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Revision as of 14:45, 7 January 2006

Bias

USA as the only world's superpower in an example is an obvious bias. Being a major political power is not enough to illustrate that - compare European Union, China or Russia.

Appropriate mention?

This text showed up in itsown article, and isn't very encyclopedic, but some mention of various world-government beliefs and attempts seems appropriate:

Given the strife caused by the presence of nationalism, many people feel that at some undetermined point in the future, all countries should be unified into a larger, global-level state. This would hopefully reduce war and other types of conflict, as well as permitting a better distribution of resources and a Common Earth Language (do you mean international auxiliary language? ] 18:30, 21 Aug 2004 (UTC)). Several supernational quasi-states encompassing a region have been formed, such as the European Union, the Organisation of African Unity and the now defunct Pan-Arab State. These entities are used as examples of how Earth could be united into a single country. Some ideologies, especially communism, the Bahai Faith and anarchism have a planetary state (or lack thereof) as a long-term goal.

What article was that? Is it from the meta?

Pax Americana

"It is possible that the current Pax Americana may lead to the domination of the world by the United States."

I think this statement is rather weird. Who says this is possible? Switzerland has not been involved in a war for a much longer period of time; still no one would seriously argue that "the current Pax Helvetica may lead to the domination of the world by Switzerland".

What I'm trying to get at is that it is forces other than the love of peace which could lead to the globe being dominated by the U.S. But even that possibility seems far-fetched. KF 15:10 Oct 7, 2002 (UTC)

According to the Bush Doctrine and Joint Vision 2020, world domination is a stated objective of this administration. At least, that's how I read it. Given that 40% of world military spending is that of the US, the US is well on it's way to dominating the world militarily. However, that is a very different thing to the concept of "world government," as I see it. It's hegemony (isn't it?). -- Sam

I've just taken my time rereading the article. At one point it says, "World domination, in the form of a global dictatorship, is the goal of many fictional supervillains." I think the whole text is not consistent if the term "world domination" is used in different contexts and with so many shades of meaning. I suggest that someone who knows more about current affairs than I do (maybe you, Sam?) should rewrite the article and use more consistent terminology. Yes, the whole thing is nothing to do with "world government". KF 15:41 Oct 7, 2002 (UTC)

I'll have a look at it. But perhaps the "World government in Sci-Fi" bit could be an article of its own; at first glance, it looks like two articles on one page. That might make each article more consistent. -- Sam

Well, I deliberately chose two novels which I think illustrate what it says in the text above, and I also tried to refer to that text in my description of the books. Removing them to a separate article would also remove that connexion. If I just had to write a summary of either of the two novels, I'd go about it in an altogether different way.

(Anyway, I have other things to do now and won't be able to carry on here before same time tomorrow.) -- KF 19:52 Oct 7, 2002 (UTC)

I see your point, and looking at it properly, I agree that the text should be here. However, it should be here only as far as it is relevant to the idea of world government specifically; the rest is good, and should go in a page for that book, eventually. -- Sam

Old sketch plan

This is a sketch of a plan for this article. Feel free to edit.

