Guy Gardener said:
Surely anyone born under the United Earth Standard would unequally be a a citizen of all the nations of the World, making Picard just as American as he is African.
Only if United Earth is a unitary state. If it is, on the other hand, a federal state, then someone born in France may be simultaneously a French citizen and a United Earth citizen (and, obviously, a Federation citizen), but not an American citizen or African citizen.
For a modern example, I was born and have never left the United States (except once when I was six and crossed the Canadian border at Niagra Falls). I was born in the State of Ohio and have lived there all my life, save a four-month period living in Maryland and commuting into the District of Columbia every day. However, I am not a citizen of the State of Maryland, nor of the District of Columbia, nor of the Commonwealth of Massachusets, which I have never visited. Citizenship in a given state is earned through permanent legal residency in said state for at least one year in most states, if I'm not mistaken, so it's entirely possible that in order for Picard to become an American citizen, he'd have to have made the US his permanent legal residence for at least one year (if UE members follow the US's example). And all this is presuming that the US Constitution has been revised by the time of UE to allow non-natural-born citizens the right to serve as president (to say nothing of the 14-year residency requirement for the presidency).
Crewman47 said:
I thought this was going to be about the possbility of Picard becoming President of the UFP and was going to add that I think that would be a cool idea as, iirc, the only Trek Captain mentioned as becoming President was Archer. Do you suppose Picard could ever settle down and take on something as demanding as a position like this?
Hard to say. I don't think Picard is the sort of man who's ambitious in and of himself and would seek the job out because it gave him pleasure to be President, and clearly he's very happy as a starship captain. However, if the time ever comes when he retires from Starfleet for whatever reason, and he honestly feels that he could better serve the Federation as President, I might be able to see him ending up in that position, though I suspect that it would take someone else prompting him to go there for that to happen.
But there again, I'm happy with President Bacco, so I'm biased.
