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But Attached never mentions the planet lacking a "united world government," as being a problem, but rather that one quarter of the planet has a adversarial relationship with the rest of the planet, and that only three quarters of the planet's population (the Kes) wishes to join the Federation.
According to Crusher, the Kes themselves "are a very unified ... people."
Meaning that in order to be considered a "unified people" a world government isn't a requirement, because again that planet didn't possess one. Yet Beverly still uses the term unified people to describe three quarters of the planet. Nor is it spelled out that all the Kes have the same government.
Some of the evidence comes from "Up the Long Ladder";
RIKER: The European Hegemony?
PICARD: A loose alliance that formed in the early twenty-second century. It was the first step toward a world government.
You should read more history, Number One.
Having a single global government certainly wouldn't prevent admissions into the Federation. But (again) it wouldn't be a requirement either.
During the entirety of DS9's run (iirc), Bajor had a provisional temporary government in place, what form the Bajorian government(s) would ultimately take is unclear.
Also, I got the impression that there was some kind of political power sharing arrangement between the Vedek Assembly and the Bajorian Provisional Government.
Some of the evidence comes from "Up the Long Ladder";
RIKER: The European Hegemony?
PICARD: A loose alliance that formed in the early twenty-second century. It was the first step toward a world government.
So having a "loose alliance" was a first step towards whatever the world government was? I never denied that something referred to as a world government existed in the mid 22nd century, Beverly clearly says there was such. I'm just pointing out that it wouldn't necessarily have to of been the highest political power on Earth, and the sole sovereign entity.
"European Hegemony," hegemony means dominance or control over someone/something else. So who were the Europeans dominating?
Picard speaks about this "first step" as if it were progress towards what earth currently had in the 24th century.
Should Earth possess just one sovereign government, a one world government, then that would be the government of the planet's sole sovereign state, and therefor the entire Earth would in fact be a single country.
As opposed to today where there are nearly 200 sovereign countries.
The problem is the US has had to repeatedly go to the unified federal branch to overturn unconstitutional laws or restrictions set by "state's rights". Civil rights for African Americans, interracial marriage, and just recently, gay marriage.
And it's possible that the UE/WG would be completely incapable of doing any of that.
But there are other ways of influencing your fellow nations, sanctions, seizing assets, embargo, etc.
If need be, a nation could be expelled.
The Commonwealth of Nations has occasionally suspended member nations from it's council for violating the Harare Declaration .
It would make sense for an organization like the Federation to require a planet to have a unified government that has a clear agreement on human rights, freedoms, unity, etc.
However, excepting the single government thing, it's reasonable that the Federation would have membership criteria, things you must have, and things you cant have.
Political, economic, and social principles, perhaps also territorial and military assets. However these might be negotiable should the applicant possess some special attribute(s) that they would bring with them into the Federation.
If the applicant and the Federation prove to be unable to come to terms, then the applicant can join a different interstellar organization.
One look at our governments, and a Federation of Planets would quickly pass us by
I'm sure in this Galactic Federation you can have a diverse array of possibilities. Based on "First Contact", the t.v. episode not the movie, one thing the GF looks for is technological advance and then they asses whether the planet in question has the cultural maturity to become a GF member in good standing. I think that's where the "unified" planet notion comes in. It's not necessarily unified under a formal government per se.
I think it would be possible to have cultural maturity without having advanced technology. Of course the reverse would be possible as well. A civilization that say lacked natural resources could still develop a gentle philosophical society.
With First Contact, the civilization was shortly going to possess warp drive, which might have forced Starfleet's hand. If their first interstellar mission was to the closest star (good as any), that mission could have placed them in the system of a hostile species who they would be unable to defend themselves against.
Should Earth possess just one sovereign government, a one world government, then that would be the government of the planet's sole sovereign state, and therefor the entire Earth would in fact be a single country.
As opposed to today where there are nearly 200 sovereign countries.
Nope. As I already said, as all nationalists you think too much in terms of nations. United Earth is a political entity which is probably just called Earth or whatever. We do not call other transnational political organizations like the EU or the UN "country" because, guess what, they are not countries.
