Timo said:
I humbly beg to differ about there being a difference between our approaches. You seem to speak as if things like "freedom" or "right" can be considered absolute, when such things in fact almost by definition cancel themselves out when applied to a society. Surely you of all people would understand that freedom awarded one member of the society is a freedom denied another - most blatantly in a zero-sