Dragging Star Trek Into Election 2016
What Ted Cruz gets wrong about Star Trek, Washington Post
“Star Trek” Captain James T. Kirk is a Republican. That’s what Ted Cruz wants you to think, anyway. In an interview with the New York Times, Cruz argues that what makes Kirk, well, Kirk, are the very values that define the GOP. “I think it is quite likely that Kirk is a Republican and [Jean-Luc] Picard is a Democrat,” Cruz told the Times, suggesting that Picard Kirk’s successor as captain of the fictional USS Enterprise is too rational to be an effective leader. Cruz clearly believes that the country would benefit from having a Kirk-like figure in the White House. But as arguments for electing a Republican go, this is not a winning one.”
Star Trek wasn't political. I'm not political; I can't even vote in the US. So to put a geocentric label on interstellar characters is silly
— William Shatner (@WilliamShatner) July 23, 2015
– How Candidates Would Respond to an Angry E.T. Threat, earlier post (2012)
– Survey: Obama Would Protect Earth From Angry ETs Better Than Romney, earlier post (2012)
– President Visits Roswell, NM: “I Come in Peace”, earlier post (2012)
Cruz has it completely wrong. At the time it was well understood that Kirk was a John F. Kennedy Democrat. A 1960’s Cold Warrior, charismatic, youthful, courageous, impatient and willing to get into the face of the opponent, activist, promoting democratic ideals, making change happen. The opposite of the staid, conservative Eisenhower Republican.
Picard was also a Democrat, but the West Wing TV show type. (In all seriousness, I absolutely believe Prez Obama deliberately styled himself on Prez Jed Bartlet)
Well I think the question was more like “what party would he be a member of today?” I think you can make a solid case that today Kirk would be a Republican.
Not really sure of that. Kirk was proactive, constantly engaging in nation-building and spreading democratic ideals, civil rights, racial harmony. Roddenberry was and is widely reviled by the Right as being at least Socialist, if not a Communist.
“Kirk was proactive, constantly engaging in nation-building and spreading democratic ideals.”
Wouldn’t that describe George W. Bush too?
Also as a member of “the Right” I can tell you that I don’t revile Kirk or Picard.
Not trying to get in a word war here. Just trying to have an honest conversation
Bush certainly had aspects of the traditional Democrat. He was not part of the mainstream Republican isolationist stream He had to be quite apologetic about it.
http://www.washingtontimes….
Most parties encompass rather broad ranges. Because we are not a parliamentary system proportional representation and coalition governments, the main parties have Big Tents (altho the Republicans are being severely harmed by pushing themselves down into a pup tent)
Think of the Democrats – encompassing from Truman/ Kennedy/Johnson (my wing) and the Stevenson/Markey/Sanders wing (who I cherish).
Or The Republicans with the Goldwater/Bachmann wing to the Nelson Rockefeller/Portman wing.
Isolationism is not exactly in the Republican mainstream. In the 20’s and 30’s it was – “America First” and all that – but then the limits on non-involvement in world affairs was kind of forcibly demonstrated by World War 2. Whether or not one is interested in the World, the World is interested in you and said interest is often malign. Still true now.
The only prominent Republicans currently espousing such views are the Pauls, pere et fils, and said views are what will pretty much guarantee the junior Paul stays a niche figure in Republican politics. Until the emergence of the Pauls, old-fashioned America First isolationism had been absent from Republican politics for more than 70 years. Its latter-day reappearance, in a minor way, simply demonstrates that idiotic ideas having catastrophic consequences can always make a comeback once most of the people with personal memories of what a clusterf**k came of implementing them last time around have died off and been replaced by the historically clueless.
Mainstream, we Republicans are pragmatic internationalists. America needs to be actively involved in the world and, once in awhile, it can be necessary to cuff around some of the worst of the bad actors. History demonstrates the wisdom of doing this earlier rather than later when matters have had a chance to fester and metastasize.
Back when the late Sen. Henry “Scoop” Jackson was in his heyday, the mainstream of the Democratic Party thought the same way and U.S. foreign policy was not the subject of nearly so much disputation as currently. Even allowing for the modest recent re-emergence of “Paulism” in the Republican Party, the Democrats are far more isolationist and have been ever since the anti-anti-communist New Left took over the Democratic Party between 1968 and 1972.
Bush being opposed to “nation-building” in the abstract during the 2000 election didn’t make him an isolationist or even a non-interventionist. And it would be ludicrous to argue that his opponent that year, Al Gore, was in any way shape or form a Scoop Jackson Democrat.