• Brief outline of concept
• History of concept
  • States and empires
    • Roman Empire
    • Umayyad Dynasty (ruled over most of the "known" world)
    • Mongol Empire (conquered most of the known world)
    • Russian Empire/USSR
    • United Kingdom (unification)/ British Empire ("the sun never sets on the British Empire")
      • European imperialism? New world domination/conquest? European hegemony
    • United States/ global hegemony, pax americana, cultural imperialism
    • European Union -- also as economic entity, EEC, see below
    • United Arab Emerites? (I know nothing about this!)
    • Religious: Christian and Muslim expansion -- violent and peaceful; Christianity appended to Euro-imperialism
  • International (non-state) institutions
    • League of Nations & United Nations
    • International law
  • Ideological movements that have aimed for world government:
    • Fascism, particularly Hitler, Millenialism Napoleon (his likelihood of having achieved it)
    • Neo-liberalism or capitalism; "de facto world government" of the WTO, IMF and World Bank (include see below for hegemony, world domination)
      • Marxian theory of concentration of capital: resulting in heirarchy of debtor and userer states, division between first and third world
    • Communism, specifically Trotskyism, with it's "world revolution". However, this will need to distinguish between Troskyism and Trotskism..
    • Anarchism, more accurately, non-government or self-government. Again, world revolution.
  • Economic blocs and organisations
    • early European Union (include contrast with regional power bloc/ political aspect; perhaps relate to Marxist view that economics are the basis of politics)
    • NAFTA et al -- free trade (see neoliberalism)
    • OPEC
  • Impact of technology
    • on global communications
    • on ability of states to control; see totalitarianism, Nineteen Eighty-Four
  • Clandestine organisations/conspiracy theories
    • Illuminatus
  • Summary of the history: "This can be regarded as a historical tendency... towards unification of states, better communication between people, mixing of cultures etc"
• World government in sci-fi (seperate article?)
• Subjectivity: if all I know of is my house, then that is my world...
• Distinction between "world government", "world domination", totalitarianism and hegemony

Some of this might be going a bit far for this article, but we'll see. -- Sam

I don't think that the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has much to do with a discussion on world government. "Trucial Oman" was pulled together by the British as a way of simplifying the colonial administration there, and it more or less carried over into the modern state of the UAE just by default in the same way that Nigeria and South Africa did. It would probably be more meaningful to discuss the cases of Nigeria and South Africa since they cross ethnic, racial, and religious boundaries, but the relationship to world government is a bit strained.

It may also be appropriate to include things like the Gulf Cooperation Council, the Association of Southeast Asian Nations, and Mercosur, which represent major attempts to create common currencies and single markets. The African Union is a major political-economic attempt on the lines of the European Union which I don't think gets as much attention as it deserves, but that stands to argument.

Some discussion of China would be appropriate, I think, given the size and historical longevity of that state, although I'm not well-versed in its history. A discussion of the Umayyad Dynasty for this article should probably include the Abbasid Dynasty as well, I think, since the Abbasids offer some different solutions and (in many respects) were more successful as world leaders. The Holy Roman Empire and the Papacy in the Middle Ages might deserve some attention, as they attempted to create religious/secular solutions to government over a large area. The Habsburg empire in Spain and Austria is probably relevant since their empire was a successful and powerful hegemon over Europe, and by the reign Charles V they had territory on every settled continent.

Wow, pretty ambitious outline. Go for it! --Ed Poor

Takes a deep breath.. -- Sam

Yes, go for it. It's an excellent list. Visions/threats of world government in science fiction should probably be treated as they are in World War III - since this is about one specific scenario that can be rationally examined, not a whole prospect for a future as apocalyptic science fiction. Dystopian science fiction can handily cover that.

Deleted the following comment in regards to international law, "to which nation states pay lip service", which is a gross simplification. International law is large, complex and varied -- some of the time nations merely pay lip service to it, but other times they do follow and obey them, even when they dislike them --look at the decisions of the WTO, or the European Union, or the European Court of Human Rights, for examples.

Conspiracy theories and other pediacruft

Way too much of this article is dedicated to conspiracy theories. There is nothing intrinsically more threatening about world government than there is about national government or local government. Rather, one can easily see national governments without an equally accountable world government as more dangerous. I would suggest linking the conspiracy information in question to a new page dedicated to world government conspiracy theories or just putting the "theories" within the conspiracy theories pages. What do you think?

