How can any decent person be a SW stormtrooper fan?

I figure it like this, if the stormtrooper fires and hits what he's aiming at, he's a clone.

If a dozen stormtroopers spray the room with weapons fire and miss the four Heroes standing in the middle of the room, they're not clones.

Simply.

 

The Empire was never legitimate.

 

Given how incompetant Stormtroopers are in the OT, maybe they're conscripts refusing to put the effort into a job they don't want. Then they're not evil, they're just doing what they're forced to do.

For that matter, a good portion of Nazi soldiers were conscripts who really didn't believe in Nazi ideals. They served primarily out of fear of saying no.

 

But it was the government, and indeed most of its higher up military officers (Admiral Piett, General Veers, even Admiral Ozzle) weren't really evil people, just people doing their jobs. Those jobs put them on the side we consider the bad guys, but they weren't really bad guys.

 

And yet the majority of the Galactic Senate supported the reorganization of the Republic into the Empire and supported Palpatine's Declaration of a New Order. What is that but legitimacy?

 

In reality...knowing the full truth? No, it wasn't. But to the majority of the Empire's subjects and citizens it was a legitimate government in large part because when he proclaimed himself Emperor and seized almost total power Palpatine spun the lie that the Jedi had attempted to overthrow democracy and seize control of the Old Republic, an act of supreme, horrific treachery that necessitated a state of emergency and reorganization of the Republic into an authoritarian Empire to ensure "a safe and secure society." To most citizens, the Emperor was a savior who rescued the decaying Republic from collapse by altering it into a much more powerful and stable regime that guaranteed peace and security under the banner of a ruler for life who had been a trusted and beloved Supreme Chancellor before and during the Clone Wars.

In short, most subjects liked or even loved Palpatine because of his 13 years in elected office before the birth of the Empire. Why wouldn't they? He defeated the Separatists, won the Clone Wars and brought peace and prosperity.

 

I'd go as far as to say for the majority it didn't even matter. A Empire of hundreds of worlds, most of them would just shrug and say "New face, different day, same bullshit" as they made their way to work. The how and why he came to power likely didn't even matter to a lot of people so long as nothing changed for them.

Let's play it this way:

I have no problem imaging some teenager signing up for a hitch in the Imperial Armed Forces to get the hell away from his abusive parents and out of a dead in city on a dead in planet. Joins up, does a couple of hitches, gets his "GI Bill" (or whatever the Imperial version is), goes to school, and moves on with his life. To him the stormtroopers are the best damn thing ever to happen to him, same with the Emperor.

 

Yet you often see people arguing that the Jedi were the real problem in the PT.

 

Well the Jedi are kind of twisted. They basically abduct infants from their families and force them into an obligation they have no say in. So you're three years old, you got a 900 year old alien shorter than you handing you a lightsabre and telling you you have to be one of the galaxy's elite defenders just because of bacteria swimming in your blood. And all you want is to see mommy and daddy.

This is better than the Empire? At leas the Empire presumably waits until you're legally an adult (18 or so) before they force you to fight their battles for them.

 

If "basically abduct" means "get parental consent", then yes.

Well, now you've seen one more.

 

There was no evidence in the films whatsoever that that was how the younglings felt. Given the interview that Anakin went through, I'd say it's likely that any potential younglings who might have emotional problems were not even brought to the Temple in the first place. Anakin was an exception who the Council was already predisposed to reject.

 

^
Agreed, and that's the implication in books and graphic novels. The Jedi identified infants and very small children that were strong in the Force with high midichlorian counts and brought them to the Temple on Coruscant as well as other testing locations. Once there if they experienced problems that would interfere with or even outright prevent their training as younglings in such groups as Yoda's Bear Clan they would be returned to the love and care of their parents or guardians on their respective homeworlds. Anakin was accepted almost solely on the grounds of the prophecy of the Chosen One and Qui-Gon Jinn's vehement insistence...the Council had great respect for Qui-Gon in spite of his frequent headbutting with its members on issues. Anakin was almost ten years old, full of anger and fear and much too headstrong to be accepted into Jedi training under any normal circumstances.

