The more things change the more they stay the same.
Do political parties exist in the world of STAR TREK?
- Thread starter dswynne1
- Start date
That seems far more plausible to me than some imaginary system where democracy magically functions without the things it has needed to function for hundreds of years.
There's evidence of brutal swings of the pendulum during the post-atomic horror, presented in "Encounter at Farpoint." Part of Q's evidence against humanity was that human history isn't all about progress, much less "rapid progress." There were sometimes periods in which the course was retrograde.
They killed all the lawyers, or apparently as many as they could lay their hands on. That's definite evidence that the survivors attempted to excise things from the world that they felt were responsible for the horror. Of course, that was only temporary, or else Areel Shaw and Samuel T. Cogley would never have existed in their professions.
Even if people organized themselves once again into political parties after the horror, and I don't see why they wouldn't, perhaps people realized they could be less politically partisan.
I am so tempted to make the claim they were not in fact lawyers so that we can argue over whether or not they really are lawyers like The Argument about whether Starfleet is or isn't a military.
According to The Measure of a Man, you can just randomly force anybody to represent for or against a case, even (especially?) if they have no legal training or expertise in their background. Perhaps Areel Shaw was just the Starbase reception clerk, and Cogley was just an eccentric book collector.
Apparently, Captain Louvois had no access to holo-communicators, or indeed ANY kind of communicators.
I mean, surely qualified legal counsel could give their services over subspace? Why would they actually need to be physically present? Louvois should have been able to recruit both prosecutor and defense attorney from all over the Federation.
Especially since she was a JAG officer. One would imagine that would be a special department, no CO and XO of the defendant's ship! 
After the great Covid plague of the early 21st century, people vowed never to work remotely again if at all avoidable...
Unfortunately, this is well established in Star Trek that people have to be present in order for things to move forward. Wesley missed his admissions exam because he couldn't be physically present at the Academy.
Except "The Measure of a Man" only established that Starfleet officers could be compelled to serve as legal counsel in a Starfleet legal proceeding in the absence of a qualified JAG attorney. Not civilians.
The Federation has an elected president, and the Federation maintains a democratic government at least in that it fiercely espouses democratic principles. Nevertheless, generations are born and they die; new elections must take place. As such, the Federation’s bewildering population mix is potentially host to every conceivable political party imaginable. That is not to say that every political party exists all at once at any given moment, but that the potential always exists for any particular party to arise, gain momentum, and ultimately win elected power thus altering the status quo for better or for worse. However, the majority of eligible voters seem to be content with a government style that has survived two world wars, the Eugenics Wars, World War Three, the atomic aftermath, the Earth-Kzin Wars, a Xindi attack, the Earth-Romulan War, the Federation-Klingon cold war, the Federation-Cardassian War, Maquis insurrections, the Dominion War…
Ah, the days before remote learning.
Even if they had it in Trek's world though, it wouldn't make for thrilling TV.
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