Okay, this article deals with a lot of stuff, but doesn't approach the whole Christian Fundamentalist aspect of it, which as I understand it is the reason the whole concept is so popular in far-right circles in the U.S.: the fear of a World Government under the leadership of the Anti-Christ taking over and ruling humanity. This is sketched out in LaHaye et al's Left Behind books, where the head of the United Nations (a feared entity amongst the paranoid Christian Right) turns out to be the Anti-Christ. Why no discussion of this? The term would be nearly unknown without that backing. Graft 12:16, 9 Sep 2003 (EDT)

That concept is called Zionist Occupation Government, usually, as the Biblical vision requires control of the Holy Land to actually implement the Book of Revelation as a game plan. And it's no longer restricted to far-right US circles. Many of those who accept a 9/11 domestic conspiracy theory involving shadowy figures seeking to drive the U.S. and Israel closer together in a common occupation of the Mideast's trade routes and oil resources, see this is as now the key principle behind such plans as the Project for a New American Century, which is hardly a conspiracy theory, but a working document being implemented in plain sight.

The term Zionist Occupation Government seems to be most popular among anti-Semitic conspiracy theorists. Most conspiracy theorists prefer the term One World Government.

As One World Government is not completed yet, I'm going to redir to New World Order as its second section it quite relevant IMHO. If you feel I'm wrong, don't hesitate to remove redirect.--Forseti 11:10, 2 Feb 2004 (UTC)

About that proposals of strenghtening the UN GA: whose are that proposals? What organisation is advocating for them? Without telling that that part of article is in serious violation of NPOV, IMHO. --Forseti 11:10, 2 Feb 2004 (UTC)

"Unfortunately, the U.S. administration under G.W. Bush is making active attempts to undermine the ICC."

While I agree with this statement in principle, 'unfortunately' is a pretty strong value judgment. I changed the statement to include the opposition of developing countries to the ICC as well. I also added a short snippet about the ICJ which is pretty important, I think, since it claims to have compulsory jurisdiction the world over, and decides on cases of national importance.

The section on the UN states that the UN lacks legitimacy. I think that this ought to come with the qualification that it does have some legitimacy, or else no one would give a damn what Kofi Annan said, and the recent Iraq war demonstrates that Blair and even Bush appreciate to some extent that the UN has meaning. I didn't edit this because I don't know how clearly or how exactly that should be expressed, or if you guys would agree with me.

--Adam Faanes 12:12, 1 Apr 2004 (UTC)

We might mention also of other regional movements like Brazil's to join up with South Africa, and a number of other nations to be a counterweight to the U.S. and EU.

Also, are there any fictional novels which provide a utopia or realistic utopia where the world is united, not by a totalitarian regime, or by some flowery everything-is-perfect dream (nor by the status quo dictator-like domination of superpowers or on the other hand disproportionately represented stone-walling dictatorships), but by a federal world government which preserves some sovereignty for nations but also sufficient supra-national sovereignty among democratic, human-rights respecting nations to create order and justice (like the federal U.S. government does over the states)? I guess Star-Trek is kind of like that, no? How about others? Could we add such a subcategory under the fiction segment? ] 18:30, 21 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Lunar government

I agree with removing the lunar government section. I just didn't do it myself because I wasn't bold enough :-) Gerritholl 12:35, 29 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Neoliberalism

I agree with User:Sheridan that this chapter has nothing to do with world government and should not be in this article. Another reason is that the "néoliberalism" catchword is a very fuzzy concept. --Pgreenfinch 18:25, 9 Dec 2004 (UTC)

NPOV

Dorond has arrived on the scene and proceeded to rewrite and discard much of the hard work of the community in achieving a balanced NPOV compromise article. Instead, he puts forward all the hopes of the one world government advocates and a subset of the presumptions they have about how well it would work and how little they think there is to fear. He presents only the view that the U.S. is purposely undermining the U.N. and not the countervailing view that the U.S. is preventing U.N. sanctions from becoming a meaningless joke and that the U.S. attempts to investigate and reform the U.N. are the best hope in the end for world government.--Silverback 07:00, 31 Dec 2004 (UTC)

Sorry - I didn't see this post in the discussion forum earlier, Silverback. I think it would be a good idea to discuss things here before starting any "editing wars". I've been reading extensively about the idea of a democratic federal world government (the only one being advocated with any degree of seriousness) for nearly two years now. I don't believe that, in my edits, I discarded any items of critical importance to the presentation. In my recent one, I made an honest attempt to incorporate your contributions, placing them in their proper context.

