Intergalactic Summit

You're technically correct, of course. But from the perspective of someone who'd previously been grinding away at the Moroses (Moroi?) it may have looked a lot more like fleeing, or at least a retreat. Not to mention that neither side could be entirely sure that CONCORD might arbitrarily lift firing restrictions again.

So, taking some time to understand Tuulinen's viewpoint and applying a little tact in your wording instead of firing from the hip might have gone a longer way towards actually reducing the amount of posturing and arrogance going around.

To horribly stretch an analogy -- while you can actually catch more flies with vinegar than with honey, at some point you might want to start wondering why you're letting good wine go sour, only to attract vermin.

The Gallente bombarded Caldari Prime following the destruction of Nouvelle Rouvenor. They didn't randomly wake up and go 'Oh, let's blow up some Caldari!'
The Gallente did not incite the civil unrest - due to your blockade they were unaware of how serious it was until recently. The ship they sent to scan the planet nearly got shot down by Shiigeru, as well.
The Gallente did not incite this chain of events. This chain started when Nouvelle Rouvenor was razed. It continued when Tibus Heth threatened to glass Gallente planets.
Luminaire VII is Gallente. There can be no civil unrest without civilians on the side of it. The people chose freedom over oppression.

Careful how you try and justify this.

Nouvelle Reouvenor was the result of a terrorist groups malicious assault in the name of racial hatred. Coincidentally, the Malaken Incident that played a large part in the States retaliation and invasion of Caldari Prime was spurred by the same thing.

If you think you're somehow justified because of the actions of terrorists and the destruction Nouvelle Reouvenor and we aren't by the actions of Noir and Malaken then your hypocrite and your justification moot.

Nouvelle Rouvenor was the final straw in a series of offences against the ethnic Gallente civilian populace.

Before the terrorist attack, the Caldari army was already targetting towns and villages. Nouvelle Rouvenor was not an isolated incident.

And no less. Thank you for seeing my point though. Neither side was, or is blameless nor victimless.

This rings true today, the sooner people stop pointing out the flaws of the other side and work on their own problems, the better.

Alex. there are two possibilities.

Either the Federation's democracy works, and reflects the majority will of the people, or it does not. It's a Boolean function - if it only reflects the collective will of the populace some of the time, when it is convenient then it doesn't work.

So you have to decide which of those two realities you think is true. Either...

1) the Federal democracy does not work and never has and you are just as much in the grip of the whims of persons of power and influence as we are, with the difference that we openly understand, accept and embrace that reality and seek to work with it, or...

2) the Federal democracy DOES work and everything I've ever said about its dangers - mob rule, populism, myopic short-sightedness, giving equal weight to the voice of the competent and the incompetent - is entirely and horribly accurate.

I think the system of democracy does work. I think the government that gets in truly is the one that accrues the most votes and reflects the desires of the largest minority or even the majority of voters. Popularity may be a highly manipulable thing, but the fact is that the U-Nats were simply the unfolding of the policies expressed by the very people who had legitimately been voted into office. Any anger expressed when they went ahead and wildly overreacted boils down to "I can't believe I was so stupid as to vote for that guy".

If the democracy works, then the Federation's citizens were ultimately to blame for voting those people in. They didn't take the time to properly evaluate their candidates and see the insane steel lurking under their velvet gloves. Ultimately, they're the ones who gave the tools to the engineers of that atrocity. This isn't equivalent to selling a firearm to somebody for reasons of home defense which that person then goes on to commit a crime with: When they went to the polls they were consciously choosing to elect these people to make government-scale decisions on their behalf and that makes them complicit in those decisions. It's no good regretting and protesting when you dislike what they choose to do, to borrow an old metaphor that's locking the gate after the horse has run away.

I think that the system of democracy works... I think the CONCEPT of democracy is fatally flawed and have always said so.

That's the thing, Verin. The "Guardians of Gallentia" party, better known to us as the Ultra-Nationalists, were never actually voted into power by the people. Back then there were no Three Pillars system to divide power and avoid this kind of event. (in fact the entire farce with the U-Nats demonstrated the need for this kind of system)

At this point in time Senators were voted into power by the people and the Senators themselves appointed a president. After Nouvelle Rouvenor there were, understandably, a great deal of anger and resentment running around in the Union and many protested and called for warfare, while many others opposed this idea and called for restraint and calm action. Ultimately, none of these would have any say whatsoever in what happened next.