I guess that a fairly federal structure exists on Earth with the planetwide government, then perhaps something akin continental governments (something like South America, Eurasia, Oceania), then national, regional and communal governments.
Countries, not nations. The United States is a country that houses many nations. Just ask the Lakota or the Cree, or the Miwok that have been here for milennia. Or the Germans, or the Irish, or the Dutch, or the English that all live here and have lived here for over a century.
Just as the United Earth/World Government also is not a Country (or a State, or a Sovereign Entity).
I guess that a fairly federal structure exists on Earth with the planetwide government, then perhaps something akin continental governments (something like South America, Eurasia, Oceania), then national, regional and communal governments.
In "The Defector." Picard refers to Riker (who is from Alaska) and George Custer (who was from Ohio) as "countrymen." Country refers to a sovereign political region, in the middle of the 24th century Alaska and Ohio are still within the same county, American is still a sovereign political entity.
Okay, so, if we're gonna start discussing these kinds of political science concepts, we have to start with an objective terminology used in political science.
The basic terms we need to refer to here are: country; sovereign state; and nation. In everyday conversation, these terms are often used interchangeably (because the vernacular is often imprecise). But these terms have distinct meanings that we should refer to if we want to have any chance of establishing a common understanding of reality.
A nation is a collection of people who share (or believe themselves to share) a common language and heritage. For instance, over many hundreds of years, the English and Scottish nations developed on the island of Great Britain.
A sovereign state is the highest level of political authority, a polity which possesses a territory over which it has exclusive legal jurisdiction, and the right to make binding law; sovereign states possess the legal monopoly on the use of force. For example, the Republic of Iceland is the sovereign state which holds sovereignty and legal jurisdiction over the island of Iceland.
Sovereign states may hold varying degrees of recognition from other sovereign states. For instance, the United States of America is universally recognized; the Republic of Kosovo is partially recognized but is not a United Nations member state; and the Islamic State is a self-declared unrecognized state. In between these kinds of extreme examples are cases like the Republic of China (Taiwan), which has only limited formal recognition as a sovereign state, because the People's Republic of China views it as a rogue province (since Taiwan is where the Chinese state that existed before Mao retreated and has maintained itself ever since). Yet the overwhelming majority of sovereign states act as though they recognize the Republic of Taiwan as a sovereign state, even though they deny it formal recognition; for instance, the United States routinely sells it military hardware and participates in military exercises with its armed forces, yet refuses to recognize it as a sovereign state on paper. (Humorously, until 2002, personnel staffing the American Institute in Taiwan, a non-profit corporation established in the District of Columbia by the U.S. government to serve as an unofficial embassy to the Republic of China, had to resign from the Department of State during the terms of their employment at the AIT -- a non-profit corporation that was not legally an embassy but was miraculously always staffed by people who had just resigned from the State Department!)
A country is a territorial area, usually one associated with a particular nation. For example, long before the unification of the German states, Germany was a term used for the area of land -- the country -- in which the German nation lived, even though the German nation was divided into many different states that could be hostile to one-another (e.g., wars between Prussia and Austria).
Many sovereign states are nation-states -- that is, they are sovereign states that are strongly associated with a particular nation, usually having been created in order to give that nation a territory over which they would hold sovereignty. For instance, the modern Republic of Italy is a nation-state because it is the sovereign state of the Italian nation; its predecessor, the Kingdom of Italy, was the first sovereign state to unite the Italian nation (that is, the people who share a common culture and heritage as Italians) under a single polity since the evolution of an Italian national identity, as before its establishment, the Italian nation had been divided among many different sovereign states. Most nation-states still contain national minority populations within their territory--for instance, the sizable Turkish population in the Federal Republic of Germany today.
Some sovereign states comprise multiple nations -- these are often called multinational states. For instance, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland is the sovereign state which holds sovereignty over the island of Great Britain and the northeastern part of the island of Ireland (those two areas comprising its country). But there is no such thing as a single British "nation" -- the United Kingdom is comprise of the English, Scottish, Welsh, and Irish nations. (And arguably the Cornish nation.) Another example is Bolivia, whose full name is the Plurinational State of Bolivia.
