must die. I meant that it needs to be "rebooted".

Rather than reply to everyone, I'm just going to answer a few of the general arguments.

About the Federation wanting people to join: While it wouldn't be wrong if they didn't try to force their morals on the members, they do. They also, as far as I know, take away the cultures ability to have its own military, leaving them under the protection of Starfleet (Quite possibly the most corrupt part of the Federation).

About the not interfering with internal affairs: If someone is committing genocide, do you just stand by and watch while millions, possibly billions, of innocent people are killed? Of course not. If you do, you cannot call yourself morally superior to others. Now I'm not saying its okay to interfere with every internal affair, but if its something like genocide then you should try and stop it.

I exaggerated about how they should die. But not about how corrupt they are.

[RandyS]

cwl wrote:

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They are a bit like the USA or the United Nations. think they are superior to everyone else but are deeply flawed in many ways.

Watch that. I'll be the first to admit that the USA is, as you say, deeply flawed in many ways, and I'll never be a flag waver, but it's my home.

Besides, once I'm "elected", heh, president, things will change for the better.

[Anwar]

cwl wrote:

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The Federation once described by the Klingons as a 'homo sapiens only club' is not an alliance of worlds but a Federation of worlds. Which implies some sort of top down rule. a lot of the smaller worlds could be seriously impacted by membership in a negative way by policies they dont agree with.

The Klingons only said that because they are the Feds enemies and are biased against them. The "Homo Sapiens Only" thing was propaganda.

About the Federation wanting people to join: While it wouldn't be wrong if they didn't try to force their morals on the members, they do. They also, as far as I know, take away the cultures ability to have its own military, leaving them under the protection of Starfleet (Quite possibly the most corrupt part of the Federation).

Worlds who want to join the Federation are fully aware of this set-up, and it is their choice the whole way through. The Feds don't "take away" anything: It's their voluntary choice to give it up to begin with.

About the not interfering with internal affairs: If someone is committing genocide, do you just stand by and watch while millions, possibly billions, of innocent people are killed? Of course not. If you do, you cannot call yourself morally superior to others. Now I'm not saying its okay to interfere with every internal affair, but if its something like genocide then you should try and stop it.

You have to use realpolitik in these situations: IS it possible to really affect anything here, and if you have to resort to military force to do anything then will it be worth all the resources and lives of your OWN CITIZENS for it or will it only result in MORE death?

Sometimes you just have to know when to fold em.

[sonak]

I notice that when people try to defend the PD, they jump to the use of military force in a political scenario as an example of potentially bad inteference. Leaving aside the question of weighing the costs and effects of military intervention, we see plenty of examples in Trek of planet-wide NATURAL disasters that the UFP refuses to intervene in out of allegiance to the PD. And of course no one on this thread is bringing that up, because then the bankruptcy of the PD is revealed a lot more obviously.

[MrBorg]

Anwar wrote:

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You have to use realpolitik in these situations: IS it possible to really affect anything here, and if you have to resort to military force to do anything then will it be worth all the resources and lives of your OWN CITIZENS for it or will it only result in MORE death?

Sometimes you just have to know when to fold em.

They claim to value all life. If they truly value all life as they claim to, they'd be willing to make a sacrifice to save the lives of innocent people.

sonak is also correct that the Federation will turn a blind eye to a natural disaster even if it would wipe out the species. Specifically if it was a pre-warp civilization. We see this in "Pen Pals" (TNG). Picard does not want to help the civilization, even though billions of people could die.

[Paradon]

I think in case of genocide and war, which the two kindda go hand in hand, if we bring the leaders of the opposing factions face to face on neutral location for negotiation, that might work better. The words might carry more words if we had stay neutral. The way I see it, if we impose some kind of military forces on either side, there is no guarantee the war will stop. And not only that we could possibly worsen the conflict by killing innocent civilians. Whether it was intended or not doesn't matter much. Think of a psychological affect a foreign military forces occupying their homeland. People won't like it. How would you like it if Russia set up a large military bases on U.S. soil? It nearly started World War III when the Soviet Union place nuclear missiles on Cuba.

[Lanny77]

sonak wrote:

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we see plenty of examples in Trek of planet-wide NATURAL disasters that the UFP refuses to intervene in out of allegiance to the PD.

Correction, we say that happen once in "Pen Pals". In fact, Starfleet's even gone out of it's way to help prevent disasters, like in "Paradise Syndrome".

[Nerys Ghemor]

I do not think the Federation needs to be destroyed, but I think some internal political turmoil--some serious self-examination--is in order to flush out the immense amount of political detritus (bad precedents, bad politicians, possible unconstitutional decisions and legal code). Some unrest may be very beneficial.

Actually, I think the best thing that could happen to them would be a credible rival. Not another "we want to conquer the galaxy" type rival, but a political and trading adversary that offers a different but legitimate point of view. Something that has to be given serious thought and cannot just be dismissed out of hand.

[Hartzilla2007]

Lanny77 wrote:

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Correction, we say that happen once in "Pen Pals".

And in the episode with Worf's adopted brother.

In fact, Starfleet's even gone out of it's way to help prevent disasters, like in "Paradise Syndrome".

That was the TOS Prime Drective.

[cwl]

RandyS wrote:

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Watch that. I'll be the first to admit that the USA is, as you say, deeply flawed in many ways, and I'll never be a flag waver, but it's my home.

Besides, once I'm "elected", heh, president, things will change for the better.

I think American people are great but the politicians... not so much. foreign invasions and all that. it's the ruling elite of most contries that are the problem.

with the Federation you get the vision that it's Earth's empire. Dominated by Earth and set up for earth. the smaller worlds get swallowed up because it's supposedly good for them but it's good for Earth to have all the allies they can get.

[sonak]

Hartzilla2007 wrote:

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And in the episode with Worf's adopted brother.

That was the TOS Prime Drective.

OK, maybe I shouldn't have said "plenty," but that's at least two, and it's a monstrous enough policy. We can also assume it happens more frequently, but how many episodes of "the crew stands by and does nothing while millions die in natural disasters" could Trek and the audience have taken?

I was also lumping "dear doctor" in with this, but that's not quite fair since that was Archer acting on his own before a PD or the UFP. Though I'm sure Picard would've made some b.s. speech applauding Archer's decision had he been there.

[pimp]

Look, OK there is no perfect government and yes the Federation does have problems when the prime directive is in the way, but at the end of they day they abolished famine, greed by acquiring tangible assets because money is not the real driving force of what is today (money is the mother of all fuck ups) and on top of that they stopped silly things like stealing and wars with other countries, these accomplishments are very outstanding within a civilization of any kind and in my view the Federation is a force for GOOD.

[Nerys Ghemor]

I'm not convinced money or religion or any other "tangible" factor you can point to is the cause of the problems with humanity...I think it's human nature itself. If you take away one excuse for conflict, we're great at finding a new one. I am convinced discrimination still takes place on Earth--but most importantly, rather than seeing our "us and them" as a matter of internal race/religion/ideology, etc., humanity and the Federation still DOES have an "us and them" mentality but towards the other species out there. They pushed it outward but did not get rid of the problem. Thinking that they did will only get them in trouble.