No, the lack of a G-192 is a reflection of the reality of international relations and human nature. Magically creating the body would not change that. There’s no over arching body that controls international relations because the system doesn’t allow it. If you create one it would fail for the same reason there isn’t one today - nations don’t operate like you seem to think they do.
Fair enough, Kozmik. 
I don’t think your article says anything particular about “Cosmic Top Secret” classifications other than they are secrets whose release “would cause grave damage to NATO,” and I’m not sure how a given secret classification goes to your general thesis, but you did show that it exists.
There will be, when we all kneel before Zod. Hail Zod!
I’m going to ask you three questions and I want you to answer them, separately:
How do nations operate?
How do governments operate?
How do heads of government operate?
Oooh! Oooh! I want to do this one! I’m out of gold on World of Warplanes and need to exercise my brain.
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A nation is a group of people, occupying a distinct geographical space, that consider themselves bound by a common origin, identity, interest, and destiny. A ‘nation’ exists when these self-same people come together and create an apparatus for the creation, interpretation, and enforcement of law and decree over specific individuals in a specific place - the Three Branches of American Government. Every government has to have all three portfolios, even if they’re held by the same person or agency, or if they’re very weak compared to the others.
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The government is the apparatus in a nation that has the power of gaol and gallow - the power to use physical force to compel its citizens to its decree. Governments also have the power to collect taxes, and can use its G&G to make people if they refuse. Governments survive because they have the basic consent of the governed; when enough people don’t want the government to rule them, they either break away (and start their own nation) or they overthrow the government. Both of these options usually, but not always, involve violence.
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Heads of government, traditionally, are the prime ministers, chancellors, and favored servants of the King (Head of State). In Presidential Republics (such as the USA), heads of state and heads of government are one and the same, and are not drawn directly from the legislature but are elected separately. In general, the Head of Government receives broad instructions from the country’s legislature, and is in charge of the specifics of carrying them out.
In most of the world, here’s how it goes down:
- Individuals go to their local polling places and vote for their district’s representatives to the legislature.
1a) In some countries, people do not get to vote, and representatives are created by more shadowy means. - A Head of Government is created.
2a) In one possibility, those representatives create a Head of Government.
2b) In the other possibility, individuals also vote for who will be the Head of Government. - The Legislature drafts legislation, expressing the essential will of their constituents and the whole nation.
3a) Some legislature speaks directly to the people - ‘thou shalt not do x, y, and z.’ All of it speaks to the Head of Government - ‘thou shalt do a, b, and c, possibly right away, in response to people doing x, y, and z.’ - The Head of Government receives his instructions from the legislature, and gets to doing it.
- The Head of Government delegates his portfolios (areas for which he is responsible) to his various Secretaries, Ministers, and Cabinet Members. These people are in charge of doing the President’s job in that area. Examples of good portfolios include War, Law Enforcement, Land Management, Foreign Affairs, and Espionage.
- The Cabinet then creates a bureaucracy beneath them in order to do the stuff the Head of Government told them to do, which is in turn what the Legislature told him to do.
- The bureaucracy of each Cabinet member goes and does it.
- The people decide how they feel about it, and write letters to their representatives airing their grievances (or vote for new representatives.)
Let’s go for an example!
The People of Kyrania decide that they want a new national park in their country, with lovely green spaces and tall trees that will be protected from the chop-chop and the buzzsaw. Thus, they write letters to their representatives, talking about how much they’d like a new national park. If new representatives are up for elections, then they’ll talk about how much they want to make a new national park. In Kyrania’s neighbor country of Shalasaria, where the government is ruled by a single-party dictatorship, then the government gets its information in other, more insidious ways. One way or another, the Legislature becomes aware of a pressing national need for some green-space.
In America, at least, the Legislature is divided up into a number of committees and sub-committees, where members of the Legislature - in this case, Congress - draft and review bills about specific things. In this case, the bill would be drafted by the Committee on Land Management. In any case, a bill would be introduced, and the legislature would vote for it. If the bill passes, then it becomes law. (In the USA, it has to pass twice, once in each house - but we’ll speak of it passing generally through Congress.) Anyway, Kyrania has a unicameral legislature, so the bill comes up, the State Divan votes on it, and it becomes a law.