Modern-day Democrats are not all invariably isolationist, either, but they are far more likely than Republicans to be militant non-interventionists and, by logical extrapolation, opponents of nation-building on foreign shores. If an initial military intervention is objectionable, after all, how much more objectionable must be a lengthy nation-building commitment following in its wake? Throw in the left-wing multiculturalist belief that all cultures – except that of the U.S., of course, oh, and of Israel – should be unconditionally respected and you wind up with the foreign policy of one Barack H. Obama.
Despite allegedly becoming a convert to nation-building, the case that GWB actually did so is belied by his actions in Iraq. It took roughly three weeks to effectively conquer the place in 2003. The original intent, after that, was to place a retired general in charge of the nation-building effort. But Bush called an audible on that play and put in the clueless civilian doofus Bremer instead with orders to turn things over to the Iraqis ASAP. Bremer did so appreciably faster than possible and the current mess in Iraq is, to a considerable degree, a consequence of the disastrous urge by both the Bush and Obama administrations to do the fastest bug-out from Iraq each could manage.
Bush should never have turned politcal control of Iraq back over to Iraqis after a mere fiddlin’ year. It took 10 years apiece before the U.S. allowed indigenous governments to be re-established in Japan and Germany after WW2 and both of those were, in fact, pre-existing nations, not arbitrary latter-day territories with boundaries drawn by a withdrawing briefly colonial power and populated by immemorially warring tribal barbarians. I believe a genuine nation might have been buildable in Iraq, but not in less than 25 years and it might well have taken longer. To imagine it was adequate to spend a tenth of the time given to rehabilitating Japan and Germany was lunacy on stilts. Obama’s precipitate bug-out was simply the last straw… scratch that; more like the last bale of hay.
There are a lot of malignant polities and failed states in the world. The majority are majority Islamic. There are also still two major powers – one rising, one fading – that wish the U.S. ill. That the latter pair will scheme to use the former against the U.S. to the maximum possible extent seems an obvious given. Jihadist crazies in quite a few places will require being dealt with before something resembling peace prevails in the world. We will, unless jihadist depredations directly discommodes them as well, get opposition rather than help from the Russians and Chinese in pursuit of Islamic pacification.
Leaving these people to their own “culture” is clearly not an option. The uncontrolled spread of toxic politico-religious aggression across borders is even more dangerous than the spread of toxic air or water pollutants across same. So we pretty much have two choices:
1) Nuke them to cinders, either serially or all at once.
2) A long campaign of what I’ll unabashedly call prophylactic neo-imperialism aimed at imposing normative civilized behavior on peoples with no cultural tradition of such.
Option 2 is expensive, slow and less certain of ultimate success, but much more humanitarian in the long-term.
Option 1 is quick, cheap and certain, but is not really in the American tradition – unless, of course, you buy the leftist version of the history of what became of the original Native American/First Nations population.
A third alternative in which everybody gets out alive I, frankly, do not see.
Is option 2 even doable? Can’t say with certainty.
But, returning to the original subject of this thread, the politics of Star Trek, the Klingon culture has a number of resemblances to current Islamic cultures. It is xenophobic and aggressive. It is also family and clan-based even though there is an overarching Empire, as there has often been in Islamic history.
As of TNG, though, Klingon culture had evolved sufficiently to permit the entire Empire’s entry into the Federation. Said entry was not without its bumps and scrapes, but it proved fairly durable. Star Trek is a work of fiction, to be sure, but it would be nice to think that – someday – we could all, as Rodney King famously put it “get along.”
Even in the Star Trek universe, though, this end was not achieved without some necessary bloodshed along the route of march.
honest conversation? hell, yeah! why else be here? This place is reasonably sheltered from the hostile and sour bile that plagues much of the interwebs.
Amen Yale!
I’m with you, Yale. And while I’m pretty far left on most things I do appreciate the opportunity to engage with other citizens with a different view point. Not so much to proselytize but to understand their views. And mine.
I also have a very low tolerance for disrespectful attitudes or name calling or assigning motivation with little to no knowledge of what actually informs the decisions of some of our leaders.
I’m willing to bet that exactly none of us knows what it’s like to sit in the chair behind the Resolute Desk and to keep from drowning in the tidal wave of issues that break over that desk. It sure easy for us to think we know, though.
Roddenberry had extremely weird ideas about economics but his Cold Warrior credentials were fine.
As would John Kennedy.
