Have to agree with Arrendis, unfortunately, my lord. The Federation doesn’t really have a problem with Sabik cults unless they start getting up to the kind of practices the Federation sees as categorically intolerable (slave-taking, human sacrifice, etc.). Which, to me, living in the Empire and seeing how Sani Sabik ultimately works and what it does, strikes me as A Mistake.
I guess it’s inevitable that the Federation wouldn’t see it that way, though.
Luckily, visiting it as often as I do, I can report that the Sani Sabik don’t exist in appreciable numbers in the Federation. It’s hard enough, I suppose, converting Amarr, and they already have the headstart of our faith to corrupt. Believe me, to even begin to countenance our faith in Gallente, you start the uphill battle of both convincing them it exists and is worth something.
I highly recommend it, though! It’s an excellent way to work on your own faith, even when you’re unsuccessful. It’s a bit like a heresy examination, only the person you’re talking to isn’t at all worried about committing heresy him- or herself.
On the subject at hand, though, it’s difficult enough to convince them of the faith, much less that they should hand themselves over as willing sacrifices to a blood faith. Theory is far, far away from practice in that regard.
So … I guess you haven’t run into this kind of cult a lot, my lord.
As I understand it, Sani Sabik in the Federation is normally more the “cult of self-improvement” sort. They don’t really do the stabby bits; more the “actualizing your potential” bit, if that makes sense. It’s still socially corrosive, but, come to think of it, might not be much worse than something like an anarchist commune.
So. Eh.
The order of precedence is Charter, Constitution, federal legislation, national legislation.
You realize that as a capsuleer, you don’t deal with a very large percentage of baseliners, right? And that they’re probably not going to go discussing religion with a foreign capsuleer—especially one whose religious beliefs include things like ‘heretics get to die’?
Perhaps, you should consider whether or not visiting the Federation is really going to tell you whether or not an ‘appreciable number’ of anything exist in a population of trillions?
Midna Lyre is the most famous Gallente sani sabik. Look her name up if you want.
And do the Charter or Constitution (either one) guarantee freedom of religious expression?
You mean her? With the ritual murder and all?
Gosh, good thing that doesn’t happen in the Federation.
Indeed. She is apparently Quite Popular.
Yes, it’s the Constitution. However, it also enshrines the right to dignity (physical and otherwise) of the individual, which is problematic for human sacrifices.
There was example of tension between two rights protected by the constitution earlier in this thread - between the rights to dignity and justice of criminals and the rights to self-determination of member states.
Resolving these tensions in the context of specific fact patterns is how the federal judiciary makes its living but I doubt an argument about religious freedom in this context would make as far as their courts.
As a matter of fact, both of those assumptions are incorrect. Which is understandable; I don’t think you’re particularly familiar with my work or what I do. Though it is true we can’t meet a large percentage of baseliners simply because of the sheer number of baseliners. It’s certainly possible I simply haven’t met them in my ministry. Given my occupation and where I practice it, though, I feel relatively well learned to make the comparison. I certainly wouldn’t say they are nonexistent, but I do feel certain in saying that they are not choosing to settle in Gallente space looking for legal loopholes in order to exist.
They’ve existed in Amarr space in far larger numbers, where much of their ideology is outright heresy (as you say, punishable by death), so their legal wrangling is, at most, a peripheral interest.
How the Amarrians adore making every discussion all about them! And people call us meddlers in the affairs of others.
I can’t believe there’s actually a debate over which ‘right’ comes first, the right to religious expression or the right to not be sacrificed for your blood.
If you’re a fan of the Federation, you might want to, uh, clarify.
Isn’t saying it’s a hypothetical that would never see the inside of a courtroom clear enough?
Which ones? There’s three potential ‘assumptions’ in there, after all.
One is that you’re a capsuleer. Are you?
The second is that you don’t deal with a large percentage of baseliners. Is this one of the ones that’s incorrect? If so, why do you follow-up with ‘it is true we can’t meet a large percentage of baseliners’?
The third is that most baseliners aren’t going to discuss religion with you. Do you discuss religion with everyone you meet? When you purchase something in a store, do you proselytize at the clerk? Do you inquire as to the religious beliefs of everyone who walks past you in a corridor? How many of those people actually stop to engage with that kind of unexpected accosting, and how many just keep going and ignore you? More importantly, what percentage of baseliners within 10km of you actually stop to tell you about their religious beliefs?
Last time I checked this was a discussion about Senator Bellaron’s Proposal, not a debate about the Sani Sabik. If you want to discuss that, make your own thread or go to off topic.