While eating a hearty breakfast, the Chancellor (Kyrania has a King, but all he does is play golf and have sex with the Queen) is informed that the bill has become a law. Someone brings him the bill, probably on a silver tray, and he thinks, ‘which one of my people should do this?’ At length, he decides that this is a job for his Vizier of Forestry, who is in charge of national parks and wild places generally. The Chancellor claps his hands and summons his solid gold telephone, and gives the Vizier of Forestry a ring.
The two exchange courtesies, but soon enough, the Chancellor says to his V. Forestry, ‘hey, get to work on this.’ The Chancellor could do it himself - the Portfolio of Forestry, like all portfolios, is in his office - but the Chancellor, like all leaders, concerns himself with ruling his government rather than ruling his country, so he lets one of his Trusted Lieutenants handle this one.
Like all cabinet members, the Vizier of Forestry does most of his work from behind a polished mahogany desk. So once he hangs up on the Chancellor, he then has the same sort of thought as the Chancellor had moments prior - which of my Trusted Lieutenants handles this? Eventually, he settles on the Bureau Director of National Parks. The BD of NP may have to have a similar moment of contemplation, until finally it ends up on the desk of the guy who can say ‘Hey, this is actually my job.’ Thankfully for us, that’s the BDNP.
The BDNP then parses the bill, deciding what, exactly, it entails for him to do. In this case, he decides that it’s time for him to purchase some lands, commandeer some others, and hire some park rangers to run it. Hiring the park rangers and buying the land is easy, but Kyrania, like most countries, has a doctrine of eminent domain - namely that, if the government thinks it’s important, they can take your shit. So, he sends some of his guys around to somebody and says, ‘yo, we’re here to take your shit,’ in this case being vital forest-land that will comprise this new national park. The landowners are upset, but the wheels of government march on.
But these landowners are upset! They shout and howl and make a ruckus, and complain to their representatives. (They’re lucky - next door, in Shalasaria, they’d just be killed.) A new national debate begins - is it right to expropriate people’s property (ie, take their shit) if there’s a pressing national need, and how pressing does it need to be? The representatives take a quorum of their people, and the process begins anew…
So, Kozmik, are your questions all answered?
Oh, bravo.
You may also add that there is never just a single issue that people wish to see addressed, some of which are mutually incompatible, and so there is a level of competition in the legislature for attention and resources.
Thank you, thank you, I try. Now, let me go on to my specific problems with Kozmik’s hypothesis, as I understand it.
As near as I can figure, Kozmik’s belief is that if every head of state (or head of government, if they’re from a constitutional monarchy) got together in a room, just them, they could talk out their problems and come together to make some binding resolutions that would improve the world. I think his other hypothesis is that if all these people were to appear, then some natural, shadowy figure (we still on about the Illuminate, Kozmik?) would appear to lead them.
The problem with this is that there is no ‘nation of nations;’ for the most part, countries don’t subscribe to the Big 4 Commonalities that comprise a nation, amidst themselves - if they did, and it, say, the Portuguese-speaking people of the world considered themselves to have such a commonality of interest with one another, then they’d stop being Brazilians and Portuguese and just start being Lusitanians.
To be more precise, the basic principle is such - if the people of two nations consider themselves, in total, to have sufficient interests in common that they’re prepared to both submit to a new super-authority, they’d have enough in common to just consider themselves a single nation and have done with it.
But the big problem (here’s the big problem) is that modern-day heads of state and heads of government, executive-branch types, President Obama and Vladimir Putin and Francois Hollande and Xi Jinping (whom I congratulate, by the way, and send my best wishes) - they aren’t the natural successors of kings. Legislatures are the natural successors of kings.