And some nations are divided between sovereign states. The Irish nation is divided between the United Kingdom (controlling the northeastern part of the island of Ireland) and the sovereign state also known as Ireland.
[The Irish example is fun, because it illustrates how confusing our language can be sometimes. So, the country is the island of Ireland; the sovereign states are Ireland (sometimes called the Irish republic) and the United Kingdom; and the nation is the Irish people, divided between the Irish republic (Irish citizens) and the United Kingdom (British citizens) Confused yet? ]
Another contemporary example of the difference between a country, a nation, and a sovereign state: Today, Kurdistan is a term often used to refer to the area of land -- the country -- generally inhabited by the Kurdish nation (those people who speak Kurdish and have inherited a Kurdish cultural identity). The term Kurdistan is used even though the Kurds have no sovereign state of their own and their territory is in fact largely divided between the sovereign states of the Republic of Turkey, the Republic of Iraq, the Syrian Arab Republic, and the Islamic Republic of Iran, and is being contested by the Islamic State (an unrecognized, self-declared state). It is a goal of many Kurdish nationalists to establish an independent Kurdish nation-state.
Alright, so, that was a lot of academic pedantry. But I think it was important to establish a common vocabulary in talking about this situation.
So, here's what we're looking at:
United Earth would not be a nation -- it would by definition be comprised of many different nations.
Nor would it be a country -- it would by definition be comprised of many different countries.
It would, however, be a sovereign state, possessing its own government, its own law, and holding legal jurisdiction over its territory (which is all of Earth). United Earth, as a sovereign state, would have the full authority to make binding law on Earth, and to enforce that law. It would by definition qualify as a multi-national state.
Speaking of Woodrow Wilson and FDR: Wilson, who is revered by progressives, was a racist and a segregationist. He ordered the federal bureaucracy to segregate the federal workplace. He segregated whites and blacks, and in addition many blacks were fired.
Straw-man argument. Plenty of progressives have no love for Woodrow Wilson -- indeed, I already condemned him as an imperialist before you posted. You are also quite right to note that he was a vicioius racist who segregated the federal workforce.
He was also an authoritarian who brutally suppressed political dissent when he brought the United States into World War I under the Espionage Act and the Sedition Act, throwing socialists like Eugene Debs into prison for exercising their freedom of speech to oppose the war. His administration also imprisoned female suffrage activists such as Alice Paul.
I do admire what appears to have been his genuine attempt to create in the League of Nations an international institution that would end warfare, at least among the great powers. But on the whole, I can't say I much like the guy.
FDR ordered the internment of thousands of American citizens of Japanese descent during WWII.
Quite true, and modern progressives are deeply critical of this horrendous violation of human rights, even if they view FDR's administration as having done more good than ill. And plenty of people on the left, such as those in socialist circles, do not even think of him as doing more good than ill -- many of them argue, for instance, that the New Deal was essentially designed to appease just enough people to protect the capitalist system rather than replacing it with something more humane; or view his motivations in World War II as being the establishment of an American capitalist hegemony in the post-war era.
Wilson and FDR, two icons of the so called progressive left, used the powers of the federal government to take away the civil rights and liberties of American citizens, or certain Americans.
The problem with your premise is that you are falsely attributing uncritical admiration of these politicians to the left, when in fact progressives generally have critical views mixed with positive assessments in other areas, while many further on the left simply hold negative assessments of these politicians.
Further, it is important to remember that these politicians are, inevitably, much more moderate than most people on the left. They are politicians, not leftists; the left is a term used for an extremely disorganized collection of movements mostly characterized by politics with varying levels of egalitarianism, but it's not unified (there are large differences between liberals [who are mostly capitalists] and socialists, for instance). Thus, politicians who reach the presidency are rarely genuine leftists -- since they must inevitably find a way to appeal to people who are further to the political right.