This is just beyond silliness. As a watcher of both TOS and TNG I can say that both Cap. Kirk and Cap. Picard would make excellent Presidents. That these authors would jump on Cruz and write a article talking about how bad a captain Kirk was just shows how desperate some people are to discredit others.
What’s next? Will Marco Rubio be blasted for liking Thomas the Tank Engine over Winnie the Pooh. Will Scott Walker be chastised because he likes the Cookie Monster more than Big Bird. These authors need to get a life.
I’m pretty sure that Thomas could out run Winnie.
It was Cruz who brought it up. Adds yet more to this wacky political silly season.
As Willie Wonka wisely stated,
” A little nonsense. now and then, is relished by the wisest men.”
Actually it was the NYT reporter who brought it up:
Q: “You’re also a fan of ‘‘Star Trek.’’ Do you prefer Captain Kirk or Captain Picard?”
A: “Absolutely James Tiberius Kirk.”
Q: “Do you have a suspicion about whether Kirk would be a Democrat or a Republican?”
A: ” I think it is quite likely that Kirk is a Republican and Picard is a Democrat.”
You’re right. A better question would have been – “Who would win in a Death Match? Jeannie (From I Dream of Jeannie) or Samantha, from Bewitched?
Not that you asked, but I vote Samantha because even with her weaker witch powers than Jeannie’s unlimited Genie Power, Sam was much sharper.
Any other opinions out there?
Jeannie would kick her behind.
Sam would roll some sparkly baubles toward her and as Jeannie reached for them Samantha would twitch her nose and ice her.
http://www.factpile.com/wp-…
The fictional character Captain Kirk would have belonged to my club! So would Lincoln and Washington and Churchill.
But not Kaa-aahn. No sir. Or Hitler, or Stalin, or Chamberlain.They would have belonged to your club!
{sigh}
Hey what ever club we have would have Chamberlain in it. He may have been a failure but he was not part of the League of Evil Dudes. He was in the Justice League side of the fence, just no superpowers.
Not tracking you. Obama definitely primarily Spockesque, cool and cerebral and reflective. He does share aspects of Kirk’s traditional Democrat cold warrior wing (my permanent home), fighting 2 conventional wars at the same time while blasting the bejesus out of anyone anywhere with no regard to international rules while also getting into russia’s and iran’s faces.
The differences between Kirk and Picard are profound. Picard likes to talk philosophy, feelings and is ready to cuddle with the enemy. Kirk was endowed with a preternatural sense of survival on behalf of his ship and crew (read: country). He knew when to go shields up, kick arse and take names ahead of the invasion. Something that is in short supply among the current poli-zeitgeist.
“Picard likes to talk philosophy, feelings and is ready to cuddle with the enemy.”
Huh? Someone needs to actually watch Next Gen.
Precisely. It’s interesting though, one of the primary tenets of the universe (maybe the real world too?) is that the captain and first officer both complement and need each other in battles and in their general mission.
In TNG you have a cerebral captain (Picard) and a brash first officer (Riker), though both were hardly as extreme in their personalities as the brash captain
(Kirk) and cerebral science officer who was essentially second in command (Spock) in TOS.
So George W is Kirk and Chaney is Spock
And
George 41 is Picard and Riker is Dan Quayle
Cheney as Spock? now there’s something that made me laugh coffee all over the screen.
Cheney is what is charitably called a pseudo intellectual. A guy who looks for reasons to support conclusions (which I admit is a human frailty shared by many, including yours truly from time to time, but then again I didn’t look for reasons to lead a nation into war).
Cheney was not on Star Trek, he was on the Simpsons
http://www.pensitoreview.co…
I think Cheney was a lot less likable than Mr. Burns.
Mr. Cheney is so unlikable that he gave himself a heart attack.
That, and a lifelong consumption of steak.
Don’t let him hear say that when he is carrying a shotgun loaded with bird-shot.
Also TOS. Kirk didn’t mind a bit of cuddling…
And Riker didnt mind cuddling with anything available, either 🙂
“Back in High school, my buddies tried to put the moves on anything that moves and I told them “why limit yourself?””
– Emo Phillip
Emo was a comic giant.
My favorite Emo, “I’ll never forget my grandfather’s last words… A TRUCK!”
The big difference is not the men. It’s that despite their highly technical jobs, the women on the original show dressed in skirts and heels. In the later shows the women not only dressed for work, they were tough when the job called for it.
