Nope, it guarantees that the folks who consider to start a war might have experienced one themselves, it guarantees that the ruling class has to sacrifice its own sons when it wants to start a war.
Political systems in Star Trek
- Thread starter The Overlord
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No it doesn't, it doesn't do that at all. Very often, the sons of the elite would either have a way to be exempt from the draft or a way to be assigned to a unit that doesn't see any action.
On the other hand, if the Federation has such vast resources at its disposal, surely there would no longer be a need for any sort of eminent domain?
Eminent domain MAY (not always, but sometimes) be a valid compromise between societal necessity and personal freedom in an economy built upon scarcity. In a post-scarcity world, doesn't that make the act of forced relocation all the more abusive, since it's NOT necessary?
And, you know, people can talk about how trading those words to the Cardassians was necessary to maintain the peace... except that it DIDN'T maintain the peace. All it did was convince the Cardassians that the Federation was soft and unwilling to fight for itself or its citizens. It made war inevitable once the Cardassian military had re-asserted control over the Union.
That's a nice theory, but the reality of the situation is that the ruling class has traditionally found a way out of it.
However, I would contend that this is a valid and related argument: That if a large segment of the middle class must live with the knowledge that their sons and daughters can be drafted into a war, this makes the middle class far more likely to put political pressure on elected officials to end or prevent unjust or unnecessary wars. Most Americans, even after turning against the Iraq War, haven't truly been up in arms about it because they knew that their children wouldn't have to fight it -- someone else's children would. (Typically working-class families -- who always get the shaft. But I digress.)
Wow, wow, wow. Hold your horses there. Now you're changing goal-posts. The Federation is no longer an alliance you, say, but is now a confederation?
Make up your mind.
And meanwhile, do try to remember that you have yet to provide any evidence for your assertion. In fact, the very name of the political entity defies your assertions: It's not called the United Alliance of Planets. It's not called the United Confederation of Planets. It's called the Untied Federation of Planets.
I'm sorry, but this assertion is just absurd. You'll recall that I said that no sovereign state would allow a foreign alliance with its own military to occupy its streets after the alliance declared a state of emergency rather than that sovereign state.
Trying to compare it to France and the Netherlands during World War II just proves my point -- nether France nor the Netherlands were sovereign in any meaningful sense during World War II! France had been overrun by Nazi Germany; half of France was under direct occupation by the Nazis, and the other half under the de jure control of the Vichy Regime, which was nothing more than a puppet government for the Germans. The Netherlands had also been conquered and was under German occupation.
When the Allied forces invaded -- hey, guess what? Sorry, but they weren't truly sovereign then, either. When the United Kingdom invaded Iceland, it made it very clear that it would steal away the sovereignty of any foreign state it needed to in order to defeat the Germans. If De Gaulle's "Free French government" which assumed power in Paris after the Allied invasion had tried to expel the Allies from French soil before Germany had surrendered, you can be damned sure the Allies would have turned on him, too; they needed control of Europe to defeat Germany.
And, as I've said numerous times before: Not a single alliance on this planet has its own military! Even during World War II, when the Allies established a common command structure, they remained sovereign and lacked a common military. At any point in the war, Great Britain could have withdrawn its troops from the common command structure, or the United States, or Canada, etc. The King remained commander-in-chief of British forces; the U.S. President remained commander-in-chief of U.S. forces; etc. By contrast, "Paradise Lost" establishes very clearly that the Federation President is commander-in-chief of the Federation Starfleet.
And, further, when Sisko talks to Leyton about his plot to overthrow the Federation President, his exact line is, "Do you think the other Federation worlds are going to sit back and let their President be replaced by a military dictatorship?"
Note that phrase: "Their president." He doesn't say, "The leader of their alliance" or "the presiding official of the loose confederation to which their nation belongs." "Their president." That's the term you use for the leader of a sovereign state. (Anders Fogh Rasmussen sure as hell isn't "my Secretary-General.")
I'm perfectly happy to acknowledge that I've never encountered that phrase before and that a short search on Google does not turn it up. However, from my limited Latin, I would infer that it means "error about the substance of something" -- a mistake about the fundamental nature of a subject.
So you've made an assertion. In what way is the their President making a mistake about the practical nature of his declaration of a state of emergency? Are you contending that a state of emergency cannot have the same practical effect as a declaration of martial law even if it does not explicitly declare martial law?
And how the hell can a mere alliance declare a state of emergency over a sovereign territory?
There's no evidence to support that assertion at all.
Your logic on this has been circular. "The Federation is an alliance." "But it declared a state of emergency on Earth. How can it do that if it's an alliance and Earth is sovereign?" "Because Earth gave it the authority to do so." "What evidence do you have that Earth gave it that authority?" "Because it declared a state of emergency." You're starting from the a priori assumption that United Earth is the sovereign state and the Federation a mere alliance, and then adjusting the evidence to fit that pre-ordained conclusion rather than adjusting the conclusion to fit the evidence.
Once again:
I have demonstrated why the Federation possesses all of the numerous traits of a sovereign state. You have attempted to dismiss only a few of those traits, and I've demonstrated why even your dismissals are wrong. You have yet to present more than two pieces of evidence that the Federation is not a sovereign state (one: a single line of dialogue flatly contradicted by 40 years' worth of other stories which needn't be interpreted as technically accurate, and another which, as I noted, is not necessarily evidence that the Federation is not a sovereign state -- it's sufficient for the Federation not to be a sovereign state to explain the exchange of Federation Member diplomatic missions to and from foreign states, but it is not NECESSARY that the Federation not be a sovereign state to so explain them); you have yet to present any other evidence at all that the Federation is an alliance or a confederation.