It appears to me you find persuasive arguments in favor of WG to be scary for some reason (you've tried to water them down as much as possible, and removed a relevant diagram I created and added). If you feel there are strong counter-arguments that are well known and reasoned in the literature, but have not been covered in the article, you should add them succinctly within the proper context (paragraphs dealig with fears/concerns).--Dorond 00:14, 25 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I find local and national governments to be scary, unaccountable and lawless and see no evidence that international governments are going to be any better. You are treating the hopes section as an opportunity to write glowing essay. This format is not conducive to presenting the evidence for and against, so if necessary, we should consider renaming the sections to names that don't give you such a sense of entitlement and so that the points can be alternated in close proximity so it is clear what the responses are responding to.--Silverback 09:00, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Since national governments are, by far, the rule, not the exception, and since, by all comaparative measurements of benefits to citizens, a modern democratic government is far, far, better than lawlessness and anarchy, you are coming from a place where very few people stand. In fact, you are the first I ever ran into who claimed that having no government would improve accountability and lawfulness (who would be accountable and who would preserve the law, then?). You are, of course, entitled to your opinions. However, an encyclopedic article should be balanced in favour of mainstream thinking on its subject.

I didn't say that having no government would improve accountability and lawfulness. My point was that governments themselves can be lawless. Consider even in the United States, the structure of legal checks, balances and standards are often violated even by the courts themselves. For instance, the right to a jury trial is in the constitution and the supreme court has overridden the supermajority provisions of the constitution by deciding it does not apply when the possible incarceration is less than 6 months. State appellate courts have immediately latched onto this precedent and the right to a jury trial has been restricted all around the country. The legal excuse given was "efficiency of the courts", and erosive precedent which if it can override the constitution, has no bounds. The right to compell testimony under penalty of perjury is also seldom enforced, especially when state witnesses are involved. Most procedural violations are only reviewed by higher courts only in show trial death penaty cases. If we can't get local democratic governments open and accountable, how do you expect to bring a world government into compliance with the law? At least in the United States there is at least cultural lip service to the rule of law and the governments responsbility to obey the law as well. Without a cultural support, how do you expect a democratic electorate to vote properly to keep government within bounds?--Silverback 06:49, 30 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I agree with you that governments are not "perfect", especially since in some cases, like the ones you mention above, the definition of perfection varies from one person to the next. When it comes to basic individual rights, often times one right collides with the other. In the example you brought up, given limited resources, the right to a trial by jury (which is actually not that fundamental - most free societies manage excellently without it) may collide with the right to a timely trial, so someone needs to find an acceptable balance. The important thing is that there is a mechanism to resolve these disputes in a peaceful way. Laws, even the constitution, can be modified peacefully, governing people and parties can be replaced peacefully, etc. I'm not aware of any other form of national organization that has this trait, which is why democracy is the "worst form of government except all the others that have been tried", to quote Churchill (from memory). --Dorond 15:39, 30 Jan 2005 (UTC)