You see, in the olden days, we had kings, and emperors, and other royal types who possessed absolute power - they, in their very person, had the right of G&G in their own domain. And if the King was wise, he’d have some advisors - he’d surround himself with people who knew about stuff. And he’d take their advice, and then he’d have his Chancellor, who was his right-hand dude. And he’d say to the Chancellor, ‘Chancellor, I have decided that we’re gonna do this now. Make it happen.’ And there’d be bowing and foot-kissing, and that would be that - the Chancellor would tumble off and figure this thing out.
Notice how this interlaces with my explanation of modern government? The ultimate royal power - the power to decide ‘this is the sort of thing we’re gonna start doing’ - that power is now held by legislatures, not by heads of state and government. As an individual, yes, the President is the most powerful man in the world - he’s the man with the nuclear button, natch, and is also the C-i-C and Generalissimus of the Armed Forces. But these two qualities are something that organizational scientists call portfolios, or areas of competence and authority. These portfolios are his because the legislature gave them to him; within their own power, the legislature can take them away and give them to someone else.
True and cool fact - Congress is the most powerful branch of the government. If you can get that crucial supermajority, enough to override a filibuster, override a presidential veto, and remove any dissenting judges, then Congress’s powers are legally unlimited, since only it can rewrite the Constitution.
So, rather than needing 192 Chancellors, in order to have this mythical G-192, you’d need 192 sovereigns - and in most countries, ultimate sovereignty is held not by the head of government but by the people, and through them their legislators. The American delegation to the G-192, if you can call it that - since you technically don’t want a legislation, you want the real thing - would have to be all 538 members of Congress. Add the 386 members of the Hungarian National Assembly, and this meeting’s starting to get a bit crowded.
But wait, I hear you cry, what about the G-8? The G-8 is a forum; it’s a talky-place. The G-8, as a group, does not issue decrees - it can issue statements, certainly, but mostly it’s a chance to talk stuff through. With the exception of maybe Vladimir Putin, though, the members of the G-8 do not rule their countries. Canada and the UK are ruled by their Parliaments; the USA is ruled by Congress; China is ruled by the NPC, etc etc. When Barack Obama goes to a G-8 summit, then he goes with instructions from Congress (which are probably extremely vague). He may or may not have the power to negotiate about something specific. If another country proposes something out of his little bailiwick, he has to bring it home for Congress to ratify. If he puts his signature on anything except the hotel registry without Congress’s explicit command, then Congress has to ratify it and make sure it’s okay.
But wait, I hear you cry, there are extra-national organizations with rules and regulations, right? Like the UN! And before the UN, there was the ICJ and the PCIJ (which turned out not to be as permanent as the name implied.) But the thing about these agencies is that they don’t hand out decrees; their member states have not subscribed to them to receive their decrees. The member states of the UN can go before it in search of arbitration. What is arbitration? Arbitration is Judge Judy; two parties seek out a third party that is acceptable to both, and they agree to abide by the arbitrator’s decision. Then they tell the arbitrator their stories, and the arbitrator makes a call.
What is the key difference between arbitration and decree? In arbitration (my hand hurts from typing that word), both parties have to agree to a) be arbitrated at all and b) on a particular agency to do it. In short, there’s no compulsion to even go into it, and there’s nothing other than one’s word that one will abide by it - unless one has confirmed one’s intent to accept arbitration before an actual authority with power of decree, and the power of G&G.
This is why Kozmik’s assertions about supranational authorities are nonsense; it all goes back to questions of violence. All governments must possess G&G, or they are invalid. And governments possess G&G, ultimately, because their people believe in them - enough people support, or at least accept the government’s missions and methods and allow it to G&G people. Many times in history has it been the case that a government had a few die-hard supporters and a bunch of people that didn’t like them - one good example is Soviet Russia, which consisted of a ‘hard core’ of people enthusiastic about the system (because they were well-paid) surrounded by a vast sea of people who didn’t care (and thus worked and paid taxes to pay the people who were enthusiastic), and significant number of people who actually didn’t like it (but could be shut up in camps staffed by the enthusiasts and funded by the apathetic). Supranational organizations ultimately survive and prosper because they are backed by agencies that have G&G.
Also, what is wrong with the United Nations? It does what it’s supposed to do, as well as it’s supposed to do.