As Qui-Gon himself told Anakin's mother: "Had he been born in the Republic we would have identified him early." The only things that saved him were the prophecy and a strong-willed Jedi Master who sacrificed his own life in battle.

 

The funny (or sad) thing is that Lucas made it seem the complete opposite with the edits to the Original Trilogy. The whole celebrations on every planet at the end of ROTJ makes it seem like the Empire was a totally oppressive police state, whereas every other piece of canon literature shows that outside of outlawing Jedi things really didn't change that much for the individual. At least on planets outside of the Core Worlds or strategically important worlds where the Empire had garrisons and a Moff presence. But even then the Moffs weren't universally nasty.

 

This is NOT a lie. Mace Windu was planning on executing Palpatine in cold blood and then purging the Senate of any Senator that he deemed "corrupt". He was certainly trying to overthrown a legitimately elected government.

I think the EU canon is that the Empire is oppressive, nasty and unpopular in the areas outside of the Core worlds where it's less wealthy and where there is more nonhumans while enjoying more popular support in the more human centric worlds that make up the Core.

 

Like I said, the Empire was completely illegitimate. Palpatine had no actual claim to power. Everything that got him there was based on subterfuge, lies, murder and corruption.

It wasn't that Mace *deemed* Palpatine corrupt. Palps WAS corrupt. We've all seen it. It's completely obvious that was the case.

 

I don't recall Mace Windu saying anything about purging the Senate in Revenge of the Sith. Did I miss such a line somewhere?

As for Windu's intention to summarily execute Palpatine? Well, let's rewind just a bit in ROTS.

Windu and three other Jedi went to arrest Palpatine on charges of being the Sith Lord behind the Separatist movement threatening the Republic, to be tried before the Senate. But Sidious mowed down three of the Jedi immediately, leaving just Windu. Thanks to poor writing, it's unclear exactly why Mace had a change of heart. Perhaps he had a vision of the future that would result were Palpatine to stand trial. In any case, it was only because of the treasonous manipulations of Chancellor Palpatine that Mace Windu found it necessary to choose to summarily execute him. A lie of omission is still a lie, and it was a lie that Windu was attempting to overthrow a legitimate government of the Republic. Chancellor Palpatine had accumulated power by multiple treasonous acts. There was nothing legitimate about his leadership.

 

Mace and the Jedi weren't overthrowing democracy. They were attempting to remove an evil and power-hungry Sith Lord from the office of Supreme Chancellor where had masqueraded as the good guy and champion of justice and liberty for the previous 13 years and tricked and lied the entire galaxy into a bloody war for his own empowerment and benefit.

Palpatine did lie. The Jedi weren't trying to abolish democracy and seize dictatorial control of the Republic. They were trying to oust a wolf in sheep's clothing who had fooled the entire known galaxy into thinking he was a man who believed in freedom and democracy when he really wanted to destroy the Jedi and impose a dark Sith order over the Republic.

 

Agreed. People who dress up as zombies are not supporting cannibalism. Any more than a six-year-old dressed up as Dracula is advocating bloodlust, necrophilia, and the historical atrocities of Vlad the Impaler . . .

It's all just make-believe and harmless fun, at least when it comes to imaginary characters out of fantasy and science fiction.

Dressing up as a Borg or Dr. Doom is NOT the same thing as dressing up as a Nazi or a member of the Klu Klux Klan--because most people understand the difference between fantasy and history.

We get a ton of little vampires, witches, Jasons, and Freddy's every Halloween. Trust me, they're adorable, not morally upsetting . . . .

 

"Surely you don't think Gilligan's Island is a-"

"Those poor people."

 

Affirmative. Clone Wars-specific little kids' merchandise is all over the shelves, and the show airs on a network primarily devoted to kids' TV.