Star Trek: Crime and Punishment...

billc

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This next article in a series on the politics of the original Star Trek looks at crime and punishment and the differences between conservative and liberal philosophies surrounding the issue...

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Hollywood/2012/03/30/politics-star-trek-conscience-king

A fundamental difference between conservatives and liberals involves the question of whether motives can excuse behavior. With rare exceptions, e.g. self-defense, conservatives judge people on their actions, not on what motivated those actions. Liberals, by comparison, take motives into account. This is why they consider things like root causes, the relative economic power of the parties, and whether the person’s goals outweigh the tactics they use to achieve those goals, i.e. whether their attempted ends justify their means. Conservatives reject this and look only at the means you have chosen. This episode comes down firmly on the conservative side.
For example, Leighton lies to bring the Enterprise to the planet, and Kirk reprimands him for it despite the extreme importance of his request. Kirk then engages in trickery himself and thereby alienates and endangers his friends and crew. Both times the message is that the ends, no matter how important, did not justify the chosen means. But the real focus is on Kodos. Here Kodos tries to justify his crimes to Kirk:
KARIDIAN: Kodos, whoever he was—
KIRK: Or is.
KARIDIAN: Or is. Kodos made a decision of life and death. Some had to die that others might live. You’re a man of decision, Captain. You ought to understand that.
KIRK: All I understand is that four thousand people were needlessly butchered.
KARIDIAN: In order to save four thousand others. And if the supply ships hadn’t come earlier than expected, this Kodos of yours might have gone down in history as a great hero.
KIRK: But he didn’t. And history has made its judgment.
KARIDIAN: If you’re so sure that I’m Kodos, why not kill me now? Let bloody vengeance take its final course! And see what difference it makes to this universe of yours.
KIRK: Those beautiful words, well acted, change nothing.

Kodos is walking through standard liberal arguments here. First he argues that he acted with the best of intentions. This is the argument liberals use to excuse abuses of power: that the ends were very important and justify the means. Then he argues that he deserves “understanding” because he was charged with making life and death decisions. This is moral relativism because it asks that he be judged under a different standard than others because of the circumstances he faced. This is the idea behind the liberal root-causes argument, which says that criminal behavior should be judged in light of a person’s economic circumstances or personal history. Finally, he argues that punishing him will not undo the crime. This is the liberal impulse to dismiss all aspects of criminal justice except reformation. Kodos essentially presents liberal criminal law in a nutshell.
 

Josh Oakley

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More partisan strawman rhetoric, huh?

Sent from my ADR6350 using Tapatalk
 

MA-Caver

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Spock: "Violation of the Prime Directive is punishable with the condemned's choice of death by hanging, death by phaser, death by transporter, death by..."
Harry Mudd: (interuppting) "y-yes, I get the picture Mr. Spock, the key word here is... d-d-de-death"
From the TOS episode: I-Mudd
 

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