I don't think Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain) ever said that.
He certainly did not. I quick Google search and all I got was this page.
What's your take on Section 31?
- Thread starter Danoz
- Start date
I'd say Cerberus from Mass Effect is a more apt comparison. The Obsidian Order has government support, and by extent, technically exists by the consent of the governed.
Cerberus and Section 31 are both splinter groups that go to extremes to protect their parent nations. Neither is legal, and both could probably be braned as terrorist groups, but they will obviously tell you otherwise.
You know! I don't think people realize if we didn't have the CIA, it doesn't necessarily mean we can't defend ourselves. The U.S. still has the strongest military in the world. And if we focus on the problems in our country, minding our own business, we would be a heck of a lot stronger and a lot richer. When Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, America was able to mobilize its military virtually in a blink of an eye and set out to build one of the greatest fighter planes ever in history, the Mustang, which of course was crucial in defeating Nazi Germany. (We also built aircraft carriers, which were unheard of before we entered the war.) Honesty is always good for making money; it's good for business. We need to stay on course, adhering to good ethics and morals, and build up good image for credibility if we want to successfully convinced other nations to take a look at our ideals and believes. We should not be acting as the world police, telling other countries what they should do and how to behave; our record is not spotless either. If we are completely honest, everybody will look up to us. When your not being truthful, that comes with a great deal of mistrust and all kind of suspicions attached to it but the truth does not. The possibilities are endless! For all they know we are trying to nuke them or take over their country. The problem is: there are a lot of people who think they have to cheat and bend the rules in order to get far in life. That's not true! The U.S. can do a heck of a lot better than it ever did...just look at the state of our current economy and all the terrorist attacks and death threats we have gotten since we have gotten involved in foreign affairs.
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1. wars are not necessarily started because of "mistrust." Have you ever heard of "competing interests?" Sometimes countries just have them.
2. I don't know where you get the idea that many of the problems the U.S. has is because of "involvement in foreign affairs." The Great Depression took place when the U.S. was mostly isolationist. WWII might have been prevented with a more active U.S. role in international affairs.
As to the Sec. 31 thing, the idea of them being totally rogue makes the whole thing more ridiculous. So they're doing stuff that might not necessarily even be in Federation interests, and they have no contact with Starfleet officials, they just make their own plans and think they're working for the best? Again, it works better for them to be working with Starfleet, even in an unofficial way, rather than them being a totally independent, lawless organization, because then Starfleet should be going after them.
^ Starfleet IS going after them.
Ok, what do you call installing regime and supporting certain group of people in different country, so they will back the U.S. and sell us their natural resources...for example, oil? And, yes countries do have them, but we made it worst by starting a civil war in other countries and directly at war with them when they don't give a damn what we have to say and it interfere our ability to propers from their natural resources. America back Pol Pot so he would fight the communists for us, and then he turned around and exterminated millions of Cambodians. The guy was one of the most evil person every alive. If you were even suspected of being educated, for example, if you wore glasses, that's enough for them to hall your ass away, locked you up indefinitely, tortured you and then killed you by putting a plastic bag over your head. This is not like what you see on TV. When the Borg threatened to annialate Species 8472 they never forgot that, but later somehow reconciled with Janeway.
If those were real people, they would not forget so easily when they're love ones died. You don't think if people's love ones die because of your countries military and polotical involvment, that wouldn't shape their political and personal view on the U.S. People get enrage when their love ones get killed, especially by foreign troops.
Ok, what do you call installing regime and supporting certain group of people in different country, so they will back the U.S. and sell us their natural resources...for example, oil? And, yes countries do have them, but we made it worst by starting a civil war in other countries and directly at war with them when they don't give a damn what we have to say and it interfere our ability to propers from their natural resources. America back Pol Pot so he would fight the communists for us, and then he turned around and exterminated millions of Cambodians. The guy was one of the most evil person every alive. If you were even suspected of being educated, for example, if you wore glasses, that's enough for them to hall your ass away, locked you up indefinitely, tortured you and then killed you by putting a plastic bag over your head. This is not like what you see on TV. When the Borg threatened to annialate Species 8472 they never forgot that, but later somehow reconciled with Janeway.
