Jaresh Inyo As President
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...From the brief appearance, we didn't even really learn whether the President leads, or just follows. Jaresh-Inyo didn't much flex his powers: declaring a state of emergency over planet Earth is more akin to responding to a riot in Washington DC than to standing stalwart against Soviet invasion or whatnot.
Generally, if Starfleet bothers to ask the government for permission to run the affairs of the Federation, they ask the Council. We don't know how/whether the President is related to the Council, and who commands whom. Jaresh-Inyo appeared to listen to the advice of his military experts, which in Star Trek is usually a good thing, although in the real world may backfire badly. And he upheld the point of law, rights and freedoms for as long as he could, which is usually a good default position, regardless of whether the law, rights and freedoms stem from democratic or autocratic sources; there's good continuity to be had in respecting means over ends, even if it may outwardly look like inflexibility, indecisiveness or just plain timidity.
Timo Saloniemi
Generally, if Starfleet bothers to ask the government for permission to run the affairs of the Federation, they ask the Council. We don't know how/whether the President is related to the Council, and who commands whom. Jaresh-Inyo appeared to listen to the advice of his military experts, which in Star Trek is usually a good thing, although in the real world may backfire badly. And he upheld the point of law, rights and freedoms for as long as he could, which is usually a good default position, regardless of whether the law, rights and freedoms stem from democratic or autocratic sources; there's good continuity to be had in respecting means over ends, even if it may outwardly look like inflexibility, indecisiveness or just plain timidity.
Timo Saloniemi
The UFP
^ Yep. Earth is an ordinary Federation member, just like any other. Earth has its own government - United Earth - which is separate from the UFP at large. (We were actually supposed to see some of it during Homefront/Paradise Lost, with Earth forces being 'federalized' to deal with the changeling crisis, but this was cut for time.)
Jaresh-Inyo was the president of the Federation only. Earth has its own leadership.
As for Jaresh-Inyo: He seemed to be a fair *peacetime* president, but was incapable of dealing with the pressures of the Dominion War.
Jaresh-Inyo was the president of the Federation only. Earth has its own leadership.
As for Jaresh-Inyo: He seemed to be a fair *peacetime* president, but was incapable of dealing with the pressures of the Dominion War.
We couldn't tell from the onscreen evidence, though. As far as is shown, there is no separate Earth government in the 23rd or 24th century any more; no known titles for Earth-only officials; no known acts of governing by an Earth-only organization. This is in contrast with e.g. Vulcan, which still has its own Minister of Security at least.
Timo Saloniemi
That doesn't make any sense on the face of it (just ask anyone living in Washington, D.C.), so it can be safely ignored. Canon be DAMNED.
And indeed, there is no aspect of the canon to contradict the idea that United Earth still exists as a Federation Member -- and it wouldn't be a very federal Federation if they didn't keep United Earth around.
Indeed, the novels have established that United Earth is a parliamentary republic (along the lines of Ireland or Israel), with a mostly ceremonial President, a United Earth Prime Minister who heads the Untied Earth Cabinet and is the real leader, and a United Earth Parliament that serves as the legislature. In the novels, the United Earth government, including the U.E. P.M., still exists within the Federation.
National governments continue to exist below the planetary level, too. Most notably, in the short story "Eleven Hours Out" from the anthology Tales of the Dominion War, the Federation President toured the City of San Francisco after it was attacked by the Breen in 2375, accompanied by the Prime Minister of United Earth and the President of the United States.
* * *
As for President Jaresh-Inyo, I think it's next to impossible to judge him, because he was clearly being manipulated from the get-go by Admiral Leyton.
I'm not sure if it's a good idea to introduce common sense into scifi when there's explicit space for something more surprising... The lack of an Earth government is rather prominent, considering this plotline that revolves around who governs Earth! We're way beyond "absence of evidence" here, and basically already so deep in "evidence of absence" territory that turning back would take quite a bit of retconning.
Timo Saloniemi
Timo Saloniemi
There is no evidence of any lack of an Earth government. There is merely the absence of evidence of an Earth government in the canon.
Not really. In "Homefront"/"Paradise Lost," we only saw a handful of scenes involving the President; the first few focused on the Federation President's actions with regards to Federation government and Starfleet facilities on Earth, not to Earth in general. And in the single scene we saw featuring him declaring a state of emergency, it's pretty clear that he was within his legal rights to act unilaterally.