The day after NR drowned, moderate president Arlette Villers resigned, taking responsibility for NR because the Senate had debated back and forth for two months about what to do with the State seceding and the blockade. Less than a day later the senate had voted to suspend both the Constitution and the Charter, and appoint GoG party chairman Luc Duvailer as president.

The first thing he did, was install martial law across the Union - in his very inauguration speech. With this, he had assumed power over the Federation's military and enforced the martial law across the entire Union. Anyone who objected to this were forced to comply, or be arrested with no trial or in some cases even shot for not complying.

A little less than three days after the Templis Dragonaurs killed every man woman and child in Nouvelle Rouvenor the Federation as it was intended to be had technically been put on hold - paused, while a military Junta ran about doing whatever they wanted. Any military or political person who did not comply was simply replaced with someone who would. Soldiers would obey orders or be punished. The Fleet was brought under their control and the next step? Caldari Prime.

We all know what happened next.

...

As far as I am concerned, no Caldari who can't even bother to learn his history, and realize the situation at the time and blame the Union solely for the actions that took place in those two months the U-Nats were in power, don't deserve to be treated with any respect or credibility. This does not apply to you, it can possibly apply to others I have argued with, even today.

There is a reason I advocate that this union is a completely different entity today than it was back then. Today we have been around for over two centuries. We have seen much and done much and learned from many a mistake, and we have evolved into a capable, balanced nation for it.

The Federation Civil war -or the Gallente-Caldari war as many like to call it - started when the Union was 33 years old. It was not exactly a great start for a naive, inexperienced nation.

And as to answer your question, I have always been in support of option 2. The Federation's democracy does work, for all the good and ill it can bring.

But only when it's allowed to. Two centuries ago, for two months, it was not.

Alex, you're repeating history but not thinking about it. In so doing, you didn't actually address my point. Duvalier and the Senators who voted to make him president and supported him throughout his administration had, nevertheless, been democratically voted into office.

If people didn't want a president and senate who would vote to suspend the constitution and declare martial law, then they should never have allowed those people to be in a position to do so.

The citizens of the democracy actively chose these people to make decisions on their behalf. At best, that means that they failed in their duty to seriously evaluate the candidates and try to determine what sort of person they were electing to representing them. At worst, it means they actively endorsed and agreed with that kind of person. The largest minority (or possibly the majority) of voters were either apathetically lazy and easily-swayed, or co-conspirators.

All this "three pillars" stuff doesn't change the basic concept that the person who gets the job is the one with the most votes.

People don't suddenly go from being upstanding paragons of morality to baying for blood overnight. Those politicians didn't undergo a rapid and instant 180 the second the flooding hit NR - people don't work that way. What happened was that the hard-liners, the tough-talkers, the conservatives and the outspoken blowhard patriotic hawks went into overdrive while the liberals, bridge-builders, progressive, empathic doves were forced to do some soul-searching and question-asking in a moment of weakness that made them go quiet and by the time they thought to speak up again it was too late.

The Federation collectively endorsed - or at least enabled - the candidates whose policies and opinions contained the seeds of that extremism. Three pillars or not, they were elected by popular vote.

What beliefs? We believe in ourselves. Hardwork and strength. Anything else simply detracts from survival. Of the four empires, Caldari have the most inhospitable home planet.

The fertile systems of the minmatar homes, the luxurious climate of Gallente Prime, The Amarr did not suffer the technological dark age the same extent as the rest of us.

Even to this day, Caldari Prime is difficult to habitate. I am not supporting the actions of those that sabotaged Novelle Ruvenor. Caldari records of the events are sketchy. We were more concerned with our survival. Was there greater motive behind the terrorist attacks? We know the gallente were extremist in their militay doctrine of the day. Perhaps there was more to the city than is let on. After all, when the gallente took our cities, they took all the info contained within as well.