Mind you, Species 8472 isn't human, who the hell knows if they even HAVE loved ones. In any event, Species 8472 pledged to purge the weak from the galaxy, so they get no sympathy from me. You can't expect to achieve peace by having tea parties and dancing with your enemies as you propose, sometimes you have to beat them into submission.
What if they stronger than you, or there's a possibility of civilian casualties in the U.S.? That's right! They'll just wait until we're good and weak... But, hey! If we have fate in ourselves, comrades and follow are heart, we can do anything...despite the odds against the improbabilities. Species 8472 is super intelligent than anything that we ever encountered and can easily destroy the Borg with their superior technology and intelligent, but watch out they are no match of us because I have fate in myself and I can do anything and maybe getting gungho might help, too! [chuckle]
Enemies? I don't think you fully comprehend that all generalization is false. I don't think anybody wants to be on the wrong end of a stick. There is no one is completely bad or good. It's not that clear like night and day. Those people that hate the our guts has their lives affected by out involvements one way or another; that's how these fanatics are able to gain support. It's not like they woke up one morning and said fuck the U.S. and all the western countries! Nobody is that evil.
Enemies? I don't think you fully comprehend that all generalization is false. I don't think anybody wants to be on the wrong end of a stick. There is no one is completely bad or good. It's not that clear like night and day. Those people that hate the our guts has their lives affected by out involvements one way or another; that's how these fanatics are able to gain support. It's not like they woke up one morning and said fuck the U.S. and all the western countries! Nobody is that evil.
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Section 31?? Sounds like a law
It sort of is. Article 14, Section 31 of the pre-Federation Starfleet Charter, which allowed for extraordinary measures to be taken in times of extreme threat.
bashir and O'Brien do, but when does Starfleet as an official operation go after them?
The idea that the United States has not been engaging in a lot of imperialistic and neo-imperialistic behavior since the end of World War II, and that doing so has not prompted a lot of rage and unanticipated negative consequences towards the U.S., is just absurd. Hello, Operation Ajax? Pinochet? Propping up Latin American and Third World dictators and training death squads so long as they're anti-Soviet? Vietnam? Iraq? Let's get real here. The United States has spent a good part of the past sixty years interfering in foreign cultures' internal affairs and turning them into puppet governments, and it's come back to bite us in the ass on more than one occasion. (The fall of the Shah, the rise of al Qaeda, etc.) And that's ignoring the fact that the United States was built up by invading and stealing land from Native Americans and Mexico. The United States has a long and shameful history of imperialism.
Meanwhile, let's also not pretend that if the U.S. is just "good" and "nice" and "honest," suddenly everyone would love us. Even if the United States woke up tomorrow and apologized for its every act of imperialism; withdrew from Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Libya, Yemen, and every other country where we have military operations; shut down all of its foreign bases; cut off support to all of its puppet governments; stopped training foreign militaries at the School of the Americas; denounced any and all dictators, irrelevant of their support for the U.S.; announced a new policy of never interfering in the internal affairs of foreign cultures; and generally behaved like Switzerland for the rest of its existence, people would still want to attack us. Anti-imperialism is not a foreign policy.
* * *
As for Section 31....
Section 31 is not the cost of Paradise. They're not the guys who "gets their hands dirty, doing what has to be done" to defend the Federation. That's Starfleet and Starfleet Intelligence.
Section 31 is nothing more than a criminal conspiracy within the Federation government. They're the reaction of some truly power-hungry, authoritarian personalities to having to live in a culture that has rejected authoritarianism. They're people who can't stand real liberal democracy, and so try to twist it into something else they like in the name of national security.
Meanwhile, let's also not pretend that if the U.S. is just "good" and "nice" and "honest," suddenly everyone would love us. Even if the United States woke up tomorrow and apologized for its every act of imperialism; withdrew from Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Libya, Yemen, and every other country where we have military operations; shut down all of its foreign bases; cut off support to all of its puppet governments; stopped training foreign militaries at the School of the Americas; denounced any and all dictators, irrelevant of their support for the U.S.; announced a new policy of never interfering in the internal affairs of foreign cultures; and generally behaved like Switzerland for the rest of its existence, people would still want to attack us. Anti-imperialism is not a foreign policy.
