Eddington's vitriolic assessment of The Federation

[DonIago]

Considering that the treaty literally established a demilitarized zone, how was the Federation supposed to protect the colonists without violating their own treaty? Sisko and ostensibly Hudson were pursuing a diplomatic resolution, but the Maquis weren't willing to wait and ultimately just complicated matters further.

If the Maquis should have been allowed to operate freely, then should the Cardassian colonists have also been allowed to operate freely?

I believe to a point the Federation was trying to turn a blind eye to what was going on in the DMZ, but when the Maquis started stealing and compromising Federation property, they made that impossible to sustain.

 

[kkt]

Resistance movements do indeed tend to use violence against the organizations that are oppressing them.

Oppressed?? When I was a little kid, the house that my parents lived in was condemned to build a freeway. Did they chain themselves to a signpost? Did they start shooting at the hapless construction workers? Did they carry on endlessly, "Help, Help, I'm being oppressed!"? No, they did not, they took the very small relocation assistance, moved, and got on with their lives.

 

[DonIago]

^I don't want to pry into your personal life at all, but if you know and are willing to share, when your parents bought their house, was there any indication that this could occur?

There's an airport not far from me and I've seen houses be vacated over time and I'm familiar with the concept of eminent domain, but I've never known anyone who had to deal with it in practice, so I'm curious as to how it ultimately pans out.

 

[kkt]

I don't mind, and after all I brought it up, but the truth is I don't know how much indication that their house would be condemned. It was a big freeway-building era and it would be hard to find anywhere that would be guaranteed not to be touched unless you wanted to be far from any cities or jobs. Most likely there were some planning documents with several different possible routes freeways could take and it was anybody's guess which ones would be used. They were allowed something like a year to move from their first notice and a fair market value copied from the tax assessor's and some modest relocation expenses, so I'm not saying it was grossly unfair or anything, just disappointing.

Would it have made a difference for the Maquis? "Dude, you know that planet is just a couple of parsecs from Cardassian space, and they're dangerous and tend to monologue endlessly..."

 

[Ragitsu]

EDDINGTON: "It kinda makes you want to steal some industrial replicators, right?"
DISINTERESTED CITIZEN: "No, not really."
EDDINGTON: "Well, doesn't it make you want to compare The Federation to The Borg?"
DISINTERSTED CITIZEN: "What?! No."
EDDINGTON: "Wax nostalgic about tomatoes?"
DISINTERESTED CITIZEN: "I have some holographic water polo lined up. See you later."

 

[Sci]

Oppressed?? When I was a little kid, the house that my parents lived in was condemned to build a freeway. Did they chain themselves to a signpost? Did they start shooting at the hapless construction workers? Did they carry on endlessly, "Help, Help, I'm being oppressed!"? No, they did not, they took the very small relocation assistance, moved, and got on with their lives.

There is a very big difference between using eminent domain on one family's house, and literally forcing millions of people to chose between abandoning entire worlds or live under foreign totalitarian oppression. We are talking about forced relocation on par with the Partition.

 

[Farscape One]

EDDINGTON: "Don't you think the Federation is like Javert, and we're Valjean?"
DISINTERESTED CITIZEN: "What and what?"
EDDINGTON: "They are characters in a book, Les Miserables. Classic, wonderful book."
DISINTERESTED CITIZEN: "Never heard of it."
EDDINGTON: "You would do well to read it."
DISINTERESTED CITIZEN: (whispers to another disinterested citizen) "Can we just shoot him and bury him under those damned tomato plants he keeps yammering about?"

 

[Sci]

EDDINGTON: "Don't you think the Federation is like Javert, and we're Valjean?"
DISINTERESTED CITIZEN: "What and what?"
EDDINGTON: "They are characters in a book, Les Miserables. Classic, wonderful book."
DISINTERESTED CITIZEN: "Never heard of it."
EDDINGTON: "You would do well to reas it."
DISINTERESTED CITIZEN: (whispers to another disinterested citizen) "Can we just shoot him and bury him under those damned tomato plants he keeps yammering about?"

The fact that many Federation citizens were apathetic to the brutality and oppression their fellow citizens were being subjected to is not the slam-dunk defense of the Federation that you seem to think it is.

Considering that the treaty literally established a demilitarized zone, how was the Federation supposed to protect the colonists without violating their own treaty?

The treaty was already violated. The Federation should have declared the treaty null as long as the Central Command was arming Cardassian militias, or it should have declared that it was recognizing the Maquis as an independent state and that it would not be party to any Maquis/Cardassian conflicts.

Sisko and ostensibly Hudson were pursuing a diplomatic resolution, but the Maquis weren't willing to wait

People being massacred often are not willing to wait to protect themselves, this is true.

If the Maquis should have been allowed to operate freely, then should the Cardassian colonists have also been allowed to operate freely?

They already were operating freely. If the Central Command didn't want the Maquis to be a thing, they shouldn't have been arming their settler militias.

 

[Ragitsu]

 

[DonIago]

People being massacred often are not willing to wait to protect themselves, this is true.

Can you please provide a non-Maquis source for the claim that the colonists were being "massacred"?

I'd also like a source for your earlier claim that the number of colonists was in the millions.

 

[kkt]

There is a very big difference between using eminent domain on one family's house, and literally forcing millions of people to chose between abandoning entire worlds or live under foreign totalitarian oppression. We are talking about forced relocation on par with the Partition.