The left, insofar as it exists as a coherent movement, can best be understood as a movement that constantly challenges political authority rather than confirming it. Hence why so many on the left have turned against Barack Obama, for instance.
The left does not have a monopoly on virtue as it may think or claim it has.
I'll give the right this: It does a better job of preserving the right to bear arms than does the left. That's about the only major political movement in the last hundred years I can think of where the left was not on the virtuous side of history and the right on the oppressive side. Conservatism, after all, is all about conserving the existing social order -- which is not virtuous if the existing social order is oppressive.
And centralized government is not necessarily good. So much power in the hands of a few can easily be abused.
That's the rub, though -- sometimes centralized power is paradoxically the only way to diffuse power into diverse hands. Power was very concentrated in a very few hands in the American South during the era of segregation; it took greater centralization of power on the federal level to put that power into diverse hands who could act as a check against one-another. Power is in a very few hands when the white Birmingham city council and the white Alabama state legislature are the instruments of power; but when authority falls to the U.S. government, suddenly you've got Congressmen and judges and executive branch officers from all over the country with a say in what goes on in Alabama, and that keeps the Alabama state government and the Birmingham city government more honest.
Paradoxically, sometimes centralization of power is required in order to put it into diffuse hands.
When Beverly said there was a world government in the 2150s, this world government (that is to say, that sovereign state) was not the United Earth we saw running its own military, maintaining its own embassies, conducting foreign relations, and generally doing all of the things governments do? Even though only governments may do the things U.E. did, and even though U.E. existed literally at the same time as the world government Beverly references in "Attached?"
That is to say...
Only A may do B.
C does B.
Therefore, A =/= C???
God help you if you ever take a logic course, T'Girl.
You cannot be a unified world without a single world government
Absurd, one hardly requires the other. A Humanity who have basically put the majority of international differences behind them could be social unified without a single world state being in existence.
Many nations get along just fine Sci without their possessing a single government. You put your old contentions in the past and recognize that your differences are matters of diversity.
The US and the UK don't currently seem to need a single government.
Nor the Scandinavian countries. In fact Swedish and Danish governments built the Øresund bridge as a joint project between their two separate governments, connecting the two peninsulas after millions of years of geological separation.
The few bits of dialouge we have about Earth does seem to at least infer that it has a World Government, however what shape or form that actually takes we don't know. You don't have to have a single unified world state, the EU for example isn't a single state rather a collection of states.
The European Union is a very unique institution that has been granted some of the areas of authority over which sovereign states traditionally hold sovereignty by its member states. These member states in legal theory remain masters of the treaty, whose sovereignty is still supreme and who could rescind E.U. authority within their borders at any time.
In reality, however, the recent Greek debacle has demonstrated that the E.U. and its related institutions has essentially become the instrument of German hegemony over the rest of Europe, albeit with significant input from the French and the British. But it has become basically another form of imperialism at this point, using the veneer of international agreements between sovereign states to mask the fact that they are basically putting economic guns to leaders' heads.
The challenge the E.U. faces, of course, is that the member states' governments are going to continue to challenge E.U. authority over time if their interests diverge from that of the E.U.'s masters in Berlin. At that point, to survive, the E.U. will either need to become a more blatantly imperialist project of the Germans, or it will need to become a genuine democratic sovereign state with significant checks and balances in place to preserve the rights of locals against German domination. Otherwise, it will go the route of the Articles of Confederation and collapse.
Wilson and FDR, two icons of the so called progressive left, used the powers of the federal government to take away the civil rights and liberties of American citizens, or certain Americans.
The left does not have a monopoly on virtue as it may think or claim it has. And centralized government is not necessarily good. So much power in the hands of a few can easily be abused.
Nope. Progressives are not Reaganites who idolize and virtually deify political persons. They do not have icons as they are all about criticizing people who wield power and themselves (left-wing infighting is infamous; I personally had more heated political discussions with fellow lefties than with reactionary folks). Wilson and Roosevelt were overall good presidents but they were not perfect. The policies they implemented were more due to the Progressive Era, the Zeitgeist, the political pressure from ordinary people which cumulated in progressive policies.