It is strange, you think "most free societies manage excellently without it", while I am not aware of any free societies. Note that in the United States, the "right to a jury trial" did not collide with the right to a speedy trial. They are both standards the constitution requires the state to meet, and the citizen is supposed to go free if the state does not meet them. Judges relaxed these standards, presumably judges similar to those that fulfull the role of judging the both the facts and the law in trials in those societies you consider "free" assuming that the government allows or requires trials with some sort fairness before incarcerating people. In the US there is a presumption than an accused person is innocent that the government prosecution must unanimously overcome by convincing a jury of peers to a beyond a reasonable doubt standard. This is a check on government power. The government must use only witnesses who testify under penalty of perjury, it must not have conducted unreasonable searches or seizures and must not compel the accused to testify against himself, and it must submit to several levels of appelate court review. This is just some of the checks on the government before we even consider separation of powers between the branches of the government and the right of the people to keep and bear arms. Why should any individuals with rights you don't respect favor a "democratic" world government of the type you are likely to describe?--Silverback 17:39, 30 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I don't think it is useful to debate the question of what is a free society here, since it is not directly relevant to the article. I should say, however, that world federalism suggests that if an issue does not need to be decided at a global level, it should not be. As long as a national government provides some mechanism for a fair and speedy trial, national governments can be free to decide what exactly constitutes an appropriate mechanism within their societies. --Dorond 01:32, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I see, you allow that national governments can be free. If so, how can you argue that the WG should not also be free, if it doesn't want to be constrained? You don't think individual rights are a broader concern?--Silverback 07:33, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Guaranteeing basic individual rights to all humans is one of the main reasons, if not the main reason, for wanting to have a WG. One such right is due process. There are, however, a number of different ways of providing it, and none has been shown to be clearly superior to all the others in all circumstances (to my knowledge), and so it makes sense to allow natioal governments latitude. Of course, a specific judicial mechanism at the world-federal level would have to be selected when a world constitution is drafted. At that time, the best, most experienced, legal minds from all the world would surely be consulted. Actually, a process of selecting a global judicial system has already occurred when the ICC was created, and a decision was then made not to use a jury-based system. This decision, however, was optimized for the specific type of crimes the ICC adjudicates, and would not necessarily hold for other types of crimes.

More to the point - the idea of a DWG has been around for at least a hundred years and has been written on extensively by many great thinkers. I suggest you read the book posted at http://www.phys.unsw.edu.au/COURSES/GENS4008/book.html for more background and bibliography. What you call a "glowing essay" would be a typical set of conclusions in essays on the subject. I am yet to see any significant scholarly work claiming that a world government is inherently a bad idea, that war can be eliminated any other way, that wars are of economical benefits to humanity, etc. The key differences between thinkers are usually how quickly this would come about (50-100 years being the typical range). This is not only the mainstream academic position, but it is also prevalent amongst NGOs. You may, for example, want to look at the surveys conducted by http://www.2020fund.org/ . Here's a quote from their most recent one: "NGO leaders strongly endorse multilateralism – either reformed and strengthened United Nations or a directly representative world government – as their preferred form of global governance in the year 2020." --Dorond 23:38, 27 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I might suggest that Dorond could recuse himself from editing this article, because, outside of the position he agrees with, he seems to know very little about it. Do you really think there are no works claiming that a world government is inherently a bad idea? Or is it just that they are not sufficiently significant and scholarly? You might want to begin by reading the Misplaced Pages articles on anarchism and anarcho-capitalism. The nationalism article might also be informative, although I would assume you already know about that and have decided it is irrelevant. In any event, the article should definitely be balanced in favor of mainstream thinking, insofar as it is necessary that it should be balanced toward anything in particular, but, as far as I'm aware, neither world government nor no government is endorsed by the mainstream. - Nat Krause 00:47, 28 Jan 2005 (UTC)

First, Silverback, you may want to check the history of this article. I've written significant portions of it since February last year, so please don't preach to me about what "the community" wrote.

I read the articles you proposed, Nat. The one on anarchism admits that, despite many past "opportunities" for anarchic societies to evolve and sustain themselves, they all failed and there are really no good examples of sustainable anarchic societies on a national scale to be found today. This strongly implies it should not be considered a mainstream option for organizing society, at least not on a large-scale. The article on anarcho-capitalism discusses a wide range of many idea, some contradicting each other, and all appearing to be pointing in a direction opposite to the one in which all modern democratic societies organized themselves (government budgets are ever-increasing). Furthermore, there are mountains of evidence showing that people greatly benefit from state involvement in many aspects of the economy and societal life (and some of the world's best economies, such as in scandinavia, are also some of the most highly taxed). Finally, a federal world government is not in contradiction to nationalism, and does not aim to abolish it, only to neutralize its negative aspects (dehumanizing people outside one's nation/race).

