Dirty brown coats

POSTED BY: neverfearsteveishere
UPDATED: Sunday, July 13, 2003 08:11
VIEWED: 7679
PAGE 3 of 4

PREV PAGE 1 2 3 4 NEXT PAGE

NEVERFEARSTEVEISHERE

Saturday, July 12, 2003 1:02 PM

i would say that a train heist should be left to local authorities - they kept their noses out there.

the world were river nearly got burnt though, proves that the embrace of the alliance is not as long and as tight as it needs to be!

Face it, the brown coats stand for pettyness and decay of the human race in space. The alliance on the other hand stands for progress, unity and positive things.

the alliance just needs to spread faster.

The core worlds as the founders of humanity command the moral highground.

so far, what ive watched, my picture of the alliance is that it is a fairly new thing bringing order to chaos and is not yet fully established. And sadly does not yet have the might to dominate space as it should - to get rid of all the nishkas and other criminal groups - and to get all paying the taxes that they should for the defence and security provided.

TIBER

Saturday, July 12, 2003 1:53 PM

Read some of Jerry Pournelle's CoDominium short stories. These stories show exactly why government has to be operated at different levels: local, state, regional, and federal. If you have a bureaucrat 20 light years away making decisions for people he hasn't even met, how can he make a proper decision! Furthmore, we never have seen the colonies having any representation within the Alliance, only "civilized" core planets, which, in fact are morally decadent, i.e. the Companions' Guild, dueling, and of course, the Hand of Blue agents.

There! I'm done with my ranting and raving!

DRAKON

Saturday, July 12, 2003 2:10 PM

"Face it, the brown coats stand for pettyness and decay of the human race in space. The alliance on the other hand stands for progress, unity and positive things."

LOL.

I think you are not understanding me here. It does not matter one whit whether the Alliance has the best intentions, or "moral high ground" or any of the "positive things" to stand for. You do know what good intentions are called in Hell; Asphalt.

No centralized government can act effectively at meeting the needs of its population, especially if that population is spread across several solar systems (See Act 4 of "The Message") It is a fundamental human and physical limitation. The amount of information needed to make good decisions is simply not available to the powers that be soon enough and in sufficient detail, to make those decisions correctly.

And so you end up with very uneven and arbitrary law enforcement. Such that even though an entire platoon was available, and onboard the train, the local officals could not use it in order to find the culprits of the heist.

You end up with large patches of territory where there is no law, and a young girl can be burned at the stake without so much as a trial.

I see the Alliance more of as a united federation of planets, with no guarentees for the rights of anyone, except to pay taxes to the central government. They demand the power to do a job, that even if the people gave it to them, they cannot do. And in most respects, simply don't.

And since they don't, the law becomes arbitrary, and the verse fills up with an assortment of monsters like Niska. The locals have no power to govern themselves, yet the locals are the ones who have the information, that a government needs. The constant back and forth, the lack of local autonomy, ends up making a mess of their goals.

What is worse, that as a result of the law degenerating into an arbitrary mess, people lose respect for the law, and disobey it more or less freely. People like Niska thrive, while the Alliance hunts down bobble head gesha doll smugglers.

One size does not fit all. And no ogliarchy is going to be able to effectively rule a large population. It does not matter whether the Alliance intends to be good, or anything. The effect is bad. Bad for the people who have to live under it.

"my kind of stupid"

DRAKON

Saturday, July 12, 2003 2:14 PM

Or read Hayek. Here was a guy who saw the rise of both Nazism and communism, and at one time was a communist himself. But he later figured out that no matter what they said or intended to do, no matter what kind of utopia they thought they would bring to Earth, it can't happen. The information problem is impossible to crack, and what is worse, you are wasting the very resource you need to crack it, namely more human minds.

But then if you let each mind in on part of the decision process, you don't have a central autocracy, you have a democracy. If you let folks fend for themselves, and limit the powers of government only to those areas where it is required, have it come in as an impartial referee, things work a heck of a lot better.

"my kind of stupid"

WULFHAWK

Saturday, July 12, 2003 9:45 PM

Let me say for all my Native American brethren and sistren:

We are still flyin!

Eventually, North America will be liberated from the European Squatters. The Alliance of Ingrate Immigrants will keep supplying us with money by gambling at our casinos, allowing us to regain title of lands actually belonging to us for thousands of years.

Remember Wounded Knee!

Take my love
Take my land

GINOBIFFARONI

Saturday, July 12, 2003 9:56 PM

prime minister, and president too perhaps

" If wishes were Horses, then we'd all be eatting Steak "

ARCHER

Saturday, July 12, 2003 10:49 PM

Quote:
Originally posted by Wulfhawk:
Let me say for all my Native American brethren and sistren:

We are still flyin!

Eventually, North America will be liberated from the European Squatters. The Alliance of Ingrate Immigrants will keep supplying us with money by gambling at our casinos, allowing us to regain title of lands actually belonging to us for thousands of years.

Remember Wounded Knee!

Take my love
Take my land

Uh, up with the Injuns and all, Wulf... that's cool. 'Ceptin' that's the other half of my family you're kicking out there. I'm actually fond of one or two of 'em.

There ain't nothin' I can't overcome or come to know. So lay your heavy load down on me, strip everything I have away. I am not your prisoner, I am not afraid.

WULFHAWK

Saturday, July 12, 2003 11:05 PM

O hell no, I'm not about kickin em out, you see...it's more like rent 8)

Take my love
Take my land

VETERAN

Sunday, July 13, 2003 3:12 AM

Excuse me for straying off topic. Is Persephone a Core Planet? Based on conversations in Ariel where Zoe doesn't want to "set foot on a core planet" and Shindig where she says that Persephone is begining to feel like home, I get the impression that it isn't.

DRAKON

Sunday, July 13, 2003 7:45 AM

And there is the whole problem of just who is a Native American and who is an immigrant. Lets face it, warfare has not been the only means of interaction. I have at least one great,great grandmother who was Cherokee, and alot of ancestors who came here before the Revolution. Some I suspect not voluntarily.

We do remember that the southern colonies did start as penal colonies, right?

And I was born here, well in Chicago. Where ya gonna deport me to? Doesn't being a native mean being born there? I suppose you could cut me up and keep only the bits that were "Native" here, but I'd take it as a kindness if you didn't.

"My kind of stupid"

PREV PAGE 1 2 3 4 NEXT PAGE