A horrible episode. But what should the British have done? Post-independence, India was not going to be a nonsectarian state. Keeping the Muslim population in India would have been death for most of them, instead of just some. A fake independence in which Britain retained the authority and force needed to stop the Hindus and Muslims from killing each other wouldn't have been a real independence and wouldn't have been acceptable to either side, or the British either.

 

[Sci]

A horrible episode. But what should the British have done? Post-independence, India was not going to be a nonsectarian state. Keeping the Muslim population in India would have been death for most of them, instead of just some. A fake independence in which Britain retained the authority and force needed to stop the Hindus and Muslims from killing each other wouldn't have been a real independence and wouldn't have been acceptable to either side, or the British either.

Is defending British colonial policy that killed upwards of two million people really the direction you wanna go in with this?

 

[at Quark's]

I'm sure Federation technology is sufficient to recreate those colonists' homes, in precise detail, on any world they choose to settle on.

So all of their work would not be for nothing - those homes would continue to exist, exactly as before, just on different worlds.

If someone tells me that I'll be a contributing factor to a war that could kill many people if I don't move to a home that's equal to or better than the one I have, and perhaps with the option of recreating my former home in a holodeck if I feel the need to? I move.

For you, yes.

And then there are people for whom no such substitute will do. Not a 'better' planet, not a fully replicated home. Attaching such value to a particular piece of soil may even be spiritually or religiously inspired, as we can see in some real world faiths. (And some of Star Trek 'indian tribe' members).

Not that I'm one of those persons, but I wouldn't be surprised if several of such types were amongst the Maquis and no offer would be sweet enough to persuade them to move.

(EDIT: that would also make my earlier question about what kind of compensation the Federation did offer kind of useless, but I'm still interested in that since I don't think anything has been established canonically).

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

And then there are people for whom no such substitute will do. Not a 'better' planet, not a fully replicated home.

Can't blame the Federation for that.

 

[Ragitsu]

When the alternative is (a woefully lopsided) war...

 

[at Quark's]

EDDINGTON: "It kinda makes you want to steal some industrial replicators, right?"
DISINTERESTED CITIZEN: "No, not really."
EDDINGTON: "Well, doesn't it make you want to compare The Federation to The Borg?"
DISINTERSTED CITIZEN: "What?! No."
EDDINGTON: "Wax nostalgic about tomatoes?"
DISINTERESTED CITIZEN: "I have some holographic water polo lined up. See you later."

Now I'm picturing Archer and Eddington boring (and finally annoying) each other to death with their repeated tomatoes & gazelle stories, thanks very much

 

[kkt]

Is defending British colonial policy that killed upwards of two million people really the direction you wanna go in with this?

The deaths were a tragedy, and I'm still waiting for the alternative. Continued British rule? I am not attached to discussing this if you want to stop, just realize it wasn't obviously avoidable.

 

[Sci]

The deaths were a tragedy, and I'm still waiting for the alternative. Continued British rule? I am not attached to discussing this if you want to stop, just realize it wasn't obviously avoidable.

Had Britain not deliberately pursued a policy of fostering conflict between Hindus and Muslims for decades, it is highly probable that the violence of Partition would never have reached such levels. It is in fact possible that the Brits might have been able to avoid poisoning their status with the Indian populace so as to buy more time for a peaceful negotiation to Indian independence, possibly encompassing a unified Hindu and Muslim state instead of a partitioned independence. Of course, that would have required decades' worth of Britain not behaving like oppressive, apartheidist tyrants.

By 1947? Not moving the withdrawal timetable up several months in advance of when independence movement leaders expected would also have been a better idea. Not imposing borders upon the new states (and giving their British border-drawer 40 days to figure out the borders) would also have been better.

The point in my bringing up Partition, though, is that the forced relocation of great masses of people is an inherently violent process. Partition is merely the most dramatic example, but there are many others. There's no such thing as forcing millions of people to leave their homes without mass death; had the Federation forced the millions of Federation colonists in the DMZ to relocate, it would not have been some happy, peaceful thing as its apologists keep arguing.

Can't blame the Federation for that.

You can absolutely blame the Federation for attempting a forced relocation. In the case of Dorvan V, they were literally perpetuating a cycle of racist, colonialist oppression against Native Americans by attempting to forcibly relocate them.

When the alternative is (a woefully lopsided) war...

Is that the only alternative? Because given the situation that existed between 2366 and 2369, almost three years had passed without a war before the Federation started selling out its own people, and it's not at all clear that the Cardassian Union -- which had, of course, just been forced to withdraw from Bajor and lost out on gaining control of the Bajoran Wormhole -- was in any position to launch a resumption of the earlier war that ended in 2366.

 

[Farscape One]

You forget that the Borg invasion occured only a few months before "The Wounded". Starfleet probably did not want to engage in another sustained conflict, no matter the size of the opponent, so soon after that. The admiral said as much in that very episode when Picard got the orders to find Maxwell.

Given how large Federation space is, the resources of Starfleet might not have held up as well as we like to think given Shelby said it would take a year to 'get the fleet back up'.

So while the treaty was not ideal, it was better than a continued conflict.

 

[at Quark's]

I always got the impression that the Maquis population (total number of people on Maquis worlds) was quite low. I never really thought in terms of 'millions'', though of course, compared to the massive Federation even a population of millions would have been tiny. Is there any statement about their size?