Quite a bit of the literature on world government includes a comprehesive set of common objections (I recommend Ron Glossop's book "World Federation? A critical analysis of Federal World Government"), so I am very well aware of many, if not all, of them. In fact, I placed some of the "fears" and concerns in that section myself without even bothering to refute or contradict them, and I'm fine with you guys putting up additional opposing arguments. Debate is healthy, as long as it is intelligent and well presented.

How about we'll rename the section "Analysis". It will start with presenting the key reasons why a WG is considered a good idea by its supporters (as currently), and will then list each of the (reasonable) objections and concerns raised, followed by a counter-argument (as in cross-examination)? --Dorond 05:59, 28 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Rewrite proposal

I believe that people reading this article are interested in the idea of world government: what has been proposed, what are the merits of the idea, what are the counter-arguments, the idea's history, its implementation prospects, etc. The current organization of the contents does not, however, optimally fits the presumed reader's interest. It is really a collection of quasi-independent sections that are neither complete in coverage of all aspects nor presented in a clear and logical order. The sections on empires and SciFi are also not directly relevant to the discussion of the idea.

Accordingly, I propose a new outline:

• The idea
  • History (brief overview of past proposals and attempts)
  • Principles of FWG (consensus + identify disagreements/alternatives when they exist).

What are the principles of FWG? I don't see a corresponding section in the current text. How is this section going to be anything more than mere speculation?

There is considerable literature, and a substantial consensus, on what majorchanges in the current situation are required for forming an effective FWG. As an example, inter-national law (ie, what governments/nations are allowed to do, and punishments, such as sanctions) would be replaced with personal law, ie, illegal acts by members of national governments lead to trials and punishments of those individual members. --Dorond 14:54, 30 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Punishing whole nations hits the innocent as well as the guilty, these are not the lofty principles one would expect. What are the principles for limiting and constraining world government power and protecting minority and individual rights from tyranny by some executive branch or by the majority?--Silverback 15:26, 30 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I'm not sure I understand your response regarding personal vs. national accountability. It seems that you agree with the personal accountability principle, which can only be effectively enforced universally by a WG (or at least some watered-down version of it). The principles limiting power at the world level are identical to the ones at the national federal level, ie, separating the legislative, judicial and executive branches of government and having periodic elections. Plus, given the immensity of humanity, it is simply out of the question for any small group of people to rule by force. Even the mighty US army finds it exceedingly difficult to rule a minute portion of humanity in Iraq. Can you imagine a government lacking armed forces (since there is no one to fight) succeeding in doing anything to infringe on the basic human rights of a significant portion of 10 billion people? --Dorond 17:47, 30 Jan 2005 (UTC)

Sorry, I misread your passage, I thought you were trying member nations, not individuals. I disagree that personal accountability can only be effectively enforced by a WG. In the US, government officials do not have immunity from prosecution like the French president does. Keep in mind, that historically, individuals have far more to fear from governments than from each other. In the US, even at the local school district level there has been a long standing trend towards consolidation of districts in order to "save on administrative costs". It is amazing how much less responsive to parents the boards of the larger districts are. At the national level, we need government to become more benign and then dissolve rather than consolidate and become less responsive. It is strange that so much of the world believes that the answer to problems caused by governments is more government, will they never learn?--Silverback 18:06, 30 Jan 2005 (UTC)