And Ahmedinejad is not the head of state of Iran, or the head of government. Iran’s government is extremely complicated, but it’s really ruled by a council of imams lead by Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who is the real boss. He’s much too holy to speak to foreigners, though, so he sends Ahmedinejad to the UN to talk to people. I hear say that Khamenei thinks Ahmedinejad is an idiot, also, and doesn’t have much personal respect for the man.
And to address Post 30, finally - if the President can go on TV and prepare a speech that so moves the American people that they fill both houses of Congress with Democrats, and they then enact a suggestion that the President got at the United Nations or this mystical G-192, then that would be a fulfillment of democratic purpose, just as if the President had given a speech for a similar suggestion he got from a prophetic dream, or from his dentist. Just because the American people got an idea from outside doesn’t mean they didn’t choose for themselves to do it. And remember - Congress is the highest authority in the land, second only to the people!
And finally, with regards to security clearances - in his capacity as C-i-C, no departmental secrets may be kept from the President. Remember, every commissioned officer in every uniformed service is his direct representative - if the sitting President wants to walk into any federal government building in the country, nobody can stop him. Except the Legislature. But that would require quorums and all. If there really is a security clearance higher than the President, then that would be an act of mutiny and treason on behalf of whoever designed it and held it; being the Keeper of All Secrets is part of the President’s bailiwick.
And now my hand is cramping up. I’ll be back in 6, 7 hours; have lots of interesting things said by then.
I think these were admirably answered by the learned Scholar Beardpig, and he has gone on to point out where your theory goes woefully wrong. Heads of state don’t have the power you think they have. They are constantly working to please their varied constituencies, and operating under the checks and balances of government structures. They can’t do what you want them to do; if they tried they would be quickly removed from office or made powerless, either by their legislatures/judicial systems or their populace or in some cases the military.
I think one of Kozmik’s errors is that he believes that the more power someone has, the less power other people have over him or her.
That’s more or less my hypothesis.
Correct. However, there could be a sovereign of sovereigns.
Correct. And I’m proposing that the G-192 summit be a legislative assembly with the heads of government being the legislators, a second-order legislation with an executive and possibly a judiciary.
Disputable. There’s 538 members of Congress. Then there’s 548 members (members of Congress + Supreme Court Justices + the President) of the United States government for the State of the Union address. Even conceding your point, remember that the President delivers the State of the Union address. Who would deliver the State of the World address?
Incorrect. Larry Borgia admitted that I had shown that Cosmic Top Secret exists.
Multiquotes weaken my heart, so this will be a metonym for your whole post, which I will consult by scrolling down and you, the reader, can consult by scrolling up.
The reason there couldn’t be a sovereign of sovereigns is because all constituent parts of it would have to subscribe to it. ‘Government by the consent of the governed’ isn’t just a nice maxim, it’s the way of the world - you need some seriously heavy firepower in order to hold vast quantities of people hostage to your will.
Think of a real kleptocracy, like Zimbabwe. Obviously, the people at the top - the President and his immediate friends - do extremely well, because the system is rigged for their benefit. If it was just them, though - if there were only 100 people in the whole country of 12 million who approved of the government - then it couldn’t last. The other 11,999,900 would rise up and destroy them. The reason the government survives is because there are enough people who are happy with the government - happy enough to fight and defend it, even if it’s just for their paycheques - and enough people acquiescent to the government - content enough with it to keep paying taxes to support the regime’s defenders - that they can destroy anyone who wants to rebel or revolt.
That’s where the power of G&G comes from; that’s where the power of decree comes from. The reason the North won the civil war is because it had enough people willing to fight and die, and enough people willing to work to support the government, that they created too strong a power for the South to resist. It wasn’t strictly a question of manpower, it was a question of manpower multiplied by motivation.
If there was a Sovereign of Sovereigns, it would have to borrow its power from the nations of the world, thus that it could wield the power of G&G over wide stretches of the Earth’s population. But until the nations of the world took an interest in doing such a thing, it couldn’t be done to them against their will. There have been cases where nations imposed their will on other nations - the Soviet occupation of the Baltic States springs to mind - but that was the case of national power vs. national power.