The Federation has gone through six major changes in its history, currently on the Sixth Union, since the declaration of Federation. During that period of history, it has enacted the Federal Charter, the Constitution, reforms to the structure and governance of the Federation, the rights of the member states and their governance, the role and duty of the Federation to it’s citizens and much more. What more evidence of reform within the Federation do you wish to see, I might ask? It is in a state of constant change and reform for self-improvement.
From historical events, my imagination can be quite vivid to what we can do to each other should we be unshackled from our restraints. One only has to look to the history of the war, Sinq Laison, the bitterness that can result. I hope we never again come to a calamitous clash again in our lifetimes. It’d be disastrous for both our nations.
There is the right to religious expression from what I understand, which falls under the title of ‘Freedom’ in the Constitution. However, that freedom does not entitle another to infringe upon the freedoms or oppress another citizen of the Federation. Mademoiselle Lyre, a prominent Sanist musician, is allowed to practice her religion freely and without persecution from the government under this clause.
I don’t think it endorses a member state to carry out sanctioned punishments under a regime that would be classified as undemocratic in nature due to the beliefs of the Covenant on the usurpation and maintenance of power.
I wouldn’t bother will those malcontents. It suits their interest to paint the Federation in worst possible light in order to better support their case for secession. They’d have you believe that every Federal President is just Luc Duvalier over again.
Specifically, I’m an archbishop that works outside Amarrian space. So I do spend a lot of my time with a wide array of baseliners talking about religion.
Enturrer’s execution, huh? I wasn’t able to go, unfortunately, nor was I able to really catch a live broadcast. At the time, I was a bit preoccupied with things that I realize now were unimportant, illegitimate, or otherwise unfavorable. No, I wish I had managed to catch it live in any manner of fashion because man, that execution was just… awesome. Seriously! It was! As a thespian (occasionally professionally, but always as a hobby) and one with a flair for the dramatic and unnecessary, it ticked all my vulgar, vulgar boxes. The primal surge of it all? Satisfying vengeance? The roar, the wave of fury, and the complete and utter failure of Federal ideals and practice all localized into one spot? How could you not like that? How could you not take that event – witness that event – and drop your jaw to the crystalline streets, teeth clattering on impact, and say to yourself: “This is the most important public execution I’ll ever see”?
You can wax poetic about how tragic it was all you like. Really, you honestly, truly can. That’s fine. Wax enough to make a candle. I won’t stop you. Everyone else in the thread already has plenty so far: treason, and idealism, and activism, and criminality; justice, morality, mob mentality. Oh! And all the people trying to justify a massive mob execution on a dude with some roundabout logic to ‘some people just deserve it!’ Honestly? Super awesome. I love that last line of thought just because of how harmfully ignorant it is. I love how there, that day, and that crowd, everyone agreed with it one way or another: they figured that cutting a knife deep into their own nation to find stones to throw was smart. Someone spilled our blood, and we knew something then and so we practiced it: only WE can spill our own blood. Good, I say. Let the Federation bleed. Let people look at our past with revulsion and disdain; let them judge us and find us guilty of malicious idiocy.
Every misfortune we self-manifest does us well. I can’t imagine what we would be like if the first Union never dissolved, or the second, or the third, or the fourth, or the fifth, and the sixth – well, it’s a matter of time until something else rounds the corner and Roden gets tired of polishing that dashing metal jaw in his ivory tower. (Roden, if you’re reading this, I’d love an autograph!) Perhaps Blaque will sit on the throne afterwards. Oh, man, what a treat that’d be, honestly. I’m not sure the Federation would stay stable for very long, and now that I’m thinking about it, maybe it’d not be so ideal; after all, all the public executions would just be replaced with disappearances. Where’s the fun in that? It’d be better to have it all in the town square. Instead of exile, why not just butcher them in the streets? It’s certainly more humaine than disease – but it’s all okay as long as we vote on it. People haven’t been wrong before.
Or is that just too much? It achieves the same thing, anyway. Oh, woe, I will never understand this Federation of mine, will I?
EDIT – I hit the wrong reply button so just ignore the ‘replying to’ thing on the top right, there.
Yet, the current President expresses sentiments such as:
“to return the Gallente Federation to the greatness that has been its undoubted destiny from the moment our peoples united to realize the historic project of universal freedom.”
At their own inauguration. Institutional reforms mean little if the essential culture that creates mistrust remains so prevalent within the Federation. The belief in a “manifest destiny” of the Federation has always been arrogance and the pursuit of power cloaked with noble intentions.
It remains a consistent belief, and so long as it does, and remains popular enough that Federal expansion of power must come at the expense of other societies in the name of “universal freedom” then the Federation will always be resisted in that attempt by those who value their own dignity.