Not in the original version of Star Trek, the first officer was a female wearing pants. Roddenberry couldn’t sell it so he switched to short skirts. You can see the original pilot as the two part glass menagei
That’s just plain “The Menagerie.” “The Glass Menagerie” is a Tennessee Williams stage play.
NO!
I will not sacrifice the Enterprise.
We’ve made too many compromises already.
Too many retreats.
They invade our space, and we fall back.
They assimilate entire worlds, and we fall back.
Not again.
The line must be drawn HERE.
This far, NO FURTHER.
And I.
Will make them PAY.
For what they’ve done!
– Jean Luc Picard
Could have been said by Democrats Prez Harry Truman or John Kennedy.
True. But not by Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton or Barack Obama. And thereby hangs a tale.
James Tiberius Kirk worked with a multi ethnic multi racial bridge crew that understood science ( planetary atmospheric science) most if not all of our Republican [deleted] don’t know much about either
hmm.
[deleted] = ‘friends’? ‘fellow citizens’? Is that what you meant?
No Keith deleted a profanity that pertains to republicans
–
The current Republican presidential field of 16 includes two men of differing Hispanic heritages, a black, a woman and a son of Indian immigrants – roughly as diverse as the bridge crew of the TOS Enterprise. Several are still in their 40’s. There is even a candidate who habitually wears what appears to be a Tribble on his head! 🙂
The current Democratic presidential field of four includes three men and one woman, all of them white and all but one well beyond normal retirement age.
As for “planetary atmospheric science” the Republican field seems generally pretty well able to distinguish actual scientifically-based Shinola from politically-motivated s**t.
Actually, its the utter opposite.
Please tell us what planetary atmospheric science is “politically-minded s**t.” While you’re at it, provide scientific evidence that proves said science is wrong.
By the 22nd century, it was abundantly clear that political parties did nothing to advance the interests of humanity, or its advance into the galaxy. The United Earth government, acting on the need to never again repeat the disasters of the 20th and 21st centuries, recognized no political party membership.
I think it is quite likely that either the senator is in need of remedial coursework in history. No Starfleet captain would ever claim 500 year old terrestrial tribal associations. It was these kinds of emotional projections that lead to all the horrifying disasters in the first place.
They also eschew money. And capitalism as an ancient plague.
We will have a Kirk-like figure, but it certainly won’t be Cruz. All indications are that it will be Donald Trump. Whether you love him or hate him, he is the man everyone loves to watch.
Trump most likely thinks of himself as Spock
Kirk was never my favorite, but I cannot abide that sort of comparison. Kirk is an exaggerated character, but he possesses <0.1% of Trump’s self-infatuated douchiness.
Swagger, though. You have to admit, the guy has got some serious chutzpah. Just like Kirk.
You didn’t like what I said the first time? Forget an apology, I’m going to say something even more extreme along the same lines!
Kirk never had chutzpah. Trump is only chutzpah.
The traditional meaning of chutzpah is an insult. It is a Yiddish word that means unmitigated disgusting arrogance and gall. The classic story defining chutzpah is – A man murders his mother and father and when dragged before a judge, he demands mercy because he is only a poor orphan.
You never want someone to admire your chutzpah. Its like admiring your hemorrhoid.
Unfortunately, this quite useful word has been watered down to mean audacious. Too bad.
Similar things happened to other good words like “awesome”. Awesome means something that fills one with awe, often used in the context of confronting the Face of a Deity.
“overwhelming and bewildering sense of connection with a startling universe that is usually far beyond the narrow band of our consciousness.”
Now it means “mildly nice”.
Well there are many others as well.
Terrific (terrifying), Incredible (not credible),
Great (very large), Fantastic (of fantasy or imagination).
In general I think we have to go with common usage because you usually can’t fight it. There is one that bothers me quite a bit even though it is overwhelmingly common: Nauseous.
People use it to describe how they feel instead of “nauseated”. But in reality, nauseous things are what can MAKE you feel nauseated. Essentially they’re claiming to be nauseating.
You ever read Brians Errors? ( http://public.wsu.edu/~bria… ) It’s pretty entertaining (and informative). Here is his entry on “bumrush/bum’s rush”:
A 1987 recording by the rap group Public Enemy popularized the slang term “bumrush” as a verb meaning “to crash into a show hoping to see it for free,” evidently by analogy with an earlier usage in which it meant “a police raid.” In the hip-hop world to be “bumrushed” (also spelled as two words) has evolved a secondary meaning, “to get beaten up by a group of lowlifes, or ‘bums’.”
