it wasn't just the US government, it was the governments of practically every european nation. do you regret the existence of the US?
Did anyone really care about the Ba'ku?
- Thread starter c0rnedfr0g
- Start date
it wasn't just the US government, it was the governments of practically every european nation. do you regret the existence of the US?
C
cynical dreamer
Guest
False Dichotomy.
You're assuming something better wouldn't have taken it's place had the United States not come in to existence.
would it? the N and S continents were a clean slate, so to speak. governments claimed ownership over the rest of the globe, usually divided into small sections (compared to the usa). had the N and S american continents been left untouched, where would the great experiment with democracy had taken place, eventually leading to the joining of states into a single nation?? where would this western idea have taken root (via west-minded europeans)?
europe? unlikely.
anywhere else would again involve pushing around the natives
C
cynical dreamer
Guest
It's still a false dichotomy. You're using the assumption that something better wouldn't have occurred in N. America. I'm not saying that isn't the case. I'm merely pointing out that you're argument is based on a dichotomy that is based on theories that can't be tested. Therefore the argument itself is a logical fallacy.
I find it interesting you're posting like this consider satirical avatar.
Forget the little people. FOR GOD AND COUNTRY!
This.Indeed. I read these posts and I'm just staring at my monitor like:
These people have all missed the point!
[...]
What is wrong with you people?!
The Baku founded the planet a century (or just as, my remebering of the timeline is fuzzy) before the Federation even exsisted or at the very least had even established "control" over the planet/had it in their borders.
The Baku did not seem opposed to the notion of others settling on the planet, the Sona just didn't want to do it because they a) didn't want to live there and b) the effects would take too long to take hold.
[...]
The Federation has shown to go to great lengths to hold very idealistic values over individual rights and freedoms and independence so not only is the idea behind the story an affront to what's established about The Federation and the values humans are supposed to have in the 24c but it's just, plain, wrong.
How many people would it take before it was wrong as Picard quite correctly points out?
By the way, I think the way it is set up, the poll doesn't work at all. It's mixing up two completely different questions:
"Are the Ba'ku depicted in a way that makes the viewer care about them?" (I would certainly vote "no", in my book that's one of the many, many flaws of the movie.)
and
"Is the UFP right to try and forcefully relocate them?" (see above.)
Or, really, the two above plus
"Would the UFP be right to try and forcefully relocate them if what the UFP believed about the Ba'ku were true?"
it's that last question to which I prefer to answer with the words Riker used when the computer in "Where Silence Has Lease" asked him whether to stop the self-destruct countdown. The UFP has always felt that it should treat certain cultures and individuals like children, making decisions about their future without consulting them because that's the only way not to wrongfully influence their culture. Sounds perverse, perhaps, but that's essentially what the Prime Directive is all about. And to me, it makes perfect sense that these cultures be protected from outside influence. Altruist sense, because the cultures would quickly suffocate when significantly more advanced and powerful cultures breathe upon their necks - and selfish sense, because a culture already corrupted by UFP influences will not grow up to be as unique as resourceful as otherwise, and thus won't provide such a rich harvest when assimilated.
Timo Saloniemi
"Would the UFP be right to try and forcefully relocate them if what the UFP believed about the Ba'ku were true?"
it's that last question to which I prefer to answer with the words Riker used when the computer in "Where Silence Has Lease" asked him whether to stop the self-destruct countdown. The UFP has always felt that it should treat certain cultures and individuals like children, making decisions about their future without consulting them because that's the only way not to wrongfully influence their culture. Sounds perverse, perhaps, but that's essentially what the Prime Directive is all about. And to me, it makes perfect sense that these cultures be protected from outside influence. Altruist sense, because the cultures would quickly suffocate when significantly more advanced and powerful cultures breathe upon their necks - and selfish sense, because a culture already corrupted by UFP influences will not grow up to be as unique as resourceful as otherwise, and thus won't provide such a rich harvest when assimilated.
Timo Saloniemi
Thank you for posting this.
Trekker4747 I agree with everything you posted.
Forced relocation is Wrong. Doesn't matter how you justify it.
Jean-Luc Picard: We are betraying the principles upon which the Federation was founded. It's an attack upon its very soul. And it will destroy the Ba'ku... just as cultures have been destroyed in every other forced relocations throughout history.
