A World Government

[Dagobahn Eagle]

Different countries: Different views.

 

One country: One view.

 

No matter how you put it, a person from the

state of the NWO formerly known as Taiwan won't know what, say, a person from the island formerly known as Iceland wants.

 

Even if they're working for the same good, there will be differences in culture, society, etc. that affects HOW that common good is achieved. Iceland has a totally different view on how to fight poverty than, say, USA.

 

Oh, and look at the UN: See how they disagree with the States, although they work for the same thing? If there is one major ruling power it'll be like the UN: People are going to disagree, argue, and not follow regulations.

 

BTW, do you really believe in a president ruling 6 billion people? If the world was united, it'd be more of a council (it'd have to be).

[Jedi_Monk]

I'm very hesitant to embrace the idea of a world government... people here have been using the Galactic Republic as an example, and it's a good one. It worked, for a while, a long while--but in the end, it was subverted and became the Empire. Using the apparatus and infrastructure already existing, Supreme Chancellor Palpatine was able to spread his particular form of dictatorship across the galaxy. How did he do this? Terrorism. He had his ally and apprentice, Count Dooku, created a terrorist Separatist Movement.

 

Terrorism has often played a roll in subverting democracy, most noteably the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand (leading to WWI), the Reichstag fire (which allowed Hitler to consolidate his power, which, of course, led to WWII), and most recently the events of 9-11 (which are leading to the consolidation of US government powers, the stifling of dissent and the claim of the right to attack any country we can imagine an Al Qeda connection with).

 

There are hostilities among countries, that's for certain... but for the most part, there are deterrents to full-out war between nations. There are either treaties with more, or stronger nations, or nuclear and biological weapons that deter attack, or, simply, a people who just don't want their government to get them killed. Terrorist organizations aren't nations, they are pissed off people with access to weapons. As such I don't think even a World Government would do squat toward annihilating the threat of terrorism--and while terrorism might not be the single biggest threat to world peace, it is certainly one of the most destabilizing as history has shown.

 

I like having numerous sovereign nations, because that gives you a kind of freedom that a single government just flat-out couldn't: the freedom to leave a nation declining into fascism and start a new life elsewhere.

 

That said, I think the UN is a great idea--and we need to make it work! One nation should not and must not have the ability to take international law into its own hands as the US has been doing in recent years. Because, when one nation has all that power, you're just a hop, skip and a bomb from creating that World Government. There needs to be an objective, third-party organization to be the arbiter between hostile nations. No one person is objective, can't be, but if you get enough informed people together--then, you might have a chance. There needs to be an international organization to keep international law.

 

BTW, ET, it's great to see you're still hanging around here!

[Dagobahn Eagle]

I'm very hesitant to embrace the idea of a world government... people here have been using the Galactic Republic as an example

What do the Galactic Republic (Star Wars) and the Federation of Planets (Star Trek) have in common? They're both artificial.

 

The FoP in ST is also a communist-like system. Does communism work in real life? No. So why do you use the Republic as an example? It's fiction, for crying out loud, as in "something that has never existed".

 

Why do people like the Palestinians want their own states? To be self-governed. Democracy is a fundamental part of human society, and in a world of 7 billion voters, your voice would be about unheard. Writing a letter to the president would be futile, as he or she would receive millions upon millions of letters a day. You would have to send a letter to a legislative body instead, but they, too, would end up receiving a billion letters, so most likely you'd have to standardize the letters into forms, making it harder to speak up with actual arguments.

 

Also, these legislative bodies: You can't have one, because of the extremely high input they'd receive. Thus, you'd have to have dozens of legislatives for every continent, meaning eventually you'd end up having different legislatives mean different things, which would lead to stereotyping of the people in that continent (=different societies). You'd end up with your country changing so much that the good sides are outweighed by the bad and new sides.

 

I could go on, but it all sums into this: We are not one ethnic group. We are not one culture. And seeing we're not one people, we can't be united as one nation. Also, it's just going to be too big to work, for the reasons I described above.

[Jedi_Monk]

What do the Galactic Republic (Star Wars) and the Federation of Planets (Star Trek) have in common? They're both artificial.

Star Wars is largely alegorical; Lucas is using the Republic to represent that government Berry Goldwater so aptly described with this quote: "A government big enough to give you everything you want, is big enough to take everything you have."

 

The point is that if a single governmental body has too much power, and if a dictator is able to assume control, the world is thrown into chaos. The bigger the government, the worst the ramifications of its declining into fascism.

[SkinWalker]

Originally posted by Dagobahn Eagle

What do the Galactic Republic (Star Wars) and the Federation of Planets (Star Trek) have in common? They're both artificial. ... It's fiction, for crying out loud, as in "something that has never existed".

 

 

But one cannot discount the other thing that each of these examples has in common: that it is they fictions created from the idea or ideas of one or more real people. That's important, because as you start looking at global or even "star-system" sized problems that were once the provision of smaller nations, it will be helpful to have kicked the idea around a bit. In the future, colonization of other worlds is probably inevitable. At least in regards to Mars and a few satellites (man-made or natural).

 

Governorship of these worlds will likely increase globalization of our own planet.

 

Originally posted by Dagobahn Eagle

The FoP in ST is also a communist-like system. Does communism work in real life? No. So why do you use the Republic as an example?

 

The problem that all forms of government face is that the driving force is capitalism. That's also the advantage in many forms of government. People naturally seek status. I challenge anyone to show me an example of a culture where status is not sought. Status, very often can be gained through capitalistic ventures in the form of wealth. The wealthy are very careful to retain their wealth and deny it to the less wealthy and the poor.

 

Communism failed because of the innate desire for the ruling elite to seek and maintain status. One could say that status, for them, was a form of capital to be traded like a commodity. Those "wealthy" with status were careful to deny it to those that did not have it. This created an imbalance and instead of citizens being equal, they ended up just as stratified as Marx condemned capitalist societies as being, only in a different manner.

 

Therefore, successful globalization will have to take into account the consumer capitalist nature of the world and the capitalist driving forces (transnational corporations, national corporations, NGOs, et al). I believe what the world will acheive at some point is a global government that is made up of a federation of nations, each soveriegn, which participate in a larger governing body such as the current United Nations. Membership in this federation will provide development money, aid packages, military protection, police contingencies during times of disaster (i.e. tsunami, earthquakes, etc.), and other global community efforts. Perhaps inclusion in interplanetary exploration and resources exploitation.

 

In return, members of this corporate driven, but government regulated federation will have to occasionally abide by rulings and decisions they may disagree with. Even though they may be a sovereign nation, they may be precluded from acting out of aggression toward a neighbor whom they think might be dangerous in the future.

 

These are just ideas that have been swimming around in my head for a while, but I just kind of put them together for the first time.... I'm sure there are holes.