Make It So

In Star Trek, humans and aliens are governed by a body of government known as the United Federation of Planets, or the Federation for short. Trekkies (of which I was a mild one until the numerous "alien of the week" plotless episodes finally took their toll) like to point out that the Federation is analogous to the United Nations, where planets parallel nations and everyone has a say. I would like to point out that the UN is nothing like the Federation, though it may be a good idea that it should. In the Trek universe, not every planet is allowed admission into the Federation. It must meet certain criteria. It must meet certain technological standards. It also must meet a standard of morality and be democratic. I remember an episode from the Next Generation where a planet's application to become a member was rejected due to how it shamefully treated former soldiers. Unfortunately, the UN is nothing like that. The UN includes everyone that is defined as a "nation", and even gives "observer" status to a non-nation. In doing so, it manages to include nations that are thoroughly undemocratic and have a poor human rights records. These nations then "gang up" and vote in blocks, hijacking the whole process. It would be nice that if, instead of the UN, there was a "UDN", a "United Democratic Nations" which would only include democratic nations and endevour to spread democracy amongst non democratic nations. One can only dream.