However, older people are likely to take all of these as mistakes for the traditional expression “bum’s rush,” as in “Give that guy the bum’s rush,” i.e. throw him out unceremoniously, treating him like an unwanted bum. It was traditionally the bum being rushed, whereas in the newer expressions the bums are doing the rushing. It’s good to be aware of your audience when you use slang expressions like this, to avoid baffling listeners.
Side note: Britons laughed themselves silly when they saw Americans wandering around in sportswear with “B.U.M.” plastered in huge letters across their chests. “Bum” means “rear end” in the UK
Altho I am always thoroughly irritated by everything, I accept that language will always be what people say. Even France which has Language Police can’t control it (and shouldn’t). I just regret losing useful words.
Agree, though, like you, I still put up a probably doomed resistance to some of the more idiotic neologisms and usages.
The French thing is kind humorous and pathetic all at once. I remember reading years ago that the Academie Francaise had developed a lengthy glossary of approved terms for computer-related stuff in an attempt to stem the widespread habit of most young French people to just use “le” or “la” in front of whatever English borrowed word was germane, e.g., “le computer” or “le PC” instead of the Academy-endorsed “l’ordinateur.”
Most Europeans aren’t nearly that anal, thank goodness. When I was working overseas for a couple years in the late 70’s I remember asking an Italian computer operator what the Italian phrase for “disk drive” was. “Disk drive,” he said.
Good to know, so it’s sort of like the phrase “running amok”, which is now be used to describe the behavior of toddlers, but is actually a Malay term used to describe a mass killing by a single disturbed individual.
I’ve known toddlers like that!
Trump has the traditional definition nailed down. I must say, if I had a hemorrhoid, I’d admire it long before I cast any admiration Trump’s way.
I’m also really put off by Trump always wearing a dead tribble on his head.
lol
What makes you think it’s dead? I think its a couple of live ones mating.
For years a man passes an old woman in the street. She’s selling day old bread, sitting on a broken chair, leaning forward on a cane. She’s dirty and half-blind.
He doesn’t need the bread but out of charity he leaves a quarter every day. This goes on for years. She never says a word. He leaves the money on the table, but takes no bread.
One day as usual he leaves a quarter for her. Immediately she raps him with a cane.
“It’s fifty cents now”, she says.
chutzpah.
The final candidates from each party will likely not be Kirk-like. The current real candidates are Bush and Clinton (might change). Bloviating blowhards always lead the polls at this time – think Bachmann, for example. They are flashes-in-the-pan. It ended up Obama v Romney.
I wouldn’t count on that. While I don’t see Trump winning the Republican nomination, I can see him deciding to run as an independent. That could really turn the race upside down. The man has enough money to do that, and his ego knows no bounds.
We will see Trump in the debates, and I don’t doubt he’ll attack his opponents as aggressively as he has been doing.
I don’t disagree at all about him possibly going independent. I have been hoping for it! I will post his signs on my lawn and pass out bumper stickers for him. He will be the gift that keeps on giving.
It is as a front runner within the GOP primaries fading out that I see him as a flash in the pan.
I love watching him. Here’s my favorite video from a charity roast:
https://www.youtube.com/wat…
I think mixing real life politics with fiction is very distracting. There are political realities which just about everyone struggles to find a “correct” answer. Fiction has advantages of a single person with pen and paper (or typewriter or word processor) can use his or her imagination for a catchy story/plot/scenerio to conclude a storyline. Mixing the two adds confusion because everyone can interpret or re-write stories. Dealing with economic, domestic, and foreign matters is real world and if not done right can be disastrous. You cannot turn off a war like the TV set.
Yet I’ve heard it said that the reason many young people don’t find NASA exciting is that we do not have warp engines.
I feel sad for the people that have said that.
My initial interest in space and science was driven not only by watching everything I could about the Apollo program and everything that followed but also by all of the sci-fi stuff I’ve read and watched. All the science that I’ve studied as an undergrad and then as a grad student only made more interested.
With that said, I’m very discouraged by what I read in internet comment sections on science blogs or Facebook science pages.
I’ve no idea what the solution would turn that uninformed tide.
Quark???? Man, I really don’t get that comparison at all.
If you want to pick a character from DS9 whose personality is like Obama’s, a short, outburst-prone, extroverted Ferengi is the VERY last choice. I guess their skin color is the same. Did you watch the show?
Also, if your intent is to simply insult Obama, at least go with something plausible. Say that he’s a Cardassian or a Romulan.