(Except for the bit about Wilson being an overall good president. But then, I just proved your point -- as a progressive and a leftist, I couldn't help but disagree with a fellow progressive!)
The goal, at least for progressives, is not to get good people into office. People who yearn for power are rarely extraordinary human beings and more likely to be medicore or outright nasty. The goal is to make the people who wield power respond to democratic pressures and this is what e.g. Roosevelt did when he implemented the New Deal.
Same nowadays with politicians like Sanders. Such a campaign is really less about the man seeking office than about the political movements from the last years coalescing and being the wind in his sails.
I am not a big fan of Chomsky but he was totally right when he said that Nixon was the last liberal POTUS. Of course Nixon was a conservative and he loathed liberals ... but he implemented liberal policies precisely because there was so much democratic pressure.
But has anyone notice we never see an earth president? At least I've never see
one before. It was only the Federation president, and I've only saw two at that.
Yeah, Star Trek only rarely delves into the domestic political structures of the Federation. We have never seen a canonical U.E. chief executive. (Nor a canonical Vulcan chief executive except for V'Las and T'Pau in ENT's Vulcan reformation arc; nor a canonical Andorian chief executive; nor a canonical Tellarite chief executive; etc.)
However, we did see a United Earth minister of state in Nathan Samuels in ENT's Terra Prime arc. Samuels's exact title was not established, but we know that his title was "Minister," that he was not part of the United Earth Starfleet chain of command, and that he was conducting foreign relations on behalf of United Earth in an attempt to found a binding alliance among the various interstellar powers of the time. So the implication seems to be that he was the United Earth Foreign Minister.
For the record, the novels have established that United Earth is a federal parliamentary republic, with a mostly-ceremonial President of United Earth, and a Prime Minister of United Earth who is the real chief executive. The Prime Minister leads a Cabinet comprised of various ministers. The legislature is the United Earth Parliament. We see Nathan Samuels as Prime Minister of United Earth during the Earth-Romulus War in the ENT Romulan War novels, and the Prime Minister of United Earth is established as visiting the devastated San Francisco after the Breen attack in 2375 in the short story "Eleven Hours Out" in Tales from the Dominion War.
The few bits of dialouge we have about Earth does seem to at least infer that it has a World Government, however what shape or form that actually takes we don't know.
Yes. It is United Earth, the sovereign state which unified the nations of the world under its authority by the 2150s according to "Attached" and seen being a sovereign state and doing the things only sovereign states get to do throughout ENT.
I do think that the term "United Earth" was selected during the production of TOS because it's reminiscent to United Nations. United Earth no more has to be the "government of Earth" than the current United Nations would be described as such.
Yes, because we see U.E. in ENT doing things only governments get to do.
Once Humanity started to have contact with multiple alien species, the UE could function as a single point of contact, and instead of each nation sending a separate delegation to each alien world, the UE could send to an alien world a single mission to represent Humanity, like the embassy we saw on Vulcan.
The problem is that only a government could determine a single policy. There have been historical attempts to coordinate foreign policy in the manner you are describing -- the Articles of Confederation, for instance. These attempts inevitably fail, because different interests inevitably pull the member governments in different directions and thwart the ability of the coordinating body to develop a unified policy.
(The same thing is in the process of happening today with the European Union. Therefore, either the E.U. will continue along the line of becoming itself a sovereign state [likely one that predominantly privileges the interests of the Germans over the rest of Europe, a sort of de facto instrument of German hegemony], or it will collapse. It cannot remain indefinitely in a grey space between sovereignty and alliance.)
Bottom line: The scenario you are promoting is an absurd fantasy that cannot be sustained in real life.
Then why is it the American right-wing that consistently attempts to take away voting rights in the U.S.? Why is it the right wing that consistently attempts to disenfranchise voters through restrictive voting laws that make it difficult for people to register to vote?
One side is clearly attempting to prevent people from exercising the right to vote. The other side is not. This is an inescapable fact.
