Intergalactic Summit

I did think about it, and I did answer your questions, though perhaps insufficiently well.

You asked if I believe democracy works and stated that if I believed it does then I would have to acknowledge it's flaws. I did, I went for option two, because option two was the only true one among them. Democracy works, but it has never been a perfect system - I have never been naive enough to believe this - but it's negative aspects are at least balanced with it's positive ones. Democracy itself is morally silent. Democracy does not have any say in what the utilizers of it's system does. This is why the more modern Three Pillars system is vital, it keeps things balanced between Senate, Supreme Court and the office of the President. This ensures fairness and that all presidents are voted for DIRECTLY by the individual people themselves, regardless of nationality or origin.

This is how it works today.

My point with bringing up the divide between the old and the newer systems was to highlight the absolute weakness of the old one. Those senators who voted to let Luc Duvailer become president and Duvailer's previous position as party chairman was indeed voted into office.

Several months to years before the State was founded and the crisis even began.

Duvailer had his supporters, there were many who believed as he did and his position as chairman of the GoG party proved this. But once he and the Senators of the time was in office the reasons why they were placed there were nearly irrelevant - they were the ones who would chose the president, and the president would make the over-arching decisions. This created a divide in power - the people may have chosen all the senators, but none of them had any say in who became president, thus his actions were not directly endorsed by anyone among the average citizens.

The citizens did not ask for the Constitution and Charter to be suspended, that action basically set aside the whole democratic system because they felt they needed to take action swiftly, and could not wait for the time-consuming democratic process to run it's course. That's a weakness of democracy - it takes time to codify what actions are preferred by the most people.

But that also meant that once Duvailer was in office the people no longer had any say in what anyone in the upper echelon of Federal power did - and once martial law was in place, none of them could even protest about this without fear of imprisonment or death.

Once again, I believe that democracy works. We have had extensive history in identifying it's weaknesses and making corrections for them. But it was not always so, and the point I'm trying to make is that once Duvailer was in power two centuries ago, what the people wanted or believed was no longer relevant to anyone in power and for that reason, stating that their actions - among them the bombardment of Caldari Prime - had popular support is debatable at best, out-right wrong at worst.

Finally however I would note that I can see where your point of view is coming from. This topic and all the various aspects of it has been debated in this Federation for the better parts of two hundred years by now. You and me conversing about this is nothing new. That you, as Caldari and a supporter of your State disagree with me is absolutely nothing new either.

First, allow me to state that I understand your point of view and agree with the summary of the viewpoint in principle.

I would state, however, that it is impossible to know the actions your leaders will take in dire situations. The populace may have voted in leaders that would do that action, that doesn't necessarily mean they agreed with that specific action.

I do understand your point regarding their culpability, however.

Many of us do still follow that braided path;

Many more of us follow it without realizing it so.

It is as much our culture as it is our faith.

Heth won.
I shudder to think how long the recruitment lines must be for the Caldari Navy, how the furnaces light up around the clock gearing up for Total War.

The Homeworld was liberated, held for a time and lost.

The distant dream of a Civilisation, home, was in its grasp for an instant.

This brings War. Total, unstoppable unyielding war till only one side remains.

Gods have mercy on us all.