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Union of Earth Republics

annrice234

New Member
arg-fallbackName="annrice234"/>
This is just an idea I am working on. It is long-term (i.e. beyond our lifetimes). I would appreciate any feedback.

The Union of Earth Republics

The Constitution of the new Union of Earth Republics (UER) is the foundational document for the merger of all Earth nations into a single nation. It has many of the features of the United States of America (USA) Constitution with its separation of powers, checks and balances and such. It includes three main branches of government: the Legislative, the Executive and the Judiciary branches. It is not exclusively Democratic since the Chinese republic remains Communist. The UER is a union of republics, somewhat like the way the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) was.

The UER Constitution includes features not available in the USA Constitution. These features include an Equal Rights Amendment, term limits for the UER Legislature, line-item veto for the Executive and balanced budget provisions. It also plans for a resolution of economic debt between the republics. Sustainability clauses and a family size limit provision is phased-in.

The UER starts out with just the landmasses of the USA and Russia. For the sake of clarity, the alternative name for the new nation will be the Union of Russian and American Republics. The merger of Russia and the USA is phased-in. It does not initially include free travel between the two republics, a merger of the two economies or a merger of the two militaries. China joins the UER at a later date. China's suffrage int he Legislature is phased-in because of the its larger population size. The goal is one-person, one vote in at least one house of the bicameral Legislature.

A primary goal of the UER is to cease the targeting of the population centers of the UER by the strategic nuclear arsenals of the UER. This change is phased-in. The UER is a pathway to a more peaceful nuclear weapons stance than that of the late 20th Century.
 
arg-fallbackName="annrice234"/>
Sparhafoc said:
Can I go with a preliminary question?

Why?

Because the nuclear weapons situation between Russia and the USA is an existential threat to both countries. You would think that in a sane world, both partiies would be interested in their long-term safety. It seems to me that a merger is the only solution that might be permanent.
 
arg-fallbackName="Gnug215"/>
annrice234 said:
Sparhafoc said:
Can I go with a preliminary question?

Why?

Because the nuclear weapons situation between Russia and the USA is an existential threat to both countries. You would think that in a sane world, both partiies would be interested in their long-term safety. It seems to me that a merger is the only solution that might be permanent.


The EU, consisting of a bunch of, relatively speaking, fairly similar nations (in terms of culture, population, economy), is having huge, huge issues just getting its member states to stay in a union that barely scracthes the surface of the kind of union you're suggesting.

It's a nice notion, but there's no way in hell it's gonna fly with people.
 
arg-fallbackName="Sparhafoc"/>
annrice234 said:
Sparhafoc said:
Can I go with a preliminary question?

Why?

Because the nuclear weapons situation between Russia and the USA is an existential threat to both countries.

Ok, but there's a rather large gulf between that statement and the formation of a global government.

annrice234 said:
You would think that in a sane world, both partiies would be interested in their long-term safety.

I think they are, which is why they maintain nukes to deter others from using nukes on them.

annrice234 said:
It seems to me that a merger is the only solution that might be permanent.

I am not clear on the logic that arrives at this being the 'only' solution, not least because it seems to contain a host of complications itself. What about simple disarmament without all the world government component?
 
arg-fallbackName="annrice234"/>
annrice234 said:
You would think that in a sane world, both partiies would be interested in their long-term safety.

I think they are, which is why they maintain nukes to deter others from using nukes on them.

annrice234 said:
It seems to me that a merger is the only solution that might be permanent.

I am not clear on the logic that arrives at this being the 'only' solution, not least because it seems to contain a host of complications itself. What about simple disarmament without all the world government component?[/quote]

It seems to me that disarmament is losing steam as a solution. People are current afraid of giving up all of their nukes. Even if you had a weak union (confederation or whatever other word suggests that), it would be better than the current situtation. I see that union as a bridge to a better future. You might have to start with a weak uion and then strenthen it over the decades as polaization between Russia and the USA lessens. It may take many decades, but to start now on such a union between Russia and the USA would be a foundation to slowly build upon. It would only be after the union is well established that you would then invite in China as the third member. World govenment is many decades into the future.
 
arg-fallbackName="Sparhafoc"/>
annrice234 said:
It seems to me that disarmament is losing steam as a solution.