I wasn't thinking about the US when I wrote about enforcing personal responsibilty, but more about despotic regimes. That said, the current President of the US is believed by many (myself included) to have breached international law by attacking Iraq unprovoked and without UNSC approval, and by jailing hundreds of people without access to justice at Guantanamo. Yet, he cannot be brought to justice either because his victims are not US citizens and/or because he yields a lot of power in the system that allowed him to commit these crimes. Similarly for many other US politicians, such as Kissinger and McNamara, who almost for certain are war criminals, yet cannot be realistically brought to trial by their victims. Regarding national governments, I don't think the answer to problems caused by government is more government, but improvements to government. While there are obviously also cases of "too much of a good thing" (bloated and wasteful government - but large private organizations are often also bloated and wasteful), I think that government is often the best solution we have. To take a few simple examples, can you imagine how the stock exchange would work without the SEC's supervision? Who would personally protect you from criminals if not the Police and the courts? Would you like to cancel free/compulsory education? Who would build and maintain streets? The list goes on and on and on... You probably just don't realize how much of the orderly, smoothly functioning, world around you is the result of government. Go to places like Somalia or Columbia and see what happens when government is weak or not functioning. --Dorond 00:27, 31 Jan 2005 (UTC)

• The case for FWG (The main arguments for its implementation)
• Critique and analysis (individaul objections, each with a brief analysis of its validity)
• International Integration
  • Functional integration (present and proposed)
  • Multinational/regional federations (present and proposed)
• Prospects
  • Main barriers
  • Evolving the United Nations
  • Integrating of supranational regional entities
  • New institutions
  • The disarmament process
  • Is WG inevitable?
• Grassroots movements (overview of active NGOs)

Most of the info in the current article can be reused in the rewrite. The information regarding empires is not directly relevant and is already covered in the article on empires and so can be discarded. I'm not sure about the section on Sci-Fi - perhaps it should stay on as a kind of "appendix" since this appears to be the way the SciFi article is organized (references to specific articles).

I realise this is a substantial effort, but I believe the result would be worth it. To prevent presenting a half-baked draft too early, we could start building it up under a separate entry - "Federal world government" - which would be referred from this one as a works-in-progress. Once it is relatively complete and stable, we'd replace the current article with the new content.

Comments?

--Dorond 05:03, 30 Jan 2005 (UTC)

It does not seem like a bad organization, can you implement it gradually be creation rather than destruction? Be flexible in your vision, remember wiki organic growth can have its own beauty. Do you have any problems with the current structure other than it does not fit your sense of order?--Silverback 07:01, 30 Jan 2005 (UTC)

As I mentioned above, the current structure ommits many important items (such as the proposed principles and history of the idea and the analysis part is incomplete), and contains others that are only obliquely relevant and/or covered better elsewhere (empires).

I suggest that I will start the rewrite by creating a skeleton article (in a separate entry)with a few sentences in each section, allowing others to add more content as they wish. --Dorond 14:54, 30 Jan 2005 (UTC)

What happened to Dorond and the "Critique" proposal?

There is no separate section in "World Government" for the various objections to world government, or for some of the other points that the outlines above contain. Instead, the article has very lengthy sections containing a mix of ideas, but missing many points because there is no good place to add them. Is there another article? Did the vision above start somewhere else, or was it cancelled?

Wragge 18:04, 2005 May 10 (UTC)

Sorry - I started the rewrite, then got burdened by other tasks. I'll put in the time this month to bring it to at least a good skeleton, then post it to allow others to add more flesh. --Dorond 04:47, 2 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Glad to hear you haven't given up.

Thanks

Wragge 05:43, 2005 Jun 2 (UTC)

The new article is on-line. Please visit and contribute. Thanks.

