You said actual international law first, now you're saying it's not really actual law, only common practice, etc. I'm going to pass on watching a YouTube video about it, especially one billed as "one man's opinion."
Is the Federation an Empire?
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You said actual international law first, now you're saying it's not really actual law, only common practice, etc. I'm going to pass on watching a YouTube video about it, especially one billed as "one man's opinion."
Excuse me, but I didn't write "it's not really actual law." That's your interpretation, and it's dead wrong. Common practice DOES define much of international law. Claimed sovereignty requiring a monopoly on the use of force, especially across boundaries, IS actual international law, and common practice is all that is required to enshrine it.
Hmm.. So, you don't think the President is worth listening to? ok.
But you're talking about normal situations. I don't believe this constitutes an even remotely normal situation. How often is it really going to happen that you suddenly find out people have been living on 'your' planet since long before you even existed, let alone had any claim to the planet, but that you just happened to never notice them because they keep to themselves, but that they also don't fall under the prime directive because they actually do know about aliens, warp speed, etc, they just have no interest in using technology?
Personally, I would expect this particular kind of situation is far too specific and unusual for any normal starfleet officer to be able to understand and delineate the full legal implications. It's the kind of thing that probably would have to be looked at by the actual court system.
You wrote that is was actual international law to begin with.
Hence my skepticism that you could cite a credible source that characterized it as "actual international law," and why I asked you to cite a source.
Oh, it's the President's opinion? It being one man's opinion was just sarcasm? OK, I'll click on the link and watch it, if you assure me up front that it's the President speaking.
Ah, as I expected. There's nothing there to support your claim.
Your video is Senator Obama talking by the way.
Furthermore, the remarks are completely out of context, as also expected for so short a clip. If one looks for a more complete video clip to establish context, one is led here, to the 2008 Military Times Interview from before he was elected. The context is not, as you claimed, about "any military action emanating from [a sovereign] territory" being contrary to international law, but rather about how the use of private contractors by a sovereign government to wage war is contrary to national interest.
In any case, this has no relevance to the topic at hand. If you'd like to discuss it further, make a thread in the appropriate forum.
Why a hospital wouldn't be permitted seemed to be a whim on Picard's part because the hospital would have been in the form of a spa, that would of been own by a Ferengi.
Why deliver the treatment across the Federation and beyond, as opposed to having people needing treatment travel to the ring planet? To start, the treatment on the planet would have been slow, if your condition was serious you ight need to spend a protracted time there away from your home and life, and if it was beyond serious (let's say a deathly fast moving illness) then the slow rate of the particles wouldn't help you.
There is also the fact that you would have to travel to the planet at all. Leave behind whatever you have currently, family, friends, employment, basically your entire life.
But if the particles were concentrated and delivered to the world you live on, the treatment would be briefer, and the place of treatment would be much closer. The closest major hospital perhaps..
We only saw it on Earth, it might be like with the city of Washington, the American congress has considerable direct control over that one city because the American federal government is located there. Control that congress lacks in other American cities.
We didn't see that, and I believe that Starfleet wasn't actual going to be "on every street." The state of emeregency likely was only in certain area deemed critical like inmportant installations (and parent's restaurants).
America has something like 830,000 police, world wide the number of police number in the millions. There no way there were enough Starfleet personel availible to be on every street, 24 hours a day.
If the president need local people there should have been a scene of him calling Earth's leadership.
1) Have reading comprehension levels suddenly dropped? I wrote that I didn't write that it's NOT actual international law. That was YOUR phrase. Go back and read it again.
2) As expected, I didn't do your research for you. Your "skepticism" is just know-nothingism. Did you miss where I explain that common practice among nations defines this aspect of international law? Do you REALLY want to persist in pushing the idea that there is no such principle guiding international law? Because in denying the veracity of my point, that is the position you're expounding, and it is an ignorant one.
If you want to persist in NOT knowing a simple truth, that the monopoly of the state over the crossborder use of force is a commonly understood accoutrement of sovereignty, then do so. I'm not going to write a treatise for you.
Oh, I know that the video is of then-senator Obama. So what? He's President now and properly addressed as such, and presumably he didn't suddenly acquire amnesia when elected to the Presidency.