"Attached" explicitly depicts the fact that the Kes want to join the Federation without being a unified planetary state -- aka, a united world government -- as a problem, and one which Picard is expected to solve. In fact, that is the problem -- the Federation government would not have sent Picard to make a recommendation on their petition to join if it were not a problem.
During the entirety of DS9's run (iirc), Bajor had a provisional temporary government in place, what form the Bajorian government(s) would ultimately take is unclear.
During the early years, it was referred to as a provisional government. The term "provisional" was dropped in the later seasons.
Also, I got the impression that there was some kind of political power sharing arrangement between the Vedek Assembly and the Bajorian Provisional Government.
We know that when the First Minister died in Season Two, the Kai was temporarily made First Minister until new elections could be held. We do not know the details by which this transfer of power occurred -- plenty of explanations suggest themselves but we don't know. We do not know if this was a temporary measure taken as a result of the government's still-provisional nature, or if Winn held some other post within the government that entitled her to take over, or if this was simply an ad hoc decision by the Chamber of Ministers (the legislature) made to deal with a lack of a line of succession; or what.
For the record, the DS9 novels have since established that, by 2376, there existed in the Bajoran government the office of Second Minister, who becomes First Minister if the First Minister dies in office.
Should Earth possess just one sovereign government, a one world government, then that would be the government of the planet's sole sovereign state, and therefor the entire Earth would in fact be a single country.
Expulsion is what you do to kick someone out of a club because you do not hold sovereignty over them and therefore do not have the right to exercise force over them if they are violating your rules. It is not what you do if you are a government.
You get expelled from the Rotary Club if you break its rules. You get arrested by the state if you break its rules (aka, the law).
The Commonwealth of Nations has occasionally suspended member nations from it's council for violating the Harare Declaration .
The Commonwealth of Nations is a lovely organization as far as it goes, and it's done good work in promoting international cooperation and diplomacy amongst sovereign states.
But it is not a sovereign state; it is the international equivalent of a Rotary Club. Its practices would not be an effective means of enforcing the law, because the Commonwealth of Nations doesn't get to make law.
If a local government on Earth is violating U.E. law, you do not expel them; then they just go on breaking the law. You do to them what the U.S. government did to its state governments who tried to defy federal law when ordered to desegregate: You enforce the law whether they like it or not.
It would make sense for an organization like the Federation to require a planet to have a unified government that has a clear agreement on human rights, freedoms, unity, etc.
Remember that the Federation didn't realize that Ardana's working class was oppressed, and that agents of the Federation intervened to fight Ardana's system of class-based oppression.
One look at our governments, and a Federation of Planets would quickly pass us by
Assuming that "we" means the United States, I rather think "we" would need to stop allowing our police forces to murder black people like dogs with near-impunity before they'd even glance at us twice.
I think it would be possible to have cultural maturity without having advanced technology. Of course the reverse would be possible as well. A civilization that say lacked natural resources could still develop a gentle philosophical society.
I firmly agree here. Technological sophistication is no guarantee of morality. Just look at the United States today, which allows millions of children to go hungry every night so that a wealthy few can live in luxury.
With First Contact, the civilization was shortly going to possess warp drive, which might have forced Starfleet's hand. If their first interstellar mission was to the closest star (good as any), that mission could have placed them in the system of a hostile species who they would be unable to defend themselves against.
My speculation is that it is not so much that technological sophistication inherently leads to a moral society, or an enlightened culture, but rather that Federation research has shown that it is commonly correlated as such. Given that, warp drive becomes a convenient but arbitrary line to draw on when to contact a planet -- a general guideline but not a hard-and-fast law. We do know from TOS that the Federation will sometimes contact and trade with pre-warp societies if those societies are already aware of the existence of aliens.
Your arguments have consistently been nationalistic.
I guess that a fairly federal structure exists on Earth with the planetwide government, then perhaps something akin continental governments (something like South America, Eurasia, Oceania), then national, regional and communal governments.
In "The Defector." Picard refers to Riker (who is from Alaska) and George Custer (who was from Ohio) as "countrymen." Country refers to a sovereign political region,
No. "Country" =/= "sovereign political region." Plenty of people, for instance, called the area of Europe inhabited by the Germans a "country" long before the German states were actually unified as the German Empire.
in the middle of the 24th century Alaska and Ohio are still within the same county, American is still a sovereign political entity.