* * *
As for Section 31....
Section 31 is not the cost of Paradise. They're not the guys who "gets their hands dirty, doing what has to be done" to defend the Federation. That's Starfleet and Starfleet Intelligence.
Section 31 is nothing more than a criminal conspiracy within the Federation government. They're the reaction of some truly power-hungry, authoritarian personalities to having to live in a culture that has rejected authoritarianism. They're people who can't stand real liberal democracy, and so try to twist it into something else they like in the name of national security.
I think you're forgetting the fact that the United States still has the strongest military in the world...and by cutting unnecessary spending, such as maintaining military bases in other countries, this country is only going to get stronger since we won't be spending our taxed dollars nearly as much. Not spying on other countries doesn't mean crippling the U.S. ability to defend itself. Who said anything about being defenseless? If the war come here, I can guarante we are fully capable of protecting ourselves. If you have mindset of being dishonest and paranoid, you will do something stupid, which give them stronger cause to at least trying to kick your ass. And why the hell do you want to keep doing what you are doing when you already know your involvement is screwing everybody's over? Yes, stay the course and make it even worse! If things are already the worst because of your involvement, then I don't think you can make it any worse by getting hell out. If the U.S. is the cause, then it makes sense if we remove the problem.
I got the impression that Ds9 writers wanted to kill off Roddenberry's perception that the Federation is able to exist as a utopian based society, capable of defending itself and further developing new technologies at a fast pace due to the whole union between various species.
As one of section 31's agents even said onscreen, they were doing the dirty deeds so that the Federation can exist in the state it does today (which is a load of rubbish since it's possible to have the Federation in such a state without existence of section 31).
Predominantly, I don't agree with what's been done.
The Dominion and the Federation could have gone head to head dealing major damage to each other in the process.
No need to whimp down the Feds fleet down or dumb technology in the process.
Interpersonal conflicts didn't exist in the Roddenberry future?
I would say that people managed to finally grow up and control their emotions without exploding like half-baked morons we have roaming the world today (some of which are in positions of power).
And what about kids facing death without blinking an eye?
It's possible.
Inform children about most aspects of life, and just like some adults, pretty soon they can become relatively unfased by them and accept them as part of life.
The problem on the other hand is that this (along with numerous other aspects that Gene created) was seen as 'too extreme'.
For US and it's public, a lot of things/concepts are 'too extreme' and 'impossible' because they don't mesh into the capitalist based mentality (let alone the culture and way of life they grew accustomed to - ignoring the premise that the show is supposed to be set in the future where none of the things as we know them - that were mostly hindering humanity in a lot of aspects - exist anymore).
As one of section 31's agents even said onscreen, they were doing the dirty deeds so that the Federation can exist in the state it does today (which is a load of rubbish since it's possible to have the Federation in such a state without existence of section 31).
Predominantly, I don't agree with what's been done.
The Dominion and the Federation could have gone head to head dealing major damage to each other in the process.
No need to whimp down the Feds fleet down or dumb technology in the process.
Interpersonal conflicts didn't exist in the Roddenberry future?
I would say that people managed to finally grow up and control their emotions without exploding like half-baked morons we have roaming the world today (some of which are in positions of power).
And what about kids facing death without blinking an eye?
It's possible.
Inform children about most aspects of life, and just like some adults, pretty soon they can become relatively unfased by them and accept them as part of life.
The problem on the other hand is that this (along with numerous other aspects that Gene created) was seen as 'too extreme'.
For US and it's public, a lot of things/concepts are 'too extreme' and 'impossible' because they don't mesh into the capitalist based mentality (let alone the culture and way of life they grew accustomed to - ignoring the premise that the show is supposed to be set in the future where none of the things as we know them - that were mostly hindering humanity in a lot of aspects - exist anymore).
I don't think the concept that a country or a world that owes you a living really make any sense, though. I honestly don't. I mean everyone have to make the world a better a place for themselves and their kids, not the other way around. Things just don't magically go the way you plan if you don't get out there and work hard to achieve your goal. Isn't that right?
You seem quite selfish, what about our allies? Japan practically depends on us for protection as do many other countries, ever heard of the ANZUS? By closing military bases abroad we limit the ability to project our power and protect our allies.
