Robert Beltran says the Prime Directive is 'fascist crap'

Fascism is just his shorthand for being nasty.

 

If a species was facing certain extinction, why would salvation necessarily have to be "covert?"

The second worst thing that could happen is they would realize what actually took place.

The first worst thing would be everyone becoming dead.

 

The whole stinks of social darwinism part.

 

Oh, it's the white man's burden, isn't it? These poor uneducated savages, they NEED us to come in and 'educate' them on how terrible they are by our more enlightened standards. Let's take control of their crops and show them the better way. I mean, they'll WORK the crops, of course, and we'll take a cut for our enlightened, not-at-all selfish interference. Toodle-pip, no harm done!

 

Like what for example?

 

Well, there was Communism, for example. In fact, scholars can't agree on how many tens of millions it has sent to an early death.

Both are totalitarian systems, so sometimes people confuddle them. But actually they are quite disparate philosophies.

(DISCLAIMER: Now please, I realize this post mentions both fascism and communism, but if you read closely, you may confirm that it is not actually endorsing either one. Pitchforks at parade rest, please)...!

This discussion reminds me a bit of the photojournslist's dilemma: their function is actually to be the eyes of the world. They ARE helping, by doing their jobs. But should they drop the camera to save a life? OK, that's noble, to put a victim's life ahead of your own livelihood and professional integrity. But what if your story could have saved thousands of lives? Still so sure about being that noble creature? I really don't think the right answer is so simple or pat.

Nor would I think racial mockery in forward or reverse is particularly accurate to the geographical & economic factors at work in contact points - in socities real or fictional. None of these people are driven by glee. They each have stakes.

Just for example - one misstep on planet Backwater XVIII could divide your populace in the Federation proper and even risk dissention and revolt. So you can see where, as a matter of policy, they don't leave it in Captains' hands, but Federation Counsel's - and tell captains "You know, don't even touch the can of worms".

Or else, you find yourselves obligated to save all planets from all problems, making these gullible societies (like the Ocampa or the Edo) in your image. Now what is arrogant? Are you gonna fight a big transdimensional entity for liberation of the Edo? And then pat their behinds and send them on their merry way? Or take over as their caretaker?

Or are you going to say, let's study them and learn what is going on before we draw up our contact policy?

(But I'm not taking a position against the needs of Story Plot, which always wins).

 

Are you saying that the prime directive is an example of communism?

 

No, it is a fiction; but then again, so is communism, so....

I was saying I got your point, though you generalized mass murder as fascism to make it. Yes of course there are other examples of mass murder, that wasn't really the point you seemed to be making. So I hope readers will pardon my little side trip into Example Land.

But yeah, it is kind of an interesting question, Trek's Liberal Utopia: no money, common good, mainstream atheism (and subtle condescension of belief systems it "tolerates"), state-distributed resources, greedy admirals bastardizing the narrative....

But it's not just that, of course, since people in Trek do seem to profit directly from their efforts - Ezri's family's mining operation, for example. To be wholly accurate, I'd say the show manages to gloss over all the telling real issues of economics, being a future painted in broad strokes, as it is.

And having lived under actual communism, I can say Trek folks are way more competent and industrious; and not so rote-educated nor invested in doing the minimum work, as real communism does.

But shades of communism? Definitely. See that's Hollywood and its subtle proselytizing at work. If you pay attention, you might see that Trek's future is actually tolerant of difference - but not equal by a long shot.

For example, Picard is incredulous that some societies still have "economic systems". When competition for resources defines his very role! And hello, Federation credits? Larger officer's quarters? These aren't division of resources?

Fiction has the luxury of hypocrisy.

But I wouldn't characterize the Prime Directive as an economic consideration. More of a "don't step in something you can't wipe off" directive.

 

Well, when actors wants to leave a show, or they slam the door, breaking their contracts and by the same, taking the risk to be sued/maybe blacklisted or they just end their involvement in refusing to renew their contracts when these ones are due, like Farrel (DS9), James David Elliott (JAG), Dempsey & Ramirez (GA), and so many others have done before. So, Beltran had the occasion to leave but decided otherwise at the last moment, negotiating in passing, a pay rise and maybe a better treatment at the level of his character ... although on this point, it's missed (though he had some good episodes in s6 and s7)!
And if Paramount had accepted his departure, you're right Lynx, the chances to see his character, Chakotay, dying would have been strong but hey, Beltran would have had his moment of glory, in dying like a hero (and not like the pity death of Lt Casey) in allowing Chakotay to sacrify himself to save one of his women, for example... . Anyway, maybe his wood acting would have been transformed for the occasion, in a moment of intense emotion, offering us a "beautiful" scene! -> seriously, who remembers that it is Chakotay who had the heavy task to put Voyager on Earth (and seen his record of crashes when he is in command of a helm, it isn't won! )? I bet not many people and who could blame them knowing that the scene lasted a few seconds ( )

 

Oh, come on!