As far as I am aware, if you consider disarmament to have been a phase over the last 20 years, and then you compare the present estimated number of nukes to estimates of numbers of nukes from the 60's to 90's, we're in a dramatically better situation today. In fact, trends are quite the contrary to what you've said with the total number of nukes expected to continue to fall, even if there is some proliferation in terms of nuclear capable nations.

Sure, if you expect disarmament to result in no nukes at all, then I guess it would be fair to say we're still far from that goal.

annrice234 said:
People are current afraid of giving up all of their nukes.

People are stupid, mostly, so that's not a big surprise! :)

But it's not really 'people', is it? Sure, there are some people in a given nation who are pro-nuclear armaments, but they're far from the majority in any democratic nation, as far as I am aware.

It's governments and particular administrations who have upped the recent climate of concern about nukes, and a lot of it seems to be empty posturing when it comes to talk of expanding arsenals. When you've got 10,000 nukes and have to pay the endless maintenance and hazardous waste from them, another few hundred extra just doesn't seem worth their weight strategically or as a heightened deterrent. If anything, the big nations want less nukes, but better ones - ones that can evade counter-measures, for example. When you've got enough to wipe every major city in half the world, I don't think many people genuinely agree that more is better.

But even were I to concede both of the above, I still don't see how your proposition follows. How does the failure of total nuclear disarmament necessarily entail a world government?

I don't see how that works logically.

I don't see how it works in terms of sovereign nations all over the world willingly subordinating themselves to a higher administrative authority.

I also don't see how it works in terms of providing an actual solution to the stated problem. How does the World Government deter North Korea, for example, from testing nukes if the World Government doesn't itself have nukes? Authority in all the diverse array of human societies always has ultimately resided in who has the bigger stick.


annrice234 said:
Even if you had a weak union (confederation or whatever other word suggests that), it would be better than the current situtation.

Well, we kind of do, at least in terms of nuclear agreements. It's not perfect, and there are some ridiculous situations we've allowed ourselves to accept, but there is a 'confederation' of states in the sense of a non-proliferation treaty signed by nearly every nation in the world.

How would your envisioned confederation differ in this regard?

annrice234 said:
I see that union as a bridge to a better future. You might have to start with a weak uion and then strenthen it over the decades as polaization between Russia and the USA lessens. It may take many decades, but to start now on such a union between Russia and the USA would be a foundation to slowly build upon. It would only be after the union is well established that you would then invite in China as the third member. World govenment is many decades into the future.

I think it's worth questioning whether world government is even desirable.

That is not to say I am taking a position either for or against, but at least in the sense you've proposed, I am not clear as to what benefit it purports to offer, or whether those same benefits could be accrued without a world government.

I think there's a kind of obvious trajectory there; human society over the millennia has slowly expanded the number of citizens operating under a particular governmental structure - tribe, clan, kingdom, empire, nation state, multinational blocs... but these have always been enforced either by commonality of language, cultural traditions (or trading agreements), and religious beliefs, or by superior force. I think we're a long way from trusting each other, or being confident in ourselves (whichever way you want to look at it) to relinquish national sovereignty that far yet.

But we are forming blocs, and they put a natural pressure on other states to form their own blocs, which in turn means bigger blocs are better, and so on. Perhaps one day world government will be an obvious step that will resolve many other issues, but I don't think we're ready for that experiment yet.
 
arg-fallbackName="annrice234"/>
Try to imagine a "better" future than the current situation and give a long time, say, 1000 years, for that change to happen. What will that change look like? I think that it will look like world government. Now the questions are, how might that change occur and can it be faster than 1000 years? I think of it as almost like building a large bridge? Do we have the resources to make it successful? Break it down and get into the details of the step-by-step how you are going to construct the span. That is how I see constructing a world government. You start with a compact, strong foundation. That is why I choose Russia and the USA as a strong starting point. If these two countries were unified to some degree, the other nations of the world would not be able to ignore that entity. If it were built carefully, a world government might be a big improvement that could happen in, perhaps, 200 years.
 
arg-fallbackName="annrice234"/>
Does anyone think that a family size limit is impossible to implement? I can think of other means that might be more scary, such as randomly sterilizing some percentage of newborns in order to stabilize world population. What we need are laws that will help us to achieve sustainability. Being an optimist, I predict that someday, the people of Earth will reproduce in a sustainable fashion.
 
arg-fallbackName="Sparhafoc"/>
annrice234 said:
Does anyone think that a family size limit is impossible to implement?