And of course this was relevant to the topic at hand. Another poster claimed that Section 31 is not part of the Federation, but under almost universally accepted real international law, that dog wouldn't hunt; the Federation can't deny the actions of Sec 31 by saying "they're not us," because they operate out of Federation territory.
It was appropriate here. We are discussing whether the Federation is an empire or not. Just throwing out some ideas here, but sometimes discussions wander, although goodness knows Trek BBS threads never wander, eh?
I was responding to the posts on the page in the link below, one of which suggests that Sec 31 isn't part of the Federation. Three people other than you thought this an appropriate thread for this discussion (myself, Mr. Laser Beam, and Alidar Jarok).
http://www.trekbbs.com/showthread.php?t=254062&page=8
Earth is not like DC.
United Earth is just another Federation member world. It has its own government, its own security forces, its own representative to the Federation Council. It just happens to be where Starfleet Command and the Palais de la Concorde (the Federation capital building) are. But in the grand scheme of things, Earth is exactly the same (politically speaking) as any other Federation world.
I'm rather pleased, by the way, that by Trek's time, they have gotten over this (IMHO, ridiculous) notion that the apparatus of national government has to be separate from any of its states.
I find it personally offensive that you imply here that an Emperor cannot have high principles and an intention to implement them.
Their very name is from the portion of the Federation charter that established them. One can argue that they no longer answer to the authorities that they were intended to, but the same can be said for the NSA and CIA, and I don't think anyone would be arguing that they aren't parts of our governmental apparatus.
It seems to me that pre-contact worlds covered by the PD but inside Federation space would usually be considered protectorates pending the time when First Contact can be made. As soon as that contact can be made, the star system is considered sovereign and under the jurisdiction of the unified government of the sentient lifeforms of that system - even if the system is still politically/racially fragmented and a unified government isn't extant yet, and the Federation has to encourage them to create at least a loose League of Nations sort of government so that they can deal with them. Finding out that the Ba'ku were not valid "targets" for the PD flipped that switch, as far as Picard and crew were concerned. But corrupt Admiral Stretchy-face McBeardy-beard just didn't care.
Hardly exact copies to be sure, however ithe Federation having addition authority and control on the world where the governing body is located remains a possibility.
Perhaps this is something that United Earth agreed to in order to obtain Fed Gov on their planet.
While the president's office (or one of them) is located in the city of Paris, I can't remember an canon reference as to precisely where.
How equal the Member planets are in comparison to each other is unclear.
Couple of things.
First, it's not a given that the Federation building/buildings would not be considered separate from United Earth. The area around the Federation's collection of buildings could formally be consider "extra-territorial." Not only separate from United Earth, but legally "not on Earth."
Second, I don't see the Federation as a "national government," and United Earth and the other Member worlds certainly aren't "states." They're sovereign entities that have agreed on mutual co-operation in certain areas.
Seem to me that a pre-contact world with a indigenous sapient species would automatically be outside the Federation, even if completely surrounded by it.
A bubble of sovereignty afloat in interstellar space.
But not before?
The planet (perhaps the entire star system) might better be considered the collective property of the people of that planet, regardless of the governmental status or technology level. If they're still at the caveman state, still their planet.
Yes, that shouldn't make a difference as to "ownership."
Hmmm, I'm not sure the aliens from outer space should be "encouraging" the natives to form anything. The Federation under the PD should deal with the native as they are at the moment, first contact doesn't mean the entire PD goes out the window. If where they are is not to the Federation's tastes, the Federation can stay away.
His orders from the Federation Council might not have included Picard getting the hots for Baku-girl.
The name comes from the charter of Earth's Starfleet. Not the Federation or it's Starfleet.
Conceded, but it makes me wonder at the viability of such technology, which threatens to remove an entire natural resource, without any indication that it can be replicated. But, that is a quibble.Why a hospital wouldn't be permitted seemed to be a whim on Picard's part because the hospital would have been in the form of a spa, that would of been own by a Ferengi.