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^ Doesn't ST VI establish, or at least strongly suggest, that the Commander in Chief of Starfleet is not the same person as the President of the Federation? The admiral who gives the briefing is identified as "the C in C" and is obviously not the president.
Star Trek VI introduced a Starfleet flag officer called "the C-in-C" named Bill (full name established as William Smillie in the novels), who seems to be in overall command of Starfleet, yet who still takes orders from the President (full name established as Ra-ghoratreii in the novels).
DS9's "Paradise Lost" has a scene where Federation President Jaresh-Inyo explicitly refers to himself as commander-in-chief, after Sisko tells him of Leyton's plan to overthrow him in a coup:
This needn't be seen as contradictory, however. The term commander-in-chief can also refer to the person in command of a specific division of a military rather than just the person in command of all military forces. The commanding officers of the United States Armed Forces' Unified Combatant Command regions used to be called the commanders-in-chief of those UCCs. So, for instance, the commanding officer of CENTCOM used to be known as the Commander-in-Chief, United States Central Command.
In 2003, the Bush administration changed the UCC commaners' titles, though, because they wanted to reserve the phrase "commander-in-chief" for the sitting President for propaganda purposes; as a result, General James Mattis is known as the Combatant Commander, United States Central Command, rather than the CENTCOM C-in-C.
But since it's well-established that a sovereign state can have a military hierarchy with the head of state as commander-in-chief of the armed forces and lower-ranking officers as commanders-in-chief of divisions of those armed forces, I see no contradiction between ST6 establishing Admiral Smillie as C-in-C taking orders from President Ra-ghoratreii, and "Paradise Lost" establishing that President Jaresh-Inyo as Admiral Leyton's commander-in-chief.
Indeed, that's what the novels have done -- establish that the Starfleet flag officer in overall command of Starfleet is called the commander-in-chief of the Federation Starfleet, but that the President remains commander-in-chief of the Federation's armed forces in general.
Yeah, but the term C-in-C isn't reserved just for the person in command of ALL the state's military forces. An officer commanding just a portion of them can also be called "Commander-in-chief". The Royal Navy's Commander-in-chief Fleet, for example. So the C-in-C in ST VI could have been something like that. Or even if he was the C-in-C of the whole Starfleet (I think he's referred to as "Starfleet C-in-C" in the credits), it's posible that there are also other military organizations within the Federation (a Federation Ground Force, member planet militaries) with their own C-in-Cs. And the President would then be considered the "Federation" C-in-C, in command of all these organizations.
EDIT: Ninja'd by Sci! That's what happens when you don't refresh.
Er, no, that link says the same basic thing that I said: That Smillie was the commander-in-chief of the Federation Starfleet. (In fact, I wrote that article.)
The novels regularly feature the current c-in-c of Starfleet taking orders from the Federation President, who is still the c-in-c of all Federation forces (not just Starfleet).
oops. I sowwy
I suppose that if the C-in-C is such a VIP, then we should keep the PC on the QT, since if it leaks that the UFP is not OK, then he could end up MIA...
I don't see how any of this is relevent.
What I am trying to say is starting a war and forcing people to serve in the military should be illegal...the same as eminent domain. People shouldn't be forced to die in a war. Furthermore, no war ever benefited a nation; it weakens the economy. Unless our lives are dependant on we shouldn't send young men out to war...even the ones that joins the military willingly.
An I dont see how eminent could apply to the whole planet. What are they going to do build a space station through the planet? [laughing] It's evil. Not only that it seems the Federation has a problem with the native people of the AMerica.
Eminent domain and drafting people into the military against their will is unconstitutional.
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No, it doesn't. Again, the United States allows its states to have their own militaries and their own ships -- that doesn't mean the United States is a confederation.
Much easier for the ruling class to send young men into war when they mainly come from the lower class.
Whether you are juristically or economically forced into the military makes little difference.
So the choice is between forcing people to undertake military service without their consent, and a constant waging of unnecessary wars?
Well, no, you seem to be saying that you think an egalitarian draft is a good idea because it means that the ruling class will be less willing to go to war unnecessarily if their own children are at stake.
Others have noted, quite reasonably, that they have a fundamental ideological objection to the idea that the government has the right to force someone to undertake military service without their consent.
So, no, I think my question is perfectly reasonable. Is it really a choice between unnecessary wars or nonconsensual military service? Or is there some other system that can be put in place to ensure that unnecessary wars aren't fought, without forcing people into military service?
(And do recall that earlier in this thread, while I disagreed with your assertion that the ruling class's children have ever been affected by a draft, I did defend your basic idea that a draft can be a deterrent against unnecessary wars via its effect upon the middle class rather than the ruling class.)
Internally a strong left and a draft should do the trick. Externally a) stable alliances worldwide, b) international law and empowering international institutions like the ICC in Den Hague and c) solving potentially underlying economic causes of war like resource scarcity and so on should do the trick.
But I am just a stupid economist, as political scientist you have better answers to your own question.
But I am just a stupid economist, as political scientist you have better answers to your own question.
I'm sorry to see that you're taking this as some sort of personal affront -- especially since, as I noted before, I defended your general notion of a draft as a deterrent against unnecessary wars, albeit by different means than you argued.
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