But can you honestly say, that without the effort of Section 31 (whether a private organization or not) that the forces of the Alpha Quadrant would have been victorious in stopping the invasion from the Gamma Quadrant?
Like it or not, the disease they spread into the Founder's species and the fact there was a withheld cure was the linch pin of victory. Maybe in time the combined force of the AQ would have prevailed (not definite), but it would have been a very different kind of AQ that emerged.
S31 actions were similar in some ways to the action of the Prophets in destroying the Jem'Hadar ships. An outside influence, one that none of the governments controlled. But whose actions were a positive contributing factor to the ultimate success of the forces the various forces the governments did control.
Think of S31 Sci, like the two atomic bombs dropped on Japan, you don't have to like them, but you do have to acknowledge their results.
But can you honestly say, that without the effort of Section 31 (whether a private organization or not) that the forces of the Alpha Quadrant would have been victorious in stopping the invasion from the Gamma Quadrant?
Like it or not, the disease they spread into the Founder's species and the fact there was a withheld cure was the linch pin of victory. Maybe in time the combined force of the AQ would have prevailed (not definite), but it would have been a very different kind of AQ that emerged.
S31 actions were similar in some ways to the action of the Prophets in destroying the Jem'Hadar ships. An outside influence, one that none of the governments controlled. But whose actions were a positive contributing factor to the ultimate success of the forces the various forces the governments did control.
Think of S31 Sci, like the two atomic bombs dropped on Japan, you don't have to like them, but you do have to acknowledge their results.
What difference did the Founder's desease have on the outcome of the war? The tide had turned against the Dominon and they could get no more reinforcements on the Gamma Quadrant, even if the Jem Hadar and the Breen fought to the last man they'd still have been defeated anyway.
But can you honestly say, that without the effort of Section 31 (whether a private organization or not) that the forces of the Alpha Quadrant would have been victorious in stopping the invasion from the Gamma Quadrant?
Like it or not, the disease they spread into the Founder's species and the fact there was a withheld cure was the linch pin of victory. Maybe in time the combined force of the AQ would have prevailed (not definite), but it would have been a very different kind of AQ that emerged.
S31 actions were similar in some ways to the action of the Prophets in destroying the Jem'Hadar ships. An outside influence, one that none of the governments controlled. But whose actions were a positive contributing factor to the ultimate success of the forces the various forces the governments did control.
Think of S31 Sci, like the two atomic bombs dropped on Japan, you don't have to like them, but you do have to acknowledge their results.
What difference did the Founder's desease have on the outcome of the war? The tide had turned against the Dominon and they could get no more reinforcements on the Gamma Quadrant, even if the Jem Hadar and the Breen fought to the last man they'd still have been defeated anyway.
er, it shortened the war and prevented a ton of casualties. Hence, T'Girl's analogy to the atomic bombs in WWII.
But can you honestly say, that without the effort of Section 31 (whether a private organization or not) that the forces of the Alpha Quadrant would have been victorious in stopping the invasion from the Gamma Quadrant?
Like it or not, the disease they spread into the Founder's species and the fact there was a withheld cure was the linch pin of victory. Maybe in time the combined force of the AQ would have prevailed (not definite), but it would have been a very different kind of AQ that emerged.
S31 actions were similar in some ways to the action of the Prophets in destroying the Jem'Hadar ships. An outside influence, one that none of the governments controlled. But whose actions were a positive contributing factor to the ultimate success of the forces the various forces the governments did control.
Think of S31 Sci, like the two atomic bombs dropped on Japan, you don't have to like them, but you do have to acknowledge their results.
What difference did the Founder's desease have on the outcome of the war? The tide had turned against the Dominon and they could get no more reinforcements on the Gamma Quadrant, even if the Jem Hadar and the Breen fought to the last man they'd still have been defeated anyway.
er, it shortened the war and prevented a ton of casualties. Hence, T'Girl's analogy to the atomic bombs in WWII.
Yeah tell that to the Cardassians, reember Odo was given the virus in season five that means there's still two years of casualties it didn't save. The A-bombs meant the immediate end to WWII no waiting at all.