--Dorond 20:56, 9 July 2005 (UTC)

Don't Replace Article

I would discourage replacing this article with the Federal World Government entry. This one lays out the variety of proposals for world government, and should link to FWG. However, there is also need for readers to understand other proposed versions of this, positive or negative. Link to FWG. Invite someone to write an article on Unitary World Government (perhaps Gary Shepard) and link to that. -Tony

Illustration deleted

I deleted the graphic of the Federal World Government proposal. Its placing creates the impression that this is world government, instead of what it is in fact, namely a proposal by a few indiviudals, one of hundreds or perhaps thousands of proposals. It does not belong at the start of the article, it could be used further down, at the section on UN-based proposals, but only if identified as a single proposal among many, placed for illustration.Ruzmanci 10:44, 27 September 2005 (UTC)

The illustration is intended to succinctly show what this article is mainly about. The support for the federal form of world government far exceeds the support for any other form of government (by a huge factor). Frankly, I'm not aware of any serious academic work or substantial civil society organization advocating a non-federal WG.--Dorond 22:12, 10 December 2005 (UTC)

IMF, WTO

I don't think the IMF is directly affiliated with the UN at all, and the WTO is a completely separate entity. And as noted the World Bank is affiliated but has autonomous governance. NTK 23:54, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

"One-world" government

There needs to be a better treatment of Christian "end-times" related fears. As the success of the "Left Behind" series in the USA has shown the number of evangelical and other Christians with these kinds of beliefs is not small, and "one-world government" is a buzzword in such contexts. Perhaps there should even be a separate article under "One-world government" to show the premillenialist take on it. NTK 23:57, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

Seems that "One World Government" redirects to New World Order (conspiracy).

Cleaning up

We obviously need to clean up the old stuff. As one who wrote substantial parts of the old article, I'm not chopping it off with a smile, but I cannot really see what's left there that must be placed in the cleaned up article. The only part I was equivocal about removing was the part on tranforming the UN to a world government, which took a longer-term view of the UN than the other articles on UN reform. This part, however, really belongs in the article dedicated to UN reform.

Anyhow, I suggest that if another editor sees something valuable in the old stuff, they should put in the effort to insert that part into the new article, not bring the whole article back. --Dorond 23:31, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

Why was the link to the Federation of earth deleted

It is a perfectly valid example of an organisation that is promoting a world government.

- Looks like a joke page/fiction/personal home page. Refers to non-existent "Federation City" and "Federation Centres" among other things, website only has two pages, made with amateur program Microsoft FrontPage and looks like it was built by someone still in school.. --Mistress Selina Kyle 14:14, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

It's got more than two pages but it has loads of silly claims like that it's received 50 billion dollars from the UK government, the White House, Google, Microsoft and a load of other corporations/governments. I don't believe a word of it. And it's obviously a joke site. Talrias (t | e | c) 14:25, 7 January 2006 (UTC)

oh yeah, I had javascript whitelist on. duh. Yeah this is OBVIOUSLY a joke page looking at some of the pages. BJAODN?

• about.htm — "The Federation Intelligence Agency is responsible for monitoring any dissent or treachery against the Federation. They carry out various covert surveillance and can receive warrants from the Marshal. They interrogate and torture potential suspects."

• about.htm — "The Federation Court of Justice has the power to issue warrants and can arrest and trial anybody suspected of any crime. It also has the power to issue death sentences, mainly public hangings."

• fsa.htm — "Civil Protection police inner-city areas and keep citizens in line through the use of intimidation and physical force - ranging from random beatings, questioning and "inspections," to murder"

• images/CP/CP.jpg — Man in Nazi SS uniform Titled "Civil Protection officer in dress uniform" on fsa.htm.

• www.hlportal.de/images/content/hl2/enemies/combine-police2.jpg — Enemy from a computer game, Half-Life 2, titled "Civil Protection officer with stun baton drawn" on fsa.htm - see List of humanoid and synthetic Combine in Half-Life 2#Civil Protection for clear copy

• committee_members.htm — "Senior members include: <huge list of big famous companies>" - Someone's going to get libelled...

Oh, and on it's "secret service" page it's got pictures of those red dudes from star wars titled as "Presidential Guards, shown in formal armour with Force pike."

Evidence enough? ;) --Mistress Selina Kyle 14:39, 7 January 2006 (UTC)