Not post Generations Picard, as he is still in the Nexus and unstoppable
Siwilliams
Fleet Captain
Why can't you care about another race?? Very shallow and kind of racist if you don't
I cared about the Ba'Ku, Star Trek Insurrection rocks!
I cared about the Ba'Ku, Star Trek Insurrection rocks!
No they weren't. The North and South American continents were full of millions of people, with thousands of different cultures, most of which were driven extinct or forcibly relocated as a result of the expansion of Europeans and European-descended cultures into their land.
I love the United States and view it as the first, last, and best hope for human liberty to this day. I certainly believe in the right of the United States to come into existence within the territory of the original Thirteen Colonies, and in the right of the United States to exist within its present borders today in consequence of generations of innocent people growing up within the conquered territories who had nothing to do with the invasions. But I also believe that the Indian Wars and conquest of Central North America was an immoral perversion of the principles of human liberty and equality that lie at the heart of the Constitution and Declaration of Independence, just as I believe slavery was immoral.
Similarly, if I lived in the world of Star Trek, I would believe, quite firmly, in the essential goodness of the United Federation of Planets. But I would believe, just as firmly, in the immorality of the attempted Baku relocation as a perversion of Federation principles.
For whatever it's worth, the novel Section 31: Abyss by Jeffrey Lang and David Weddle, establishes that the attempted Baku relocation was actually a Section 31 operation, implying that Dougherty's claim that he was operating under a mandate from the Federation Council was a lie.
...Which takes away the whole moral quandary. Yeah, right, evil is only conducted by moustache-twirling villains, and heroes cannot do wrong.
In practical terms, relocating people between planets, or around one planet out of millions, is fundamentally different from relocating people across a mountain range on the only planet in the universe known to be capable of sustaining life, and being accessible. "Driving people from their homes" simply isn't a big deal any more when said people travel across hundreds of lightyears, and homes are erected at the push of at most three buttons.
One might sympathize for the American homesteader who loses his hard-worked patch of fertile land to the railroad company (but many of those people "hard-worked their patches" for two years, sold them, and voluntarily moved on, perhaps ten times in a row, suggesting the hardships weren't that severe after all). But wasting the same sort of sympathy on people who settle planets in Star Trek borders on the truly absurd.
Really, to consider the right to one's chosen home as a fundamental one is pretty silly unless one analyzes the specifics of the situation. We don't claim that one's right to an inviolable body would be fundamental without qualifications, as we readily accept that there should exist the right for medical interventions. The same sort of qualifications must be considered as regards all the myriad rights that humans have dreamed up, or those rights become worthless dogma, far worse than anarchy or tyranny.
Timo Saloniemi
In practical terms, relocating people between planets, or around one planet out of millions, is fundamentally different from relocating people across a mountain range on the only planet in the universe known to be capable of sustaining life, and being accessible. "Driving people from their homes" simply isn't a big deal any more when said people travel across hundreds of lightyears, and homes are erected at the push of at most three buttons.
One might sympathize for the American homesteader who loses his hard-worked patch of fertile land to the railroad company (but many of those people "hard-worked their patches" for two years, sold them, and voluntarily moved on, perhaps ten times in a row, suggesting the hardships weren't that severe after all). But wasting the same sort of sympathy on people who settle planets in Star Trek borders on the truly absurd.
Really, to consider the right to one's chosen home as a fundamental one is pretty silly unless one analyzes the specifics of the situation. We don't claim that one's right to an inviolable body would be fundamental without qualifications, as we readily accept that there should exist the right for medical interventions. The same sort of qualifications must be considered as regards all the myriad rights that humans have dreamed up, or those rights become worthless dogma, far worse than anarchy or tyranny.
Timo Saloniemi
Of course, the other thing to consider is that the Baku are a foreign state. They may be smaller than, say, the Klingon Empire, but that doesn't change the fact that they've occupied their world for longer than the Federation has even existed and that it is their soil.
Does the Federation have the right to invade a foreign state and displace its population, even if it has the right to do that to its own citizenry?
That would depend on what commitments the Federation has made to the supposed interstellar community, right?
Many a nation today reserves the right to whip other nations, organizations and individuals to compliance if the nation's own interests are threatened. Indeed, constitutions and treaties to the contrary are relatively rare, unless one counts the general UN accords. And even the signatories to those seem to reserve the unilateral right to renege as soon as national interests are threatened.