Impossible? No. It obviously depends on what lengths a government would be prepared to go to limit the autonomy of its citizenry.

Again, I think the question is more about whether it's desirable to create such a world.

annrice234 said:
I can think of other means that might be more scary, such as randomly sterilizing some percentage of newborns in order to stabilize world population.

That sounds horrifying. Is it desirable to save the world if by doing so we create such a dystopia?

annrice234 said:
What we need are laws that will help us to achieve sustainability. Being an optimist, I predict that someday, the people of Earth will reproduce in a sustainable fashion.

We do reproduce in a sustainable fashion: that's what reproduction is! Put food, oxygen, and water in... shake well... 'free' babies. ;)

It's not the production of offspring that's causing environmental problems, it's consumption patterns multiplied by the number of consumers.

I am not sure that we need tyranny in order to achieve our desired ends here. Population is already stabilizing, albeit acknowledged that it will take many generations and billions more people before that process arrives at equilibrium. However, plenty of nations have already arrived at sub-replacement fertility rates without needing to create such repressive legislation.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_decline#Contemporary_decline_by_country
A number of nations today are declining in population: this is occurring in a region stretching from North Asia (Japan) through Eastern Europe, including Romania, Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Bulgaria, Georgia, and into Central and Western Europe, including Albania, Bosnia, Croatia, Serbia, Hungary, and now Greece, Italy and Portugal, in addition to Puerto Rico in the Caribbean. Countries rapidly approaching population declines in the 2020-25 period include Spain, Germany, and Slovenia.
 
arg-fallbackName="annrice234"/>
Sparhafoc said:
annrice234 said:
Does anyone think that a family size limit is impossible to implement?

Impossible? No. It obviously depends on what lengths a government would be prepared to go to limit the autonomy of its citizenry.

Again, I think the question is more about whether it's desirable to create such a world.

annrice234 said:
I can think of other means that might be more scary, such as randomly sterilizing some percentage of newborns in order to stabilize world population.

That sounds horrifying. Is it desirable to save the world if by doing so we create such a dystopia?

annrice234 said:
What we need are laws that will help us to achieve sustainability. Being an optimist, I predict that someday, the people of Earth will reproduce in a sustainable fashion.

We do reproduce in a sustainable fashion: that's what reproduction is! Put food, oxygen, and water in... shake well... 'free' babies. ;)

It's not the production of offspring that's causing environmental problems, it's consumption patterns multiplied by the number of consumers.

I am not sure that we need tyranny in order to achieve our desired ends here. Population is already stabilizing, albeit acknowledged that it will take many generations and billions more people before that process arrives at equilibrium. However, plenty of nations have already arrived at sub-replacement fertility rates without needing to create such repressive legislation.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_decline#Contemporary_decline_by_country
A number of nations today are declining in population: this is occurring in a region stretching from North Asia (Japan) through Eastern Europe, including Romania, Ukraine, Belarus, Moldova, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Bulgaria, Georgia, and into Central and Western Europe, including Albania, Bosnia, Croatia, Serbia, Hungary, and now Greece, Italy and Portugal, in addition to Puerto Rico in the Caribbean. Countries rapidly approaching population declines in the 2020-25 period include Spain, Germany, and Slovenia.

