And I maintain that the notion of the Council meeting in a location that is a nine-hour time difference away from the President's office is patently absurd and non-workable.
Solution- Only elect presidents from nocturnal races.
The President's Office
- Thread starter Cicero
- Start date
Solution- Only elect presidents from nocturnal races.
Abolish time zones for Earth. 
Or, use hyposprays to directly inject caffeine into Councillor's bodies.
Or, use hyposprays to directly inject caffeine into Councillor's bodies.
I agree about the assumption that the Federation revolves around Starfleet. However, Articles of the Federation has a scene where a journalist muses on the fact that the Palais de la Concorde's Council Chambers is the same room where 22nd Century President Haroun al-Rashid debated Councillor Avaranthi sh'Rothress, where Sarek debated the Klingon Ambassador over the Genesis Device and the fate of James T. Kirk, and where Ambassador Garak debated Ambassador Luxana Troi over the distribution of war recovery aid. So it seems improbable even that the Council ever moved; the implication seems to have been that the Palais has been the Council's and President's headquarters since the time al-Rashid was President (though the exact dates are yet unestablished, as is the home of the Federation government before its move to Paris).
Maybe it's a situation similar to the European Parliament, which meets in Strasbourg and Brussels, and which has its Secretariat in Luxembourg.
Sweet Zombie Jesus, I hope the Federation has nothing like the European Union's inefficient, needlessly complicated, dysfunctional, might-cause-the-entire-Union-to-collapse bureaucracy (of which the European Parliament's numerous locations is a reflection).
Comparatively speaking, yes.
Our government is fairly centralized. Doesn't mean it works right all the time, but we don't have to worry about having Congress meet in Washington D.C. and New York, and have the various government agencies/civil servants operate out of Chicago or San Francisco.
Our government is fairly centralized. Doesn't mean it works right all the time, but we don't have to worry about having Congress meet in Washington D.C. and New York, and have the various government agencies/civil servants operate out of Chicago or San Francisco.
Yeah, because the American system is so streamlined and efficient.
Who says America is the basis of comparison? There are good, well-thought-out reasons why, when we invade a country, we give them Britain's system of government and not ours. And how many cities does the UK Parliament meet in, again?
I sincerely hope the Federation Council is more functional than the American system, too. For one thing, I should certainly hope that the opposition in the Federation Council doesn't make it routine policy to filibuster any bill an opposing faction sponsors, and I hope that the capital of the Federation isn't denied equal representation in the legislature the way the District of Columbia is.
But the American system -- like ANY national democratic system, including the systems of all of the E.U. Member States -- is much more streamlined and efficient than the E.U. system, yes.
When setting up new governments, the United States has often tended to promote republican (that is, republics) versions of the Westminster system, usually with elected ceremonial presidents taking the place of the constitutional monarch found in the British system.
But can we move away from criticizing the U.S.? The point isn't to claim that any one national system is better than any other. The point is to claim that ANY national democratic system is better than the European Union system. Germany's is better than the E.U.'s. France's is better than the E.U.'s. Italy's is better than the E.U.'s. Great Britain's is better than the E.U.'s. Canada's is better. Etc.
And I maintain that the notion of the Council meeting in a location that is a nine-hour time difference away from the President's office is patently absurd and non-workable.
I don't see the problem. It's been suggested several times that Starfleet personnel commute to San Francisco from various points on the globe. (Worf thought Minsk an appropriate home for a Starfleet Academy instructor.)
More practically, it needn't be assumed that the President meets with the Council very often. In some modern parliamentary systems, the Prime Minister attends sessions of the legislature weekly or even less often. Moreover, meetings held across (roughly) nine time zones are a common fixture in the United States Departments of State and Defense today; stateside and in-the-box officials of various rank (from very high to moderately low) regularly communicate with each other via video conference and phone conference. All this is possible without the convenience of Star Trek technology.
That's not always been the case. In the late 1800s, General Sherman, exasperated by the political atmosphere of Washington, moved the US Army's headquarters to St. Louis, several days' (weeks'?) travel away.
We've only established or continued a constitutional monarchy once, in Japan at the end of World War II.
Our initial aim in Samoa in 1899 was to prevent the German-backed chief rival to the just-deceased King Malietoa Laupepa of Samoa from gaining the throne (we and Britain supported the King's son), the civil war there (which the three outside powers joined forces to stop) ultimately abolished the monarchy by joint agreement of the two Samoan factions, Britain, the US, and Germany.
The United States has engaged in far fewer invasions than popular recollection seems to hold these days. Aside from humanitarian actions (the Dominican Republic, 1965), pursuit of hostile forces across theoretically neutral borders (e.g. Cambodia), small actions not directed against the local government (e.g. Argentina in 1899), and wars of defense or believed defense (e.g. World War II, the Spanish-American War), I count the following:
- Iraq, 2003
- Panama, 1989
- Grenada, 1983
- Possibly Honduras in the early 1900s; information on the size, purpose, and authority of our actions there isn't readily available.
The idea represented by the United States, though, is best seen in our "good neighbor" period, from 1932 to roughly 2001, with some questionable interludes during the Cold War. We were - and are - respectful of other nations, of their people, of their sovereignty (but first of their people), and of international law.
Just my two penneth but with the advent of the transporter (mass or not) meetings for natures of major consideration wouldn't be hampered by a transport lag.
And you'd still have the spectacle of politicians nodding off!
And you'd still have the spectacle of politicians nodding off!
Just the one.
Heck, these days, members of Congress spend so much time flying across the country to raise funds or campaign for re-election that they're chronically jetlagged and fatigued anyway. It might even be better if they were based in their home districts and did their Congressional business by videoconferencing, because then they wouldn't have to be constantly shuttling between their home bases and their work.
And you're right -- in an age of transporters, it would be a lot less of an issue. Keith alluded to time zones, but Larry Niven posited in Ringworld that teleportation could pretty much eliminate the concept of time zones, since people would be so routinely commuting between them. So the world might adopt a single global time and live their lives on the schedule that suited them regardless of when the sun was up (aided by artificial lighting as needed).
Meh. The role of the Federation President that KRAD put forth in Articles of the Federation was a mixture of US President, Speaker of the House and British Prime Minister.
US Presidents don't chair meetings of Congress and in most systems committees don't get to make foreign policy like they were the foreign minister.
US Presidents don't chair meetings of Congress and in most systems committees don't get to make foreign policy like they were the foreign minister.
I actually rather liked the way the government was shown in Articles of the Federation. It took, to me at least, the best/better qualities of the Presidential system and the Parliamentary system and morphed them together.
Back to the issue of the Palais...
It should be remembered that The Romulan War novel establishes that that structure was NOT built specifically for the Federation. It served as the home of the United Earth government. I founf that to be an unfortunate revelation since once again, it appears that the federation simply adopts something from Earth.
While we are on the subject of the Federation President, In want to know who's idea it was to call the Presidential starship Paris One? I would have prefered something like the USS United Federation of Planets or Federation One.
It should be remembered that The Romulan War novel establishes that that structure was NOT built specifically for the Federation. It served as the home of the United Earth government. I founf that to be an unfortunate revelation since once again, it appears that the federation simply adopts something from Earth.
While we are on the subject of the Federation President, In want to know who's idea it was to call the Presidential starship Paris One? I would have prefered something like the USS United Federation of Planets or Federation One.
Why is that necessarily a bad thing? If it's efficient, go for it.