He really gets your goat. Just wait till after the next election. She will really tick you off! ;-P
Yep! She could start off by just firing everybody!
Hillary is the new Janeway. Annoying but fully in charge.
Probably more accurate to say that Mr. Obama had no space-related platform, other than a few comments. He was dealing with some larger issues at the time.
January was an irritating den mother. I mean I really really wanted to love Voyager- and watched all of them- but god she was irritating.
As ridiculous as all of this is, what’s more disturbing is that William Shatner appears to think that he *is* James T. Kirk.
Not unusual. James Doohan could not find work after Star Trek because “No one had a role for a Scotsman” (he was Canadian). Leonard Nimoy felt so typecast he wrote a book titled “I am not Spock”. But Cruz should know that Kirk served the United Federation of Planets. As in the UN, but more so.
I know, but Shatner replied as Shatner. Shatner is Canadian, Shatner isn’t political. Cruz wasn’t referring to Shatner, but to Kirk. Shatner responded as Shatner, presuming that Shatner = Kirk. That’s just weird.
Now I’m confused.
Shatner is political. He just can’t vote in the US.
I guess Adam West is the saddest case of typecasting.
I’d say the Federation was a lot more like NATO than the U.N. The U.N.has no standing military and the pick-up teams of “peacekeepers” it scrounges up are many times a pretty rum lot.
You are conflating “starfleet” – the defense and exploratory arm, with The Federation, as a whole – ” The planetary governments agree to exist semi-autonomously under a single central government based on the Utopian principles of universal liberty, rights, and equality, and to share their knowledge and resources in peaceful cooperation and space exploration”
The Federation seems to be a mutual benefit alliance which respects “States Rights” by not meddling in too much detail in the internal affairs of planetary members. Part of its ability to do that, though, is a requirement that prospective Federation members must first have achieved a unitary “One-World” government on their home planet and pre-Federation colonies. TOS never got into that level of political detail, but I recall this restriction being explicitly laid out at least once in a TNG episode though I can’t recall the title off-hand.
Federation “meddling,” though, is not completely abjured. ST:DS9 made it clear that caste-based societies, for example, were disqualified from Federation membership even if they were “One-World” in extent. What little of the Federation’s founding documents are seen within the various ST series are based on paraphrases of the U.N. Charter. Given that there is also an enforceable charter of individual rights, the Federation is also a constitutional republic like the United States.
Within the Federation, individual member governments and coalitions seem able to make agreements among themselves without much Federation restriction. Whether the Federation requires a United States- or European Common Market-like lack of restrictions on the movement of persons and goods among member states is unclear. Given the often xenophobic proclivities of many Federation member worlds and imperia, I am inclined to doubt this – the TNG-era Klingons don’t seem natural “Open Borders” types, for instance – but who knows. I don’t recall these issues ever coming up in any episode of any of the ST series.
So it seems that “foreign policy” within the Federation is largely whatever the Federation members agree among themselves, but external foreign policy and matters affecting defense of the overall Federation are decided by the Federation Council and implemented by Starfleet. That’s particularly true of dealing with physical threats from external sources such as the Klingon and Romulan Empire in Kirk’s time, or the Romulans, Cardassians, Delta Quadrant Founders and the Borg in Picard, Janeway and Sisko’s time.
It is clear that Starfleet has a unified command structure and that it draws from many member worlds with respect to even its highest-ranking officers. But, being American TV productions, the various Star Treks show Starfleet to be pretty heavily Earth- and America-centric – Starfleet Academy is in San Francisco, for example. In that sense, Starfleet is very NATO-esque. The Federation, itself, began as a project of Earth’s government and the dominant social order on Earth from the 22nd Century and beyond is based on current U.S. norms.
Maybe, maybe not. I do think his Twitter response to the topic of this discussion was spot on.
The first time television ever showed white and black characters kissing, it was Uhura and Kirk. That’s Republican?
Slavery, the Confederate States of America and Jim Crow were all projects of the Democratic Party. At the time he was turning attack dogs and firehoses on Civil Rights marchers in Selma, Sheriff Bull Connor was also serving on the Democratic National Committee. Check the number of Republicans who voted for the 1964 Civil Rights Act versus the number of Democrats.
The Plato’s Stepchildren episode ran less than three weeks after the presidential election of 1968 in which long-time Democrat and segregationist icon George Wallace ran for president on an explicitly segregationist platform.