Why deliver the treatment across the Federation and beyond, as opposed to having people needing treatment travel to the ring planet? To start, the treatment on the planet would have been slow, if your condition was serious you ight need to spend a protracted time there away from your home and life, and if it was beyond serious (let's say a deathly fast moving illness) then the slow rate of the particles wouldn't help you.
There is also the fact that you would have to travel to the planet at all. Leave behind whatever you have currently, family, friends, employment, basically your entire life.
But if the particles were concentrated and delivered to the world you live on, the treatment would be briefer, and the place of treatment would be much closer. The closest major hospital perhaps..
I just wonder how it would all work, but your point at distribution is well taken.
Seem to me that a pre-contact world with a indigenous sapient species would automatically be outside the Federation, even if completely surrounded by it.
A bubble of sovereignty afloat in interstellar space.
And how does that gel with your idea that the Federation simply wouldn't give a damn about the sovereignty of a pre-contact world with a non-indigenous but long established (pre-federation) sapient species?
I didn't express myself well when I said they wouldn't have sovereignty over their home star system, before. They would, but they wouldn't really be aware of it. So the Federation would hold it in trust, so to speak, and maintain it for them (trying to keep expansionist empires and Ferengi-like races from plundering the system) until the PD no longer applies - at which point that civilization can ask for continued protection if they want it. But until the PD no longer applies, the Federation would largely treat it as their own space from a security perspective.
Maybe not, but on this one, I wasn't speculating. We've actually seen this on screen - mainly in a few episodes with Picard - where the peoples of a star system have been told something along the lines of "oh, if only you could get your mess straight and had unified representation so we could negotiate". They don't seem to be trying to force the issue, but the obvious benefits of being able to make deals with the Federation place an *internal* pressure on them to get it done.
Or maybe a bubble around the bubble? The Italian Republic completely encloses both San Marino and the Vatican City, but those two entities are independant of Italy. But they do recieve a degree of protection from Italy simply by being inside of it.
If the Federation established a "shell" around a primative's system, a shell made from interstellar space, this would not impinge on the natives pre-contact sovereignty. Now from a certain point of view, this would be the Federation being paternal, but it would also be respectful. And when the native were ready, they could decide to have the shell desolved.
We have seen the Federation make deals with groups smaller than a planetary government. Friday's Child being one, it wasn't my impression that the tribal group we saw represented the entire planet, just a limited region.
The Federation can just continue the practice.
Non-indigenous being the difference. It's not even clear if the Baku held the planet to be theirs, the Federation Council obviously considered it the Federation's.
.
or an emperor?
Or maybe a bubble around the bubble? The Italian Republic completely encloses both San Marino and the Vatican City, but those two entities are independant of Italy. But they do recieve a degree of protection from Italy simply by being inside of it.
If the Federation established a "shell" around a primative's system, a shell made from interstellar space, this would not impinge on the natives pre-contact sovereignty. Now from a certain point of view, this would be the Federation being paternal, but it would also be respectful. And when the native were ready, they could decide to have the shell desolved.
We have seen the Federation make deals with groups smaller than a planetary government. Friday's Child being one, it wasn't my impression that the tribal group we saw represented the entire planet, just a limited region.
The Federation can just continue the practice.
The tribal group was the main one, being the tribe of the leader of the 12 tribes of Capella. Even if they were not the only people on the planet, they were obviously the more dominant ones.
Also, there might be a difference between negotiating for trade and Federation membership. If I recall correctly, I think the Federation would prefer the world be unified for membership consideration.
A empire isn't alway governed by the scum of the earth, nor are their social practices automatically contemptible. Throughout history some empires have certainly been more advanced socially than the barbarians surrounding them. Empires had the beginnigs of democracy, education, sanitation, architecture, medicine. You can point at the negatives and yes they were there, but these negative never wipe away the positives, the advancement and the growth of Human culture.
Twelve tribes, so the size of Scotland then?
Or the only one sitting on top of whatever minerals the Federation and the Klingons both wanted. The other peoples on that planet never heard or saw the sky-aliens because they had nothing to offer.
I would assume so, but I didn't think we were discussing Membership, only the Federation and natives interacting.
At least in Picard's time. During Kirk's time that might not be the case.
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