No. This merely indicates that the United States still exists -- likely as a member polity of United Earth, in the same way that the Commonwealth of Massachusetts is a member polity of the United States of America.
^Without going to much into the left/right political spectrum, it can vary from country to country what is considered left in one country might be closer to the centre in another country. But in general you could make a case the best place to occupy is the centre ground or at least be the party which is closest to it. As you potentially have the widest appeal to the electorate.
For example how do say Europeans view the GOP , sure they likely view it as being right on the political spectrum but would they put it further to the right than say an American would?
Most Europeans I've encountered in political threads seem to think of the United States as entirely to the right with no left at all. While my conservative father would say the US politics is almost entirely on the left with almost no right remaining.
^ Food for thought; If some advanced Federation organization came to our planet now, and made contact with certain spokespeople, who would we want it to be? Progressives, conservatives, right wing or left wing?
So having a "loose alliance" was a first step towards whatever the world government was? I never denied that something referred to as a world government existed in the mid 22nd century, Beverly clearly says there was such. I'm just pointing out that it wouldn't necessarily have to of been the highest political power on Earth, and the sole sovereign entity.
"European Hegemony," hegemony means dominance or control over someone/something else. So who were the Europeans dominating?
United Earth, as a sovereign state, would have the full authority to make binding law on Earth, and to enforce that law. It would by definition qualify as a multi-national state.
And I think this is possibly what Picard meant in Up the Long Ladder, about the European hegemony.
It was a single political entity with authority over its member states, which is compared to the later world government, which had political authority over all earth states.
BEVERLY : Think about Earth -- what if one of the old nation-states, say Australia, had decided not to join the World Government in twenty-one fifty? Would that have disqualified us from being a Federation member?
Here's something interesting about this though. This actually supports T'Girl's claim that Earth doesn't necessarily have or need a single world government.
This might have been brought up already, but it also supports the idea that earth has a singular government at the same time.
Australian is referred to as an "old nation state". But Australia still exists in the 24th century. So why refer to it as an "old nation state", except to imply it ceased to exist as an individual nation after it joined the world government?
Note that Australia is also a continent, so any 24th century reference to it in the present tense could be as an overall location rather any a political entity.
All the time. And to be blunt, I am tired of right-wingers arguing vigorously for something and then denying it, their typical disavowal bullshit game.
So let's get us straight and sum up what the arguments were so far:
You were arguing that nations should be and remain the most powerful political entities and in other threads in the past you made it clear that you are fine with one national competition/ imperialism. At least the latter makes you a nationalist/jingoist/chauvinist.
I did argue that nations should stop being the most powerful political entities and that a worldwide government with a federal structure would be a good thing as it would lead to more cooperation among humans and imply the end of competition among nations aka war.
I also argued that this is the only way to end wars (you argued that an anarchist/libertarian solution, i.e. worldwide cooperatio without an actual government would do the trick) and I think the post WWII consensus is a heavy chunk of empirical evidence in favour of this argument.
And last but not least I argued that the world we see in Trek has far more to do with my left-wing than your right-wing utopia.
A nation is a a large assemblage of people sharing a common trait, like a original ancestry or a ethnic group, or a cultural identity. This is apparently not the way that you are employing the word/term.
I have been discussing countries, sovereign political entities, and not nations. Whether the future of Earth resulting in multiple sovereign countries, or a single planet encompassing sovereign country, there will most likely be many thousands of nations on this world. There is assumption among some fans that in the Trek future there is immigration of different species to Earth, this would increase the number of nations here.
At no point have I put forward "that nations should be and remain the most powerful political entities." But rather that there would continue to be multiple countries, and that a single country would not be necessary.
Simply having all of Earth bound Humanity within a single global country would (in of itself) be no guarantee of us living in harmony with each other. There are modern examples of diverse people in the same country having contentious relations and wishing to separate. Many modern wars are civil wars, rebellions and insurgencies.