It all comes back to identity politics. All governments are built on the backs of people who will labor and face danger for them. Who’s going to labor for the Sovereign of Sovereigns? Who’s going to face danger for him? When the UN goes on peacekeeping missions, it does so with forces borrowed from its member states - from the agencies that people are actually willing to fight and die for. You can’t borrow those forces against the will of the people supplying them.
In short, it’s not enough for this S.o.S to simply have the support of presidents and premiers. It needs to have the genuine support of its people, or at least the genuine support of enough people to silence the others. It can’t do that in secret.
The State of the World address, such as there is one, is probably delivered by the Secretary-General of the United Nations. But it’s ultimately immaterial - if the speech is composed by a committee, does it really matter who recites it?
And finally, as Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces, as long as he’s President, the President has the highest security clearance in all the land. In fact, he’s above security clearances - he’s the one who issues them. But that’s not really important.
A seasoned veteran calling me ‘the learned?’ On my birthday? My day is made.
Heck, I rarely see a birthday party of 30 people go past without some major family drama breaking out; I really, really doubt 192 people who have generally grown to despise the others will come even close to resolving all their problems.
But, theoretically, if one were to gather all of the SDMB moderators and administrators into one room, they could represent the will of the entire Straight Dope Message Board!
Ok. So there is the people, the legistatures, presidents and premiers (the second-order legistature) and the sovereign of sovereigns. The sovereign of soverigns would only need to have the genuine support of the representatives of the people.
Wrong. From the Wikipedia article, NATO classifications:
Vis-a-vis security classifications, let’s get this out of the way first. Can you think of any person with a legitimate bailiwick who would hold some official secret to which the President, by virtue of office, should not be party? I can see the President of the Netherlands not getting to know the nuclear activation codes, but surely the President of the United States? He’s the C-i-C. Naturally, Jimmy Carter doesn’t have this classification any more, but surely at one time he did, in his capacity as the Man with the Key.
But on to the real meat, as it were. You done tore it now, sir, because if I can’t explain stuff clearly in plain, I go to metaphor. And if I can’t do it with metaphor, why, I bust out the Viking Saga. Make yourself prepared.
Let us imagine a sort of Terra Nullis, a ‘clean slate,’ as it were, of governance. We start with a group of people, aware of other peoples, but ultimately isolated - to their consideration - in their affairs. Desirous to order some sort of common good (these people use irrigation, which requires common management, to say nothing of ordinary circumstances), they created a government, and elect people to represent their interests before the whole group. In order to do what they now decide, the legislature creates an executive, which will make flesh their decrees, and a judiciary, to judge that the executive does it correctly (and to control their own decrees, in case posterity fucks it up.) You now have a decent simulacrum of the American Government, albeit ala Vikings. We got the Churls at the bottom as the regular folks, and they pick Thegns who come together in a Thing and create the Jarl, who is chief executive, and also some Gerafa who are the judges.
And now these isolated people encounter others, and from time to time they make agreements and treatises with them, and from time to time they raise their banners and make war against them, and a sort of equilibrium is established, as time was. And eventually, they might even establish an Althing, as Vikings do, so that the Jarls have a space where they could make a conference, and speak before all on behalf of their churls and their thegns, and discuss things of mutual importance. And perhaps, as time goes by, there might be a sort of Althingsjarl, who presided over the Jarls and would bear witness to their negotiations and act as a sort of go-between.
This is all well and good. This is an orderly sort of system. And should it come to pass that the Peoples of the Thing should meet outsiders - People Not of the Thing - then it seems it might come to pass that the Althingsjarl would be their representative, and might speak on their behalf after consultation with the Althing. And because he had some sort of neutrality, but was so lofty a person as the Jarls and their Thegns - because he was a Jarl himself, albeit only of the Althing and the Althingshalla - he might be called to arbitrate disputes between one and another Jarl, that general harmony might prevail, when it might.
