Today, I want to be a member of a world government

I don't mean 'Today, I want to be a politician in a world government' (although I should get around to writing 'Today, I want to be a politician'). I mean I want to be a citizen of the world. (Thomas Paine: 'I am a citizen of the world and to do good is my religion' smart chap).

I read The Truth Machine a long time ago and loved the idea(s) presented there. After having read Little Brother they are a bit more disturbing. There, however, is some good that I find in world government, questions of privacy (e.g. can a world government, or any government, be effective if it allows for privacy considering that the ability to kill more and more is available to increasingly smaller groups of people?) aside. For example, there wouldn't be this SNAFU (look it up, it's educational) in Iraq. Removing Hussein from power, if we assume that was right and proper, would have been a police action not an act of war.

A necessary but not sufficient condition for a state (including a world state) is a currency. The EU, for example, has the Euro. I'd be throughly interested to see how (if we assume there would be sufficient agreement to move forward is possible) the arguments made concerning the basket of commodities to compose the currency. Or, of course, it could be a fiat currency but I fear Ron Paul may drop dead at the very mention. A proposed world currency, based on hard goods, is the Terra (you can also read the white paper [pdf]).

As we all now know, I love freedom-a lot-but I feel like things would be better and more stable for everyone if there was one, or three (triumvirate) or five (quintumvirate?), person/persons to whom the governments of the world must answer. I think we wouldn't be burdened with President Bush.

There are, obviously, problems with such a setup: how would the heads of planet be chosen especially considering all those who can neither read nor write nor get to a polling location? What would this do to national sovereignty? National identity? National cultures? Is the UN the starting place or should it be worked from the ground up? Where is the headquarters? I don't have answers, and they're not easy ones and I don't have quick and easy answers. The proposal of the necessity of world government (which I would make although I have not really done so here) will inflame a lot of people and although that's half the fun, hopefully it will not derail a project that is, ultimately and however unfortunately, necessary for the continued safety of the species.