Except the Federation didn’t know he ordered the killings, it’s explained in the episode. He lied and blamed that on his underlings, and claimed that he was appalled at their behaviour.
Did they, though? I mean, think about it. M'Benga probably reported back in about his actions after his raid on Klingon HQ on J'Gal. He almost certainly told Christine. Even if they chose not to contradict Dak'Rah's lie and let most of the lower-ranking officers and public believe the propaganda, the upper echelons of Starfleet Command and the Federation government probably knew Dak'Rah was lying from the start.
My hypothesis is that they probably knew he was lying and chose not to accept Dak'Rah's defection because having a high-profile Klingon general defect, take on Federation citizenship, and become a Federation ambassador, probably served their political purpose. And the purpose isn't per se bad! Having a high-level Klingon general become a peacemaker really would be a good thing, in almost any other circumstance. They didn't do it because they were chasing power or money. But they still made a deal with the Devil by not holding Dak'Rah accountable for his atrocities.
I’m really appalled, but maybe it’s just because I’m 100% against death and believe that justice should try and rehabilitate people, not punish them.
Moreover, while he had committed crimes in the past and was using lies to support his position it’s really far from clear that he wasn’t in fact genuinely trying to do good in the present. Things are seldom black and white.
Yeah, I can buy the idea that Dak'Rah was genuinely trying to make up for his actions with his diplomatic activities. That doesn't feel fake to me. He can be genuinely trying to make up for his actions and still be a coward who is unwilling to take responsibility for them. He can be genuinely trying to make up for his actions and also still be willing to murder to avoid taking responsibility. And he can be genuinely trying to make up for his actions yet also crave power and be willing to kill to protect it. These two sides of Dah'Rak can both be true.
Something just occurred to me. It's nice that, unlike in discussions around The Undiscovered County - including amount the TOS cast - people aren't calling or Fine Crew racists and bigots for not trusting Klingons.
Well, no one said, "You can't trust Klingons." What they said was, you can't trust
Dak'Rah.
Having said that, I would be surprised if, at minimum, Ortegas didn't carry some anti-Klingon bigotry. She strikes me as the person most likely to apply an "In-Group Safe/Out-Group Threat" mentality to non-Federation species.
So you really think that the system should have tried to rehabilitate Ted Bundy? Or Jeffrey Dahmer? John Wayne Gacy?
Or how about those various people who have murdered children in schools?
How about Jim Jones?
Or maybe Hitler didn't deserve to die?
I think these are really extreme examples, and that in the overwhelming majority of cases a person convicted of a violent crime can probably be rehabilitated. I do not know if Bundy, Dahmer, Gacy, or Jones could have been rehabilitated. I strongly suspect Hitler could never have been rehabilitated.
I also do believe, quite firmly, that the state has no right to take human life except in life-or-death emergencies to protect others in danger. Which means that, no, I do not accept the legitimacy of the death penalty in any non-emergency circumstances. I do, indeed, believe that persons convicted of violent crimes who genuinely cannot be rehabilitated and who continue to pose a threat to public safety should be subjected to life incarceration in humane conditions.
Broadly-speaking, I think the Scandinavian system gets it right on these extreme cases: all sentences default to a maximum of 20 years incarceration, but if they determine that you continue to pose a danger after 20 years then that gets extended on a case-by-case basis.
I agree that life is not always black and white, but there are some people that are just plain evil and deserve to be killed.
There may be some people who
deserve to be killed, but if we start talking about the idea of who
deserves to be killed, the list might be a lot larger than a free and democratic society would actually allow. I've met a couple people in my lives I'm convinced are absolute sociopaths who will only ever ruin the lives of the people around them, and who would murder or rape if they could get away with it. Do they
deserve to die too? I don't think so.
The issue is not whether the person
deserves death. The issue is whether
the state has the right to impose death in situations other than emergency responses to imminent danger. And it absolutely does not -- if for no other reason than that the state can never be 100% certain it is executing the right person. It is impossible to be 100% sure the person the state is executing actually deserved it.
If for no other reason than to stop them from killing innocent people.
Lifetime incarceration is already capable of securing the safety of innocent people against convicted murderers. And it has the advantage of being reversible if the person so convicted is later found to be not guilty.
In any event, TOS itself established that the Federation has abolished the death penalty for anything other than contact with Talos IV.
And at the very least, Dak'Rah should not have been given such a position in the Federation because of his previous records, which was stated in the episode... at least three things. (A starbase, Athos colony, and another one Ortegas mentioned.)
Completely agreed. My suspicion is that the Federation government knew of his guilt when he defected, but decided that the pros of being able to say a Klingon general had defected to their side and become a peacemaker outweighed the costs of him not being held accountable for his crimes. Which I think was absolutely the wrong call.
But I especially cross the line with children. Why the hell should someone be able to live in prison, getting three meals a day, breathing air, being able to read whatever they want after they kill children?
Because the right of a person to live can only be forfeit if you are an imminent danger to another, and the state has no right to take life except if you're an imminent danger to others.
Period.
And you are missing the point. It wasn't murder. It was justice.
Nope. If Dak'Rah didn't assault Joseph, then it was murder, period. Joseph's feelings do not constitute due process of law, and Joseph has no right to appoint himself judge, jury, and executioner.
And in the Federation justice system, there is no death penalty except for contact with Talos IV, and therefore Joseph's actions would, if he assaulted Dak'Rah, inherently constitute murder.
If Dak'Rah assaulted Joseph, then Joseph's killing him was self-defense. Which would have been
justified, but not justice per se.
Either way, it was not justice. There can never be justice for the magnitude of Dak'Rah's crimes. It would, at most, have been vengeance. But these scales could never truly be balanced.
I'd say that Rah is a man who is hiding from who he is and what he did. He hasn't accepted moral responsibility within himself for his actions. This is part of what torments M'Benga - "You make it look easy."
What Rah has done, is to commit himself with determination to a path that he believes balances out his past. He didn't choose it with clean hands - it's his path to a rehabilitated reputation and reentry into some cultural/political elite, if not his own - and his self-justifications are facile. When he's challenged directly with losing all that, he reverts to his old ways.
Agreed.
US special forces usually get their missions from the CIA. When I think CIA I think of an organization similar to Section 31.
Well, depends on which version of Section 31 you're talking about.
The Central Intelligence Agency, whatever crimes and abuses it has committed, is still an agency that was created by, is funded by, is accountable to, takes orders from, and is subjected to oversight by, the democratically-elected legislature and executive. It is part of the democratic state.
When DS9 introduced them, they were explicitly established to be a rogue, extra-legal conspiracy within Starfleet that does not answer to or take orders from Starfleet Command or the Federation government. They claim to have been part of "the original Starfleet Charter," yet when the relevant section of the United Earth Starfleet Charter is read aloud in ENT, it refers only to giving people some leeway in an emergency rather than to establishing a permanent branch of Starfleet that's above the law. It is not part of the democratic state. In DS9 and ENT, Section 31 is to Starfleet as Hydra is to SHIELD in
Captain America: The Winter Soldier.
The version of Section 31 that appeared in DIS S2 is treated as a legitimate branch of Starfleet that answers to Command and the Federation government. It is depicted as part of the democratic state; functionally, the role it plays is no different from the role Starfleet Intelligence used to play in older episodes. If we want to rationalize the discrepancy between the two versions of S31, my hypothesis is that it was always a conspiracy and they used the Control A.I. to forge a classified executive order from a prior president and thereby started siphoning off resources and funding from Starfleet.