Your previous posts indicate a considerable familiarity with space history, but this one suggests your knowledge of U.S. political history is seriously deficient. It also suggests you are an uncritical consumer of the present-day phony Democratic revisionist history that posits Republicans as the historically racist party in U.S. politics.
Get a clue.
The term “get a clue” is flaming.
The Republican Party of Lincoln in 1861 and the Southern Dixiecrats wing of the Democrats of the Civil Rights era are the exact and utter opposite of what they are in recent time.
The southern Republican of today is the direct political descendant of southern Democrat of the past. The party labels simply swapped (the technical term is “political realignment”) as a direct plan of Goldwater, Nixon, Reagan, et al:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wi…
I think you are engaging it a bit of revisionism.
BTW – Your statement “presidential election of 1968 in which long-time Democrat and segregationist icon George Wallace ran for president on an explicitly segregationist platform.” is rather misleading since Wallace ran as a THIRD PARTY CANDIDATE AGAINST THE DEMOCRATS!
Also it is bad use Sheriff Bull Connor as an example of a real modern Democrat. Here is a little NON-REVISIONIST history. “During the 1948 Democratic National Convention, Connor led the Alabama delegation in a walkout when the national party included a civil rights plank in its platform.The offshoot States’ Rights Democratic Party (Dixiecrats) nominated Strom Thurmond for president at its convention in Birmingham’s Municipal Auditorium“
Later Strom Thurmond became a Republican.
The term “get a clue” is flaming.
The phrase “get a clue” is a reasonable admonition in response to flagrant obtuseness.
Entire sentences in bolded caps, on the other hand…
The southern Republican of today is the direct political descendant of southern Democrat of the past.
Genetic descendants in some cases, sure. Attitudinal descendants, not so much.
Even with respect to party loyalties, majority Republicanism in the South is a recent and spotty phenomenon. Most Southerners have voted Republican for President in recent elections, but still voted mostly Democratic in local and state elections until the last few years. The racist Democrats of the 1960’s and before resolutely refused to vote Republican precisely because of Mr. Lincoln and the Civil War. Memories, and grudges, are long in the South. Hatfields? McCoys? Hello?
I’ve indulged no revisionism. The Dixiecrats – whom I didn’t even bring up; thanks for doing so – were dissident Democrats, as was George Wallace’s American Independent Party. Both were outgrowths of the sizable caucus within the Democratic Party at the time of irredentist racists. The fact that they’ve mostly died off and been replaced by more reasonable people since doesn’t mean they never existed. Nothing I said was false or intended to mislead.
As for Strom Thurmond becoming a Republican to oppose the 1964 Civil Rights Act, that was more a gesture of disgust with his former party than an endorsement of Republicanism. There were some Republicans who opposed the Civil Rights Act on the basis of it being an unwarranted expansion of federal power – Barry Goldwater was one of them – but these were outnumbered by Republicans who considered it a warranted exercise of federal power and without whose support it would not have passed. Goldwater’s lack of racist motivation for his position is perhaps best illustrated by noting that he desegregated the Arizona Air National Guard in 1946, two years before Harry Truman did likewise for all U.S. Armed services.
You still have it totally backwards.
You totally ignored your misleading comments about Wallace, you completely ignored your misleading comments about Bull Connor. You completely ignored the difference between the original Republican Party of Lincoln and its current rebirth from the Dixiecrats., etc, etc, etc.
You totally ignored the complete political realignment deliberately driven as the Southern Strategy. I linked an interview with one of the Republican architects of the strategy and you again ignored it.
Also “get a clue” is flaming.
“Misleading” seems, in your mind, to be a shorthand replacement for the phrase “something I wish wasn’t true, so I’ll just deny.” Wallace spent most of his career as a Democrat including all of his time in office. Bull Connor was on the Democratic National Committee. You’re entitled to your own opinion, but not to make up “facts” simply because you don’t find the actual history of things politcally congenial in the present day.
As noted in your referenced link, there was a Southern Strategy, but as explicitly laid out there, it was exclusively a product of Richard Nixon and his minions for the 1968 campaign, not of the Republican party as a whole. You gratuitously roped in two entirely uninvolved persons, Barry Goldwater and Ronald Reagan, who had nothing in common with Richard Nixon other than their names being reflexive curse words to Democrats and the American Left in general.
