Intergalactic Summit

With all respect Monsieur Sarice,

Are you a citizen of the Federation or have you been one at any point in your life?

It is easy to develop a misconception from the outside.

Yes. It is possible to have the most collectivist of the four empires whilst not giving a rat's ass about your own people. Clearly you know us and our hollow lives entirely too well. We certainly haven't continuously sacrificed our own standard of living and freedoms for the good of the group ever since the first Civire was ass-deep in a snowdrift.

You mistake hard choices and pragmatism for a lack of emotion. Clearly you have never spoken to a Caldari about anything they care about.

Monsieur Sarice,

The Federal Senate's primary function is to pass new legislation into law and to regulate the taxation and fiscal spending of the government. The process of passing new legislation into law is done primarily by placing the intended law before a vote of the people, who then vote for or against the law as it is written.

Prior to all of this, citizens in the various districts of the Federation are encouraged to communicate with their senators and use other various legal avenues available to them to affect the language and implementation of a particular legislative bill. The Senate would then compose a law in accordance with the will of its constituents, which then goes before the people for a vote. This practice is called democracy.

In a Republic, the majority of legislation is passed by elected officials without ever being brought before the public. Yes, the constituents can still contact their elected representatives and affect the language and implementation of a law, but the vote is held internally within the body of representatives and is not brought before the public. This practice is called a republic.

The difference is subtle, but it is most certainly there.

In short:

Democracy: 4,800,000 votes for, 2,200,000 votes against. Bill passes by popular majority. (Popular vote)
Republic: Elected representatives for districts 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, 10,11,13 and 15 vote for; elected representatives for districts 2, 4, 6, 8, 12 and 14 vote against. Bill passes by majority. (Electoral vote)

The Gallente Federation is closer to the former, the Minmatar Republic is closer to the latter. (Except they would have tribal representation rather than district numbers).

( My apologies for deliberating on this point as it is overall a minor point but the distinction plays a major part in why Gallenteans value individualism (and how that is reflected in our government) and the Minmatar favor clan and tribal identity (and how that is reflected in their government.))

I think you are confused about the manner in which your government functions. Legislation does not rely on the direct involvement of the population in any way. I agree with you that what you describe could be labeled as more democratic than republic, but it is not what the Federation consists of.

That very same piece of information references criticism of the lobbyist power as being undemocratic. You are clearly extremely optimistic regarding the amount of direct public influence on policy if you are using lobbyists as part of that democratic definition.

The criticism you are referencing is external criticism, as you will notice we Gallenteans usually counter the argument. My "optimism" as you put it, is not uncommon. I am also not using them as "part of the democratic definition," I am pointing out that they petition the populace of the Federation, not the senators. This direction of petition is reflective of a democracy, in which the people have influence over the government. A reverse flow of influence would reflect a republic, in which the senators hold the power.

I must apologize to you Monsieur Sarice, clearly my experience within the Federation is at odds with your educated understanding of the system from the outside. I will refrain from discussing the matter further and apologize for troubling you with my ignorance.



I never stated the lobbyists were a "positive" part of the Federation, merely that they are part of the system and that the manner in which they work (which is appealing to the population rather than the Senate) is reflective of a democratic process rather than a republic process.

To touch on your other points, the problem isn't so much that the power has been removed from the populace as the populace allows itself to be easily distracted and influenced by the lobbyists' agendas rather than looking around themselves - which comes full circle back to the original purpose of this entire thread.

Until the populace educates itself and looks beyond the agendas of the lobbyists, turning its attention perhaps to the ethnic constituencies vying for representation, then the Federation will continue to drone on as a plutocratic mockery of the democratic system.

I have to agree. The Federation might be a very close ally of the Republic, and we have much to thank it, but I've always had... some feeling the Gallente society is dangerously close to collapsing upon itself like a dying star. They preach freedom and peaceful coexistence of all cultures no matter how they are, but that's much more difficult to achieve than it might appear at first glance, if not an outright utopia. As OP said, even "freedom" is hard to define. That said, I think it makes Gallente people be very passionate, sometimes too much for their own good. Take this as a person's worry about a friend that has a serious weakpoint in their life, but doesn't seem to realize about it.

Phew! For a moment I thought you meant ME.

Sometimes I feign interest at stockholder meeting social events. Once I feigned sleep to escape a conversation on a shuttle flight.

As this particular discussion seems to have run its course, I'm less concerned about diverting attention away from the Federation as a whole to matters relating to Intaki.

And so...


Civil liberties within the Federation appear to be on people's minds at the moment, so let's touch on that.

At the very core of the Federation is the principle of democracy. The right of the people to elect those who lead them, and to be able to remove them and hold them accountable should they fail.

I'll not focus here on the Senate's serious undermining of this principle, through their denial of voting rights to their citizens in Placid and elsewhere, though this is something that really does need to be addressed. Instead I'll talk briefly about what could be a return to real democracy in an independent Intaki.

While our independence movement is not one of ethnic nationalism, we do acknowledge the demographics that make up the population of Intaki and surrounding colonies. It is to be expected that a very large percentage of people here are of Intaki heritage.

If we consider the well documented voting blocks that appear to follow ethnic heritage to some degree, we can expect to see a particular style of governance in an independent Intaki - that of the so called Dove bloc.

Independence would see decisions made locally, in accordance with local political understandings, and by those living and working in Intaki, instead of light years away in Villore. Local concerns would be higher up the list of priorities, along with the solutions implemented.

Independence, offers a better chance that the people of Intaki will get the governance they actually vote for. Not just some of the time, but all of the time.

Is this not a good representation of what the Federation is supposed to stand for? Responsibility and accountability to and of the people? Would the Federation not look to their new neighbour and be proud to see what had been achieved?

Or is power more important to Villore than principle?