And indeed, in real life, there are precedents for federal governments declaring states of emergency or martial law without necessarily needing to consult the provincial or local governments (though it is often preferable). So I see no reason to think that Jaresh-Inyo's acting without consulting a United Earth government must necessarily mean there is no United Earth government.
Actually, the Vulcan arc in ENT's third season did mention United Earth by name. We even saw its embassy on Vulcan.
Sure, that was 200 years ago, but there's no way United Earth would cease to exist simply because of the Federation - no more than the U.S. states dissolved because of *our* federal government.
Yes, but that's a given. We're talking about whether or not United Earth continued to exist after the Federation was founded.
I completely agree, but some have argued that United Earth would have been dissolved and the governance of Earth and its territories taken over directly by the Federation government, a la the District of Columbia.
Certainly there were giant changes in "world order" at various points of the Trek pseudohistory - the eradication of Earth self-rule doesn't strike me as a particularly implausible development when contrasted with, say, the supposed eradication of poverty or greed or war or crime.
And Earth being a "special case" and possibly different from, say, Vulcan with its own Ministers is rather plausible as well. Not only because Earth is a special case in so many dramatic respects, but also because the Federation does not appear to impose much in the way of standardization on its members. We keep hearing of local quirks and exotic, unearthly practices on various UFP member worlds. For all we know, having a local government is quite optional, and a great many UFP worlds opt out of it for reasons of cost and complexity... There aren't strong a priori reasons for defining government in terms of the physical boundaries of a single planet, after all.
Timo Saloniemi
And Earth being a "special case" and possibly different from, say, Vulcan with its own Ministers is rather plausible as well. Not only because Earth is a special case in so many dramatic respects, but also because the Federation does not appear to impose much in the way of standardization on its members. We keep hearing of local quirks and exotic, unearthly practices on various UFP member worlds. For all we know, having a local government is quite optional, and a great many UFP worlds opt out of it for reasons of cost and complexity... There aren't strong a priori reasons for defining government in terms of the physical boundaries of a single planet, after all.
Timo Saloniemi
.... except that the eradication of poverty, greed, and war are improvements in society. The loss of Earth's own government would be a bad thing; it would be an example of regression rather than progress.
To say nothing of it being a fundamental violation of the rights of every resident of Earth. You know, the same way the District of Columbia's residents' rights are violated through their lack of statehood.
This is just nonsense. No sophisticated society could function without a government of some sort.
It's also flatly contradicted by the canon. TNG's "Attached" established very firmly that a Federation Member has to have a unified government.
You are confusing having a government with restricting that government's territory to a single planetary body. But we already know for a fact that the state United Earth in the pre-Federation era encompassed more than just the surface of Earth itself, but also, at the very least, Luna. Indeed, it is almost a given that various Federation Member States likely encompass multiple planets.
This is not remarkable -- it is the interplanetary equivalent of the State of New York encompassing Long Island in addition to territory on the mainland, that's all.
Meanwhile, the fact remains that there is no canonical evidence whatsoever to support the idea that United Earth was dissolved upon the founding of the Federation.
That is a purely subjective opinion, though. Quite possibly local democracy is considered an especially vile form of greed in the new world order, and anybody proposing a local government would be pitied all the way to the comfy treatment chair in the penal colony.
And that is just nonsense. Families function all right without formal government. Entire villages do. Schools with thousands of pupils have absolutely no system of representation for said pupils.
It's purely a matter of scale and practicability. And by the late 22nd century, it may have become quite practicable to hike up the threshold of where you have to introduce the heavy machinery of an "actual" government.
Or to hike it down, for that matter. The physical perimeter of Earth is not a natural border for a starfaring culture. And as long as unnatural borders are being observed, those could be drawn around continents, valleys, or perhaps households. The discrete steps in a hierarchy could be located at heights that appear completely counterintuitive to us 21st century ignorants.
But not that every Federation member would be a planet.
And, most significantly, not that a member would retain the government at joining.
I think it's you doing that. We know our human heroes are UFP citizens from a UFP member entity, but the leap of logic from there to claiming that this entity is planet Earth is quite probably a fallacy.