Goldwater was, as I noted, pro-civil rights “before it was cool.” Reagan got into Republican politics as a Goldwater supporter. Neither had much use for Richard Nixon, Goldwater even once breaking “the 11th Commandment” of speaking no ill of fellow Republicans to call Nixon “the most dishonest individual I have ever met in my life.” Goldwater was foremost among the committee of Republican “wise men” who counseled Nixon to resign rather than be impeached and removed in 1974. Goldwater, in typical fashion, was said to have put the case to Nixon that he needed to go the most bluntly of those present.
As for the Southern Strategy itself, it worked for Nixon in 1968, but was not notably successful below the level of presidential politics. The Solid South has been trending more and more Republican even as racial attitudes there have turned very much around over the past five decades.
This slow transformation is owed, at least in part, to the unceasing vituperation and scorn heaped on white Southerners by the Democratic party in the ensuing decades as the Democratic party, itself, became more an more an East and West Coast regional party and spiraled ever further out into political correctness-driven La La Land. All that inbred racist hillbilly rhetoric from Democrats eventually got the message through.
So the idea that Southern whites are now majority Republican voters because of what Kevin Phillips and Richard Nixon did almost five decades ago is simply nonsense. The current white adult population of the South was entirely unborn in 1968. The then-adult white population of the South is, in 2015, mostly dead and buried. The Solid Republican South at local, state and Congressional levels is a recent phenomenon and in no way attributable to the long dead racist appeals of the long dead Richard Nixon.
I know it’s a commonplace belief among Democrats that white Southerners are all drooling, toothless, bib-overalled Kluxers with Confederate battle flag decals plastered all over their decrepit pickup trucks, but, like much else also devoutly believed by Democrats, it doesn’t happen to be true.
If it was true, it would be hard to explain the recent significant black migration from many of the “failed state” urban areas of the North and West – all run by Democrats and many run by black Democrats – back to the states of the Old Confederacy. Most American blacks are not culturally white, of course, but they are culturally Southern. No matter how disconcerting this may seem to Coastal white Democrats, many black people have decided that, as long as they’re going to be living around a lot of whites anyway, they’d prefer it to be around whites with whom they have more in common – grits, black-eyed peas, sweet potato pie, fried chicken, evangelical and fundamentalist Christianity, a drawl in one’s speech – that kind of stuff.
James T. Kirk was the first white man on television to kiss a black woman. And he never missed a chance to take off his shirt. Definitely a Democrat.
Kirk was about integration, integrating with alien women, green women, and just about any type of woman period.
The kiss wasn’t voluntary on either side but forced by telekinetic aliens. Both parties to it would have abjured it because it would violate Starfleet anti-fraternization rules with respect to the chain of command. Not exactly Kennedy-esque or Clinton-esque in that respect. Republican is still a very defensible proposition.
I can only assume you are being playful and don’t actually miss the point. It was not that it was “involuntary” because of alien mind control, it was that an interracial couple in a televised drama engaged in sexual contact!
Roddenberry was a left wing idealist. Any number of episodes dealt with discrimination, political repression of economic and political classes, etc. Painting the issues in terms of fictional starfleet rules is not appropriate.
Hey, the kiss happened, absolutely. Just pointing out that it was hedged a lot compared to Kirk’s other copious lip-locks with a broad range of space broads and even a couple of androids (episodes “What are Little Girls Made of?” and “Requiem for Methuselah”).
Momentary Digression: Why did female androids of the 23rd Century have emotions, while Data, in the 24th Century did not? How did Dr. Soong not know of the discoveries of Dr. Korby and the original work of Flint? Just askin’.
Just pointing out that it would have been far more groundbreaking, especially in 1968, if Kirk had pursued a fully voluntary torrid romance of equals with, say, another Starfleet ship’s captain played by, say, Barbara McNair or Diahann Carroll. Making a Starfleet ship’s captain a woman would have, arguably, been even edgier than making her black in 1966-69.
He was libertarian at the beginning.
How true!
Shatner was being a bit untrue about not being political.
He has supported Hilary Clinton, spoken out on environmental issues, re-distribution of wealth, etc. He was a actor for a number of years on law show, The Practice, which was very, very, left wing.
My comment has nothing to do with Donald Trump, but is instead aimed at Bil Shatner’s comment. I agree with his sentiment, but there is little way around it, Star Trek was VERY political. The Klingon’s were an obvious analogy for the Soviet’s, and many episodes took dead aim at the civil rights movement (in support of the movement)! The original series had many episodes that hinted at the cultural revolution of the time and also on the dangers of nuclear weapons. The show was very political!
The show was way ahead of its time, not as much for the special effects and science fiction them but mostly because of the social commentary woven into virtually every episode.