Would it really be such a dystopia if we sterilized some percentage of newborns at random? Maybe the sterilized could be convinced to accept that reproduction is not some absolute, Darwinian mandate. Some people already choose to be childless. They do other things. They write books. They work in science and techonology and such. They contribute to humanity and to civilization. There are more indicators that stabilizing world population at some lower value (like the present amount or even less) is the wiser pathway. Peak oil. Deforestation. Islands of plastic junk floating in the ocean. Sustainability is serious business, not so much for the current generation but for future generations. Does the current generation not really care about deep future generations? I thinkt hat family size limits (really a limit on the number of children any one person can have, just like China does it) would not otherwisie result in tyranny. Yes, it is less freedom than what we have in the USA and UK now, but it may prove a necessary concession in order to actually achieve long-term sustainability.
 
arg-fallbackName="annrice234"/>
Would it really be such a dystopia if we sterilized some percentage of newborns at random? Maybe the sterilized could be convinced to accept that reproduction is not some absolute, Darwinian mandate. Some people already choose to be childless. They do other things. They write books. They work in science and techonology and such. They contribute to humanity and to civilization. There are more indicators that stabilizing world population at some lower value (like the present amount or even less) is the wiser pathway. Peak oil. Deforestation. Islands of plastic junk floating in the ocean. Sustainability is serious business, not so much for the current generation but for future generations. Does the current generation not really care about deep future generations? I thinkt hat family size limits (really a limit on the number of children any one person can have, just like China does it) would not otherwisie result in tyranny. Yes, it is less freedom than what we have in the USA and UK now, but it may prove a necessary concession in order to actually achieve long-term sustainability. What is needed is a message of long-term vision.
 
arg-fallbackName="Sparhafoc"/>
annrice234 said:
Would it really be such a dystopia if we sterilized some percentage of newborns at random?

Yes, it would be an utter horror, and as peaceful as I am, I would fight against any such tyranny. It's indisputably vile. Honestly, I'm already at the point where I am hoping you are just engaging in a little Kill The Poor speculation.



How could any human being have the authority, and where would they find the legitimacy to decree the forcible sterilization of children and force their lives to be contrary to the most elementary basis of biological life?

It's not even remotely tenable. It's a nasty dystopia, and it couldn't exist in isolation but would necessarily imply a suite of undesirable power structures. What it would represent is the utter subjugation of citizens to the Leviathan. It's basically no different to the scenario in the Matrix.

annrice234 said:
Maybe the sterilized could be convinced to accept that reproduction is not some absolute

You're going to convince newborns of that?

And what would 'convincing' them matter many years later once the irreversible deed has already been done?

Reproduction IS an absolute when you've had the ability to engage in it forcibly taken away from you at birth.

annrice234 said:
Darwinian mandate.

No such thing exists, and there would be no logical basis relevant. Darwinian survival doesn't operate by random survival - exactly the opposite, actually. Further, it - and biology as a whole - is fundamentally predicated on reproduction.


annrice234 said:
Some people already choose to be childless.

Which is wholly antithetical to your proposal. Choice is, of course, the operative word there.

Perhaps you should imagine a government forcing you to conceive children and query whether that would be tenable.

annrice234 said:
They do other things. They write books. They work in science and techonology and such. They contribute to humanity and to civilization.

Not one of these are contingent on choosing not to have children. People with children do all those things too.

annrice234 said:
There are more indicators that stabilizing world population at some lower value (like the present amount or even less) is the wiser pathway.

So why not advocate death squads wandering around murdering people then? If an individual's autonomy and bodily integrity amounts to nothing in this Brave New World, why not simply shoot the newborn infants in the head at birth?

annrice234 said:
Peak oil.

Meh. Not of intrinsic importance to the conversation as economies will adapt, and peak oil would mean a future reduction in emissions from burning it.

annrice234 said:
Deforestation.

As with many of your previous arguments, you need to establish a necessary link between population and deforestation. A much smaller population could deforest significantly more using modern machinery should they so choose, while a much larger population could deforest far less with greater regulation and awareness of the value and importance of forests.

annrice234 said:
Islands of plastic junk floating in the ocean.

Yes, terrible. But clearly an argument for better management of the production, usage, collection, disposal and recycling of plastic... not for the forcible sterilization of newborn children.

annrice234 said:
Sustainability is serious business, not so much for the current generation but for future generations.

If future generations can be forcibly sterilized by a government then I can't see what it is we're supposed to be sustaining.

annrice234 said:
Does the current generation not really care about deep future generations?