Like you say, the realm of Earthlings certainly extends beyond Earth. The idea of a planetary government therefore seems implausibly provincial. Even if the title of President of United Earth exists, it does not follow that this person or office would be in charge of the affairs of planet Earth.
And no evidence that it survived the transition, either. Yet we know the Federation does dissolve things: local militaries must cease to exist. So the balance of evidence might well be on the side of things like President of Earth or President of the United States still existing, yet having become about as relevant as Great Admiral of the Ocean, although quite possibly just as respected as the title of Emperor Norton.
Timo Saloniemi
This so monumentally full of shit that it's astonishing. Suffice it to say that people who actually live in that situation know that you're wrong.
No, they don't. Even the simplest of villages and families have a mechanism for evaluating situations and making communal decisions that are binding on the groups.
Who said it's planetary? It's entirely plausible for United Earth's territories to encompass more than one planet. There's no reason at all that multi-planetary states cannot be Federation Member States -- though I doubt the Federation would accept as Members those states who encompass too many planets, space colonies, etc., just to ensure a certain level of equality among its Members.
But it is more rational to assume that it did. This is, after all, an interplanetary federation, not a unitary state. And we know for a fact that other states who joined the Federation did retain their own government; since there's a precedent for other Members retaining their own governments, and no evidence whatsoever for United Earth not to, the preponderance of evidence would be that it was not dissolved.
False. The Bajoran Militia is referred to as needing to be "integrated" with Starfleet, but we don't know what that means. And we know for a fact that Vulcan defense organizations remain even after Federation.
Oh, bollocks.
Like I said earlier: The individual states of the USA still exist even though they are part of a greater whole - the USA is a federal government, yet there are still states. And within each of those, there are cities - which retain their own identity even though they join together to form states. A government of a particular size, be it city, state, or (in cases such as the European Union) nation, does not cease to exist because it joins an alliance or federation of similar governments.And as Sci and myself (and countless others) have also stated: If it had been as you said, and Earth had no government of its own, then Earth citizens would be powerless. They would have NO rights, NO representation, NO ability to manage their own affairs. That makes absolutely zero sense, and is completely impractical and unworkable.
So the integration of the United States into one political whole was an act of untold terror and should be reversed?
I'm saying that you are insisting on a governmental structure at a specific level merely because you feel that governmental structures must exist in general, which is a pretty stupid thing to do. We specifically haven't seen a President or Minister of United Earth, so we have every right to believe that that particular level of governing does not involve Presidents or Ministers; the aforementioned villages don't, either.
Remember that self-rule is just another expression for anarchy, from the point of view of anybody who is part of a greater whole - until and unless self-rule is made part of a hierarchy, i.e. taken away. The UFP is big. Earth is small. Any government dedicating itself to the affairs of Earth thus is an anarchist challenge to the hierarchy, something the UFP must organize out of the way so that proper governing can take place. This inevitably results in the pruning of levels of governing, so that the level of a village does not compete with the level of a district or a city or a state or a continent etc. but merely compliments it.
We see Earth or United Earth is not explicitly one of those levels that are chosen as the discrete steps in a hierarchy of governing. It is just subjective conservatism, misguided patriotism, beastly greed or whatever that we would insist that it is implicitly one despite the lack of explicit evidence.
Unthinking nonsense. The existence of a New York City Council does not deprive Greenwich Village inhabitants of rights, and there is no demand for a Mayor of Greewich Village.
Timo Saloniemi
No. The fact that the District of Columbia does not have autonomy over its own affairs is an act of tyranny that should be changed.
No, I'm insisting that a federal structure means that the member polities must have a government with autonomy over their own affairs, and that it is the inherent right of the people of that member polity to so have their own government without federal interference.
By the 24th century on Earth, how much government would even be required? The vast majority of bureaucrat and public administration of government policy would be handled by the ubiquitous computers. Once policies and various contingencies were programmed into it, elected officials could largely be "let go."
It would certainly be difficult to imagine any need for a permanent sitting government.
By the 24th century what laws were needed would already be in place. Any gradual changes felt needed in governing policies could be arrived at through public debate and referendums.
The need for elected "leaders" would be passé.
Why have a sitting government?
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