>Quibble tho: the actually-existing Federation in the media as it
>evolved away from Roddenberry is actually rather politically
>retrograde. It practices an immensely strong form of federalism that
>does very little to protect the rights and dignity of its citizens as
>regards to the local politics of their specific species or homeworlds.

As CdrMike noted, in the Star Trek canon that seems like it's mostly based in writers' misreadings of the Prime Directive. In UF (since this is after all the UF board :), it was a deliberate reaction by the Federation Charter's framers to the United Galactica, which the Federation replaced and which had a strong "get with our values or GTFO" policy stance. This was very popular with persons who would've been savagely repressed by their local leaders without it, but on the other hand, it caused sufficient resentment among the sorts of local leaders who wanted to get some savage repression going that it ultimately led to a galactic civil war.

On the flip side, the Federation's policy of declining to hold its members accountable for savage internal repressions eventually caused such friction between savage-repression-oriented and non-savage-repression-oriented members that it ultimately led to a galactic civil war. So, you know. Maybe you can't win.

--G.
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Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
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