The general tread on the world today is toward having a increasing number of counties, and not reducing toward a eventual single country, we're not consolidating.
A nation is a a large assemblage of people sharing a common trait, like a original ancestry or a ethnic group, or a cultural identity. This is apparently not the way that you are employing the word/term.
I have been discussing countries, sovereign political entities, and not nations.
Your political science vocabulary remains inaccurate. Countries are not sovereign political entities, sovereign states are. A given sovereign state might in fact encompass multiple countries with multiple nations (e.g., England and the English nation, Scotland and the Scottish nation, et al, within the sovereign state known as the United Kingdom).
At no point have I put forward "that nations should be and remain the most powerful political entities." But rather that there would continue to be multiple countries, and that a single country would not be necessary.
You have at several points argued in favor of non-planetary states retaining sovereignty rather than for a single sovereign state unifying the entire territory of Earth.
Simply having all of Earth bound Humanity within a single global country would (in of itself) be no guarantee of us living in harmony with each other.
True. It would be a necessary condition but not a sufficient condition.
The general tread on the world today is toward having a increasing number of counties, and not reducing toward a eventual single country, we're not consolidating.
In the short-term, the trend has been for increasing the number of sovereign states -- the Republic of South Sudan seceding from Sudan; the Republic of Kosovo seceding from the Republic of Serbia; the various constituent republics seceding from the Soviet Union (leading to its dissolution). However, in the long term over the past five hundred years, the tendency has been for consolidation of smaller states into larger sovereign states. Consider the unification of the German and Italian states in the 19th Century, for instance, or the unification of the island of Great Britain the prior century. All of the continents today have far fewer sovereign polities than they did in 1400.
I think it would be possible to have cultural maturity without having advanced technology. Of course the reverse would be possible as well. A civilization that say lacked natural resources could still develop a gentle philosophical society.
Of course. Or even develop a very forward looking one cultural that may for whatever reason lag behind technologically but is still very advanced in its social/philosophical outlook. The GF may not need a specifically rigid set of criteria that narrowly aligns to say something like the Kardashev scale, but might try to evaluate each civilization on a case by case basis or make exceptions in exceptional cases.
Of course. Or even develop a very forward looking one cultural that may for whatever reason lag behind technologically but is still very advanced in its social/philosophical outlook.
It was suggested in ENT by T'Pol that the Vulcan's weren't quite as inquisitive as the Humans were, this wasn't of first importance to them. For some Federation Members, it isn't that they can't have a high technology society , but rather it simply isn't important to them.
The GF may not need a specifically rigid set of criteria that narrowly aligns to say something like the Kardashev scale, but might try to evaluate each civilization on a case by case basis or make exceptions in exceptional cases.
How "rigid" could the entry criteria actually be? There would be nothing wrong with the Federation having a wish list, but there would also have to be a pragmatic aspect to it. A Federation that adopts an attitude of "bend over backwards and we MIGHT let you in" could easily drive away potential members who would be great assets to the Federation's future.
I wonder if it would be a deal breaker for the Federation if a potential new member had pre-existing memberships in multiple other interstellar organizations? Consider the United Kingdom, they're a member of the UN, part of the European Union, part of NATO, part of the Commonwealth of Nations, and I'm sure there are other organizations too.
The EU didn't insist the UK drop out of the UN in order to join the EU.
So would the Federation insist that Betazed cut all of it's pre-existing associations in order to join the Federation? Or would the Federation welcome the connections that Betazed would bring, a bridge to more expansive species interactions and trade possibilities that the inclusion of Betazed (with all of it's "baggage") would bring?
And would the Betazed's membership with the Federation necessarily have to be Betazeds first consideration? Would the Federation insist?
Meaning, participation and membership in the Federation might be (to a degree) important to the Betazoids, but there could be other interstellar organizations that are more essential to their society.
I'm sure the United States values it's membership in the Pacific Islands Forum, but other memberships come first.
To it's the most important association the Betazed would send an ambassador who is a Daughter of the First House ...
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