But this Althingsjarl, whom you would make Universal Sovereign - where are his thegns? Where are his churls? Who raises their sword for the Althingsjarl? It might come to pass that one Jarl and his Thegns might dispute the Althingsjarl’s decisions, when asked to make his judgement, but then so too would other Jarls, the ones that the Althingsjarl had favored, would rush to his side and call their own banners. But they were never the Althingsjarl’s swords; they were the swords of the Jarls who sought alliance with him, and once their alliance was complete, they were no more at the Althingsjarl’s disposal, and perhaps might soon be turned against him. For the Jarls were proud men, and their thegns hardy and judicious, and their Gerafa stern and even-handed, and it was not given to the Althingsjarl to make too many demands upon them, lest they lose faith in his leal arbitration.
And so at one time it came to pass that the greatest Jarl, Ragnor, did take a wound in his chest whilst in battle, and he withered and was dead of it. And by the sword and the axe and the bow did Ragnor expand his domains, at one time having fought the dread Udyrfrykte and so defeated this beast and so won the acclaim of the churls and thegns of his domain, but upon his death had he three sons, named Ivar, Ubbi, and Halfdan, who divided his lands in thregne, each taking one part, and having impressed himself upon the assorted thegns of these lands, was each named Jarl in his own right, these lands being Anlannde, Twegenfoss, and Theoforth.
And so it came to pass that Ivar, Jarl of Annlande, being covetous of his brother’s lands, did scheme, and plot, and make a trap for them, that they might lose their honor and esteem before their thegns and churls and thus be cast down from power, and that he might replace them both in their times as the sole heir of their father Ragnor. And so he gave himself to connive, and made treachery, and in this way: he sought audience with the Althingsjarl, and said unto his high personage:
'You, who are the Althingsjarl, have been trusted for time and time beyond as the wisest among us, and having shown your worth before the Gods and men, they have favored us with your judgement and counsel. I hereby pledge myself to you, that you hence be not but the Jarl of the Althing and the Althingshalla, but of all those who might come the Althing and partake of the Althingshalla, and I first of all will pledge my sword to you, and the swords of my thegns, and the swords of my churls, for they will agree with me in this."
“But what,” saith the Althingsjarl, “of the Gerafa, stern as they are, and even-handed? For time and time beyond has Annlande stood alone, making treaties as it will, and wars as it will, and welcoming some to its hearth, as it will, but none to its high seat save its Jarl, who is sat by the Thegns. Why should I, who have none for Annlande but what have I for Twegenfoss and Theoforth and all other lands of the Althing besides, be made Jarl of Annlande?”
And Ivar, Jarl of Annlande… what sayeth he?
My, my, what a beautiful Viking saga. Some day, I’ll finish it. But here’s the question - what does any president, any premier, any worthy dignitary, have to gain in surrendering his power to a new leader, with no power of his own? The Jarl of Annlande might take to the Jarl of Twegenfoss in battle, and one might defeat the other, by daring and enterprise, and make himself a conqueror. But the Althingsjarl, as I said, has no swords. How can he compel anyone to his will? And if he can’t compel anyone, why should they submit to it?
Kozmik, this is agonizing slow and miserly. I would elect to discuss this with you via VoIP, or Internet Telephone, in the format of your choosing, at the time and date of your choosing. I would record it, transcribe it, and with your confirmation that your words were written true, post it in this place for others to read, and you and I can hash this out in fullness. It would be done in such a way as not to breach your anonymity, or mine. What say you?
The President of the United States has the highest security clearance IN THE UNITED STATES.
NATO, at the last time I checked, is not part of the United States, therefore there is no reason to presume that the President of the United States has any right or reason to know everything pertaining to the security of all NATO member states.
Your objection is pointless.
(And try to comprehend what the erudite Scholar Beardpig is saying. he has a knack of illustrating concepts in a very enlightening and entertaining manner.)
You didn’t read the pit thread, did you?
He also doesn’t have clearance for the Coke formula, the 11 herbs and spices at KFC, and the Kappa Kappa Delta handshake. He’s not so powerful after all, now is he?
Read it? I’m the one who was skunking up the last few pages with all my weird Francois Hollande fanfiction.