Chakotay was one of Star Trek's best characters and Beltran did a good job in portraying him.

 

"Fascism" has become a word which has totally lost its original meaning.

And since the orignial Italian Fascism (not to be confused with National Socialism) only managed to murder a couple of hundred people or so while Communism has murdered 40 million people in Russia, 80 million people in China plus some more millions in other Communist countries, then maybe "Fascism" should be replaced by "Communism" when we are discussing a policy which leads to genocide.

 

I don't know where you got that Mussolini "only" murdered 200 people, because that hardly sounds like someone who'd end up shot and then hanged by his own people...

 

Mussolini might have personally killed only that many (probably less), but he was responsible for the deaths of far more.

The pen is mightier than the sword.

 

He's right. It is.

In the (likely) words of Jim Kirk :

"FUCK THE PRIME DIRECTIVE!"

 

According to historicans, Mussolini's dictatorship had fewer victims than those of Stalin, Lenin, Mao, Hitler and many others. I'm not sure about how many victims, some sources speaks of about 1000 people in prisons and labor camps. There was never the organized terror which could be found against the Jews in Germany or against any suspected political dissidents like it was in the Soviet Union and Mao's China.

The only exception was after 1943 in the northern part of Italy which was occupied by Germany and where Mussolini was re-instated as a puppet without any real power. About 7000-8000 Italian Jews were deported to German concentration camps from Italy during 1944-45. If we put them on Mussolini's account, the number of victims will be much higher than ca. 100 or 200 killed or whatever the exact sum of Mussolini's dictatorship between 1921 and 1943 but still far from Lenin's, Stalin's and Mao's victims.

The main reason why Mussolini was hated was because of the alliance with Germany. Not to mention that those who shot and hanged him up were Communist partisans. Had he been captured by US troops, British troops or non-Communist partisans, he would at least have been given a trial.

I'm not defending Italian Fascism, Mussolini or any other right-wing dictatorship, just stating the obvious that Communism has murdered many, many more than Italian Fascism.

I think that Communism gets away too easily when genocide is discussed. When we talk about genocide on a mass scale, Communism is at the top of the list.

It was actually Lenin who invented the word "fascism" as an insult. Lenin was angry that the Fascists had managed to seize power in Italy instead of the Communists so he started to label all opponents to Communism everywhere as "Fascists", no matter if they were Social Democrats or Democratic Conservatives or whatever. When the Soviet Union attacked the democratic Finland in 1939, the Finnish government was labeled as a "Fascist government".

In 1969, a Soviet hockey coach shouted "Fascist" at the Czechoslovak top player Josef Golonka in a World Cup game between Soviet Union and Czechoslovakia (that was shortly after the 1968 Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia). The reason for this insult was that Golonka had lead his team to victory over the Soviets.

 

Someone recently pointed out that Kirk ignored the Prime Directive when it violated his higher ideals - such as preventing a society from killing millions of its people for 500 years straight, just because they had refined war into something survivable, that a society could survive indefinatly.

 

"I think we should stop trying to save endangered species when we can. None of them have developed warp drive, or even so much as verbal communication, so fuck them all." --founder of the Prime Directive

 

I didn't think anybody here thought we were talking about the people Mussolini killed with his own hands.

 

I am not going to discuss the details of your post because this is not the thread nor even the forum for it. Suffice it to say that I vigorously disagree with the implication that Hitler and Mussolini were somewhat less guilty than other dictators that you seem to disapprove more vividly of. I'll reserve more precise comments for a more suitable setting.

 

The Prime Directive was ignored anytime people were going to suffer. Despite the fact that the very idea of the Prime Directive is that "we" don't know the outcome when we help "them". So it's meaningless. Just as a shuttlecraft only exists to get lost the Prime Directive only exists to be broken.