From: Charles Hixson (charleshixsn@earthlink.net)
Date: Fri Sep 06 2002 - 12:10:12 MDT
Forrest Bishop wrote:
>----- Original Message -----
>From: Harvey Newstrom <mail@HarveyNewstrom.com>
>To: <extropians@extropy.org>
>Sent: Thursday, September 05, 2002 11:38 AM
>Subject: Re: Patriotism and Citizenship
>
>
>
>>On Thursday, September 5, 2002, at 12:27 pm, Brian D Williams wrote:
>>
>>
>>>Again we were talking about an example of another form of
>>>government as portrayed in "Starship Troopers". Again in "Starship
>>>Troopers" it was Federal Service not exclusively military service.
>>>
>>>
>
>Never read any Heinlein, so can't really comment directly on the above. The notion of universal federal service is a contradiction in terms. A federated republic of sovereign states, such as outlined in the US Constitution, does not grant the central government...
>
>--
>Forrest Bishop
>Chairman, Institute of Atomic-Scale Engineering
>www.iase.cc
>
>
>
There have been lots of federations that didn't follow the US
Constitutions. The word, e.g., comes from the Romans and to them it
meant, approximately, allies that we aren't going to give citizenship
to. Others have had other meanings. I don't believe that Heinlein
meant to assume that the US Constitution, at least under current
interpretations, was in effect. (It's been awhile, so I can't actually
claim that he really didn't mean that, but that's my belief.)
Clearly a federation implies some organization of "independent" states.
But exactly what kind of limitation that implies is vague. And the
historical interpretations of the US Constitution, contrasted against
the current interpretations, give only a hint of how far a civiliation
can develop from it's "founding documents". But calling themselves a
federation doesn't really imply much about what kind of government they
actually had.
-- -- Charles Hixson Gnu software that is free, The best is yet to be.
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