Does an interstellar community exist in the Trek universe? We do hear of arms limitation treaties encompassing multiple star empires, but there doesn't seem to be an umbrella organization to even formally enforce such treaties.
Timo Saloniemi
Many a nation today reserves the right to whip other nations, organizations and individuals to compliance if the nation's own interests are threatened. Indeed, constitutions and treaties to the contrary are relatively rare, unless one counts the general UN accords. And even the signatories to those seem to reserve the unilateral right to renege as soon as national interests are threatened.
Does an interstellar community exist in the Trek universe? We do hear of arms limitation treaties encompassing multiple star empires, but there doesn't seem to be an umbrella organization to even formally enforce such treaties.
Timo Saloniemi
I've not really read though all the replies but I'll say this.
I reviewed this film a few months ago, and I stand by what I said. One the the most fundimental flaws in this movie is the Baku live on a planet that is owned by the Federation, better yet, they possibily have a cure for everything and anything. Even better is they kicked the Sonar out, of a planet that isn't theres.
Personally, I think the Sonar deserve their revenge, and the Federation should get their planet back.
I reviewed this film a few months ago, and I stand by what I said. One the the most fundimental flaws in this movie is the Baku live on a planet that is owned by the Federation, better yet, they possibily have a cure for everything and anything. Even better is they kicked the Sonar out, of a planet that isn't theres.
Personally, I think the Sonar deserve their revenge, and the Federation should get their planet back.
1. They're called the So'na, not the Sonar. (Technically, the Baku are called the Ba'ku, too, now that I think of it.)
2. The Federation doesn't own the planet. How could they? The Ba'ku lived there before the Federation was even created, and the Federation never contacted them to legally transfer ownership. It's no more Federation soil than territory stolen from the Indians by the United States. The planet may fall within the boundaries of Federation space, but that just means it's an enclave, not that it's legally Federation soil.
According to Bashir in "Inter Arma Enim Silent Leges," the Federation Charter strictly forbids the UFP from interfering in the internal affairs of foreign states. I'm not sure how much more interfering in a foreign state's internal affairs you can get than telling them where they can live.
Supposedly, the silly apostrophes go Son'a and Ba'ku. And they might even serve a function here, by indicating that the a and the ku should be stressed, as opposed to, say, the na and the u.
By saying that it is so. That's how most legislation happens, really. And one need not see the UFP as evil aggressors if they choose to do so. Rather, the decision to "adopt" all primitive (that is, not yet conversing with the interstellar community) planets within UFP territory might be a protective measure: "They're not really ours, but they most assuredly aren't yours, either, so either fuck off or plead your case in a manner that our enlightened government can accept as beneficial for the natives".
The Charter would be for the Federation to write and rewrite, though. And it could very well list a number of exemptions, for both selfish and altruist reasons.
More generally, one is forced to question what counts as a "state". On Earth, the variety is rather limited: states are patches of land ranging from city-sized to continent-sized, populated by tens of thousands or hundreds of millions of people. In the Trek universe, there is much greater variance: entities claiming independence or existing in isolation might range from city-sized to thousands of lightyears across, and from hundreds of people (or even one - say, Mr Brack!) to trillions. The concept of a "state" might not apply to the whole immense range, then.
Timo Saloniemi
But, see, that's the rub. The Federation didn't even give the Baku their appeals process or chance to represent their case to the Council.
The Son'a had as much claim over the planet as the Ba'ku
With the Dominion War, there were probably several intraplanetary disputes/takeovers (esp in the pre-warp worlds) that the UFP could not handle at the time. Seeing as how the Son'a already had conquered two primitive races, the UFP might have thought it was in the best interest of the Ba'ku to just get them out of the way for the time being, or else they could be conquered as well. Although, then I wonder why the Ba'ku went to the UFP in the first place... probably to stay on their good side despite being mini conquerers
With the Dominion War, there were probably several intraplanetary disputes/takeovers (esp in the pre-warp worlds) that the UFP could not handle at the time. Seeing as how the Son'a already had conquered two primitive races, the UFP might have thought it was in the best interest of the Ba'ku to just get them out of the way for the time being, or else they could be conquered as well. Although, then I wonder why the Ba'ku went to the UFP in the first place... probably to stay on their good side despite being mini conquerers
Last edited:
Similar threads
- Poll