Every generation cares at least about the next one or two generations.... assuming they haven't been forcibly sterilized and therefore have descendants in those generations. But people today are often far removed from the impact of their consumer choices. That's a good argument for education - empowering the populace to make rational choices, not playing god and using humans as strategic pawns.

annrice234 said:
I thinkt hat family size limits (really a limit on the number of children any one person can have, just like China does it) would not otherwisie result in tyranny.

You appeal to an example of tyranny as an analogy for something that's not tyranny? Laying aside the moral question of a government legally obliging parents to hand over to the state 'excess' children, there's also the rampant female infanticide, the rise in sexual harassment from an unbalanced population where young men have no chance ever of finding wives, and the precedent of a government holding complete control over a woman's body.

annrice234 said:
Yes, it is less freedom than what we have in the USA and UK now, but it may prove a necessary concession in order to actually achieve long-term sustainability.

The end never justifies the means. That's exactly the thinking that had led humanity down all these dark paths.

None of what you've argued seems to either correlate well with your desired outcome, or itself seems desirable.

This saving the world is a tricky business. Have you considered rounding up all the dwarfs?
 
arg-fallbackName="annrice234"/>
I am just trying to think of how to achieve long-term sustainability. Education would be a wonderful solution if people changed their ways and lowered their environmental footprint, but that does not seem to be the direction the world is going in quickly enough.

Would bringing lottery machines into delivery rooms help? That way, you would not actually sterilize newborns, but you would get people thinking. You could operate the lottery machine and inform the parents whether their newborn was selected and then just let them be educated by the thought-provoking exercise.
 
arg-fallbackName="Sparhafoc"/>
annrice234 said:
I am just trying to think of how to achieve long-term sustainability. Education would be a wonderful solution if people changed their ways and lowered their environmental footprint, but that does not seem to be the direction the world is going in quickly enough.

Again, while sustainability may be desirable, I am not so sure that it supersedes every other value we hold dear.

Education, of course, does work. It just works on a generational scale. While our elder generations who grew up during the post war affluence may not understand our impact on the world and its systems, I believe the younger generations are intimately aware and likely to place much more value on protecting it.

annrice234 said:
Would bringing lottery machines into delivery rooms help? That way, you would not actually sterilize newborns, but you would get people thinking. You could operate the lottery machine and inform the parents whether their newborn was selected and then just let them be educated by the thought-provoking exercise.


I feel the message will be rather lost. The actual take-away would be - the state can oppress you and yours whenever it so chooses.

Of course, this wouldn't work so well in a democratic country because any government which engaged in something like this would be rightly slung out on their arses at the earliest available opportunity. Only a theocracy or autocracy could hope to get away with it - a state in which nearly all power is concentrated in the hands of just a few who aren't worried about hurting others in achieving their ideological desires.
 
arg-fallbackName="annrice234"/>
Sparhafoc said:
annrice234 said:
I am just trying to think of how to achieve long-term sustainability. Education would be a wonderful solution if people changed their ways and lowered their environmental footprint, but that does not seem to be the direction the world is going in quickly enough.

Again, while sustainability may be desirable, I am not so sure that it supersedes every other value we hold dear.

Education, of course, does work. It just works on a generational scale. While our elder generations who grew up during the post war affluence may not understand our impact on the world and its systems, I believe the younger generations are intimately aware and likely to place much more value on protecting it.

annrice234 said:
Would bringing lottery machines into delivery rooms help? That way, you would not actually sterilize newborns, but you would get people thinking. You could operate the lottery machine and inform the parents whether their newborn was selected and then just let them be educated by the thought-provoking exercise.


I feel the message will be rather lost. The actual take-away would be - the state can oppress you and yours whenever it so chooses.

Of course, this wouldn't work so well in a democratic country because any government which engaged in something like this would be rightly slung out on their arses at the earliest available opportunity. Only a theocracy or autocracy could hope to get away with it - a state in which nearly all power is concentrated in the hands of just a few who aren't worried about hurting others in achieving their ideological desires.

I is tricky trying to balance the best interests of the born against the best interests of the yet unconcieved. There must be some statemen who can help us to achieve this while preserving democracy.
 
arg-fallbackName="Sparhafoc"/>
annrice234 said:
I is tricky trying to balance the best interests of the born against the best interests of the yet unconcieved.


