Oh me oh my. Usually I have to actually
post in a thread before the ad hominem insults get directed at me. Go figure!
Sci and I have our differences but I definitely respect his knowledge of this thing. He's more of a professional than most of the rest of us are, I'll give him that.
And I believe that his PolSci degree and his political ideology has locked him into a mindset that preclude seeing possibilities other than "their's is like ours."
Oh, yes, it's definitely that political science degree that's causing the problem. Being too educated about a topic means you can't think straight about it! Can't trust those people who've gone and studied a topic!
Mister Laser Beam, thank you for the kind words.
The bottom line is, the Federation is a fictional entity that has been portrayed both as having state-like traits and as having intergovernmental organization (IGO)-like traits. Either interpretation has evidence to support it.
In my view, the
preponderance of evidence favors Federation statehood. I say this not because of any
one trait, but because of the the
combination of traits which follows: the Federation having a legally-defined territory ("The Best of Both Worlds, Part I") over which its Constitution (which guarantees certain inalienable rights ["The Drumhead"]) is supreme ("The Perfect Mate"); a legislature capable of enacting binding statutory law ("Force of Nature"); a head of state with the legal capacity to conduct foreign relations without consulting Member State governments (
Star Trek VI), to give binding legal orders to the armed forces (ST6, "Homefront,"), and to declare a state of emergency over part of UFP territory ("Homefront"); an armed forces service in the Federation Starfleet ("Errand of Mercy," et al) and the Federation Naval Patrol ("Thirty Days"); a well-developed bureaucracy that covers a multitude of services ("Menage a Troi," "Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges," et al); a law enforcement bureau in the form of Federation Security (
Star Trek III); a monetary unit of its own in the form of the Federation Credit ("The Trouble With Tribbles"); a system of courts, grand juries ("The Ascent"), and a Supreme Court with the power of judicial review ("Doctor Bashir, I Presume?").
There is some evidence for the Federation-as-alliance or Federation-as-IGO model. The strongest are the continued references to Federation Member States having their own ambassadors and embassies, and conducting their own foreign relations.
My interpretation is that the Federation doesn't make sense as anything other than a state because of that combination of traits I listed above. I reconcile this with the reference to Member States with their own ambassadors by presuming that, as an interstellar state the size of which dwarfs every government that has ever existed in real life, the Federation allows its Member States to conduct intra-UFP relations with one-another and some foreign relations with non-UFP worlds under the auspices of Federation law and the Federation's foreign ministry, as matter of practical necessity. This has limited precedent in real life, where some governments will allow their constituent polities to conduct limited forms of international relations -- Quebec establishing trade offices in foreign countries, for instance.
Can either side cite evidence for their view? Yes. I contend that the preponderance of evidence is for Federation-as-state, and that the combination of statehood traits is stronger than any one particular statehood trait.
While having a few of the attribute of a state,
No. It has
all of the attributes of a state, and also has some attributes of an alliance or IGO.
The EU is flawed on the same kind of level (but grander). Each of the country-states has got a certain autonomy, but that leads to the likes of Greece being able to, in effect, hold Brussels to ransom, because the only alternative is to set them adrift from the union, which of course Brussels doesn't want to do. So, you end up with the situation where an economically dire country does not feel the need to boost their own economy, because they can just sit on their hands and ask for a pay check any time they need it... and they'll get it every time.
That is a complete misrepresentation of the Greek situation, particularly considering the humanitarian crisis of an economy forced upon Greece by the E.U. as a condition of the bailouts. If anything, Brussels had Athens by the
balls until SYRIZA came to power.
Edited to add:
I must confess to being curious as to
which political ideology of mine prevents me from "seeing possibilities other than 'their's [sic] is like ours.'" When I first came to the conclusion that the Federation was a sovereign state in the early 2000s, I was a moderate liberal who watched Fox News a lot. When I wrote out my accounts for why I interpreted the UFP as being a sovereign state in the late 2000s (e.g., the link
Mister Laser Beam posted), I was a progressive liberal/social democrat that leaned a bit further to the left than the Democratic mainstream. Today, I'm a democratic socialist who thinks that the left wing of the Democratic Party is nice but too conservative.
So, being as how I've gone through about three different political ideologies since I began interpreting the UFP as a sovereign state, I'd like to know which one it is that's blinded me to other possibilities!
