Consitiutions of the High Frontier

John Frazer wrote:

> The UN is impotent to stop wars because it has no teeth, specifically
> because the big 5 made it that way (UK, US, USSR, France, and the PRC).

Not exactly. It's only impotent when it is in the interests of atleast
one of the big 5 for it to be impotent; which is quite often.

> The history of international relations shows undoubtedly that if
> there's no
> central authority with legal authority over the separate nations,

hint: that's why they are /separate/ nations :-)

> then the
> rights of the people will be abused; Either by powerful economic entities
> making unjust and undemocratic trade agreements, or by the members waging
> wars among themselves which the confederate congress is impotent to do
> anything about except maybe pass "resolutions".

To some extent, but not completely. The UN was constructed to oppose
communism- I suspect it would be not entirely ineffectual in that
regards, or any other thing for which the organisation can agree on, and
have an incentive to solve. Otherwise you get, resolutions, which aren't.

> Despite the apparent manifold excuses for wars, the one thing they all
> have
> in common is that they result when single social units (tribes, cities,
> nations states, etc) exercise "sovereignty" over each other. The only way
> wars have stopped permanently is when these small units became equally
> represented under a higher authority, and subject to the mediation
> decisions
> of that higher authority.

No. Only when the higher authority is prepared to actually make
decisions and then impose the decisions by force.

> The framers of the US constitution made the federal government powerful
> deliberately so that it could arbitrate disputes between the states
> and stop
> wars.

Yes. Ultimately the federal government has an army.

> Loose confederacies with no central authority over disputes of the
> members
> is a recipe for wars.

Not usually. Wars are the normal state of affairs of men. Loose
confederates tend to reduce the number of wars; slightly.

> I shudder to think of the available energies and techniques for
> concentrating and directing those energies that the members of a space
> colony confederacy will have. Each will effectively have the power to
> be a
> nuclear state, even if they don't build A-bombs.

Earth cities have pretty much that power too. Fuel-air bombs anyone?

> No city or continent on Earth or colony in space will be safe if they
> have
> the "sovereign right" to unilaterally use war to settle disputes and have
> their own way by throwing their weight around.

I suspect they will form or get forceably formed under governments
spanning multiple colonies. It's highly inefficient for each habitat to
have their own police force and army; if nothing else.