That is a rather good way of thinking about it. It is perhaps the basal justification for selfishness - why should we give up our material comfort for the benefit of something that doesn't even exist yet?
 
arg-fallbackName="annrice234"/>
Sparhafoc said:
annrice234 said:
I is tricky trying to balance the best interests of the born against the best interests of the yet unconcieved.


That is a rather good way of thinking about it. It is perhaps the basal justification for selfishness - why should we give up our material comfort for the benefit of something that doesn't even exist yet?

As humans, we have an advantage over animals: we have significantly more foresight. We can properly plan for the as yet unconceived. It is that kind of foresight that enabled the framers of the U.S. Constitution to accomplish what they did. We need such statesmen now: statesmen who can balance traditional notions of self-interest with the modern realities of nuclear weapons. Nuclear weapons change what is in our long-term best interests. We care about the immediate next generation in an emotional way, but now is the time to care about many future generations. One world government with a solid constitution is a safer world than what we have now.

Nuclear weapons are not going away. This may sound silly, but I predict that humanity will hold them in reserve to defend Earth from some deep-future invasion by alien life forms. Nuclear weapons have permanently changed the political realities of Earth. It is time for our elder statesmen to take this into account and think in a more modern way. We should be making plans that will take centuries to accomplish. We should be thinking that far ahead.
 
arg-fallbackName="Sparhafoc"/>
annrice234 said:
As humans, we have an advantage over animals: we have significantly more foresight. We can properly plan for the as yet unconceived. It is that kind of foresight that enabled the framers of the U.S. Constitution to accomplish what they did. We need such statesmen now: statesmen who can balance traditional notions of self-interest with the modern realities of nuclear weapons. Nuclear weapons change what is in our long-term best interests. We care about the immediate next generation in an emotional way, but now is the time to care about many future generations. One world government with a solid constitution is a safer world than what we have now.

Again, same problem I am having.

All in green, I agree with. But I don't see how the sentence in red follows.

How does a world government solve all issues?

Take the U.S. as per your example. It has a single government but it is acting against future interests by abandoning climate deals, promoting coal usage, removing constraints on industry and gutting National Parks.

So for me, there's a gaping hole in your logic between your propositions and your conclusion.

As an aside, if the Constitution was written with such foresight, why are there so many amendments? Further, following the rest of your argument, of the 27 amendments (10 from the Bill of Rights) six have not been ratified by all states. So even with a single government, you still have political dissension.

annrice234 said:
Nuclear weapons are not going away. This may sound silly, but I predict that humanity will hold them in reserve to defend Earth from some deep-future invasion by alien life forms.

While I consider the possibility of alien invasion to be near laughable considering just how many uncontested lumps of rock there are floating in space should an alien need resources... it's actually the one thing that might make humanity come together and work for our species as a whole: an external threat.

annrice234 said:
Nuclear weapons have permanently changed the political realities of Earth. It is time for our elder statesmen to take this into account and think in a more modern way. We should be making plans that will take centuries to accomplish. We should be thinking that far ahead.

I think we are. I think serious politicians have been doing that for decades.

The problem is that we have a democratically elected numpty in office which shows how fragile our political systems are as they rely on a deeply uninformed electorate and are corrupted by special interests.

I don't think there's an obvious solution here given the realities of humanity.
 
arg-fallbackName="annrice234"/>
I concede that the current short-term political realities are a bit absurd. However, nuclear weaponry is a long-term change. They are going to be around centuries from now. That is a powerful fact. Are we humans still going to be aiming nuclear weapons at each other's population centers a thousand years from now? That would be, in my opinion, a missed opportunity for finding a more peaceful situation for future generations. A more peaceful situation would require change. I hope that there is a pathway towards slow, steady change towards that more peaceful situation.

I like little changes that add up to a big change for the good. Let us learn some Russian. We already know some words: Da, nyet and mir. (Of course, yes, no and peace). See how that works? Change is possible. A good one world government is possible. Let us do it. Peace is very good for business.
 
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