Money

Sionnach Glic · Post by **Sionnach Glic** » Mon Oct 01, 2007 5:57 pm

Are you sure there wasn't a human president?
I'm sure there was on around the TOS films...

Granitehewer · Post by **Granitehewer** » Mon Oct 01, 2007 5:59 pm

erm he wasn't human....

Thorin · Post by **Thorin** » Mon Oct 01, 2007 6:02 pm

Oh sorry, there has been one human president (I don't include any reference from ENT), from The Voyage Home.

Granitehewer · Post by **Granitehewer** » Mon Oct 01, 2007 6:03 pm

all i remember is the alien santa claus/president from stvi

Sionnach Glic · Post by **Sionnach Glic** » Mon Oct 01, 2007 6:04 pm

erm, yes he was:

Memory Alpha wrote: Human President c. 2286

In 2286, the President (played by Robert Ellenstein) presided over the Council's deliberations concerning the actions of Admiral James T. Kirk, who had hijacked the USS Enterprise and caused an interstellar incident with the Klingons at the Genesis Planet. Ultimately, the Council decided to charge Kirk with nine violations of Starfleet regulations.

When the whale probe approached Earth, transmitting its destructive message into the planet's atmosphere, the President decided to broadcast a planetary distress signal to warn all ships to stay away from Earth.

Following the whale probe incident (in which Kirk and his crew saved the planet), the President and the Council agreed to drop all but one of the charges against the Enterprise crew, the remaining charge simply resulting in Kirk being demoted to Captain - as he wanted all along - in gratitude for their service to Earth and the Federation. (Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home)

The president in Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home is named Hiram Roth in the non-canonical novel Articles of the Federation by Keith R.A. DeCandido. He also appeared in several issues of DC's Star Trek comics.

The picture also shows him clealy as a human.

Thorin · Post by **Thorin** » Mon Oct 01, 2007 6:06 pm

I said there was a human president in The Voyage Home...

Sionnach Glic · Post by **Sionnach Glic** » Mon Oct 01, 2007 6:09 pm

Yeah, I think I was writing that while you posted that.

Post by **Graham Kennedy** » Mon Oct 01, 2007 6:27 pm

As far as I am aware, there has never been one single indication that the Federation President is elected. Nor that any member of the Council is.

I'd be delighted to hear contrary evidence.

Sionnach Glic · Post by **Sionnach Glic** » Mon Oct 01, 2007 6:37 pm

Well that's....unpleasant news.
Well, its one more thing for me to complain about.

Thorin · Post by **Thorin** » Mon Oct 01, 2007 6:39 pm

The Federation Council is elected (as seen when Bajor was required to elect a representitive), and the Federation is a complete democracy ("Errand of Mercy"). The very principle of a democracy is that things are ran by the people, in other words via an election. It is more than logical to assume that the leader of the democracy is elected from the Federation Council, who in turn were elected. That's a lot more evidence and a lot more logical to assume than saying that the president isn't elected.

Blackstar the Chakat · Mon Oct 01, 2007 8:48 pm

I'm not quite sure why everyone thinks democracy is so great. First of all democracies spend so much time fighting over what should be done they usually do too little too late. Secondly During the golden age of piracy most pirate ships had some sort of democratic system, but they were still violent and malicious criminals. And many democratic governments are hypocrites. Their militarys are run in a very non-democratic way. A fire cannot use water to fight without extinguishing itself. A dictatorship-like government could, with the right people in charge, be even better then a democratic country. And they at least spend less time talking and more time doing.

Thorin · Post by **Thorin** » Mon Oct 01, 2007 8:53 pm

ChakatBlackstar wrote:I'm not quite sure why everyone thinks democracy is so great. First of all democracies spend so much time fighting over what should be done they usually do too little too late. Secondly During the golden age of piracy most pirate ships had some sort of democratic system, but they were still violent and malicious criminals. And many democratic governments are hypocrites. Their militarys are run in a very non-democratic way. A fire cannot use water to fight without extinguishing itself. A dictatorship-like government could, with the right people in charge, be even better then a democratic country. And they at least spend less time talking and more time doing.

Why don't you go and live in Burma, then.

Post by **Captain Seafort** » Mon Oct 01, 2007 8:56 pm

Thorin wrote:The Federation Council is elected (as seen when Bajor was required to elect a representitive), and the Federation is a complete democracy ("Errand of Mercy").

That's a TOS source, and there's a ton of evidence that the Federation changed drastically between TOS and TNG. The worst example of this from the democracy point of view being in "Paradise Lost", when the only person who could prevent Leyton's bloodless coup was Sisko - another Starfleet officer. There's also indicators in "Journey's End", when Picard didn't have an inkling of the terms of the Federation-Cardassian treaty until Necheyev told him.

Post by **Captain Seafort** » Mon Oct 01, 2007 9:00 pm

ChakatBlackstar wrote:I'm not quite sure why everyone thinks democracy is so great. First of all democracies spend so much time fighting over what should be done they usually do too little too late. Secondly During the golden age of piracy most pirate ships had some sort of democratic system, but they were still violent and malicious criminals. And many democratic governments are hypocrites. Their militarys are run in a very non-democratic way. A fire cannot use water to fight without extinguishing itself. A dictatorship-like government could, with the right people in charge, be even better then a democratic country. And they at least spend less time talking and more time doing.

Theoretically, sure, a benevolant dictatorship is the best form of government. In practice, however, power corrupts, and the best system devised so far of preventing an incompetant, corrupt, or purely self-serving individual from remaining in charge indefinately is democracy. To quote a far greater man than any of us, it is by far "the worst form of government, apart from all those others that have from time to time been tried."

Sionnach Glic · Post by **Sionnach Glic** » Mon Oct 01, 2007 9:02 pm

I'm not quite sure why everyone thinks democracy is so great. First of all democracies spend so much time fighting over what should be done they usually do too little too late. Secondly During the golden age of piracy most pirate ships had some sort of democratic system, but they were still violent and malicious criminals. And many democratic governments are hypocrites. Their militarys are run in a very non-democratic way. A fire cannot use water to fight without extinguishing itself. A dictatorship-like government could, with the right people in charge, be even better then a democratic country. And they at least spend less time talking and more time doing.

True, democracies aren't perfect, and sometimes they can be abused. The alternatives, however, are much worse.

There is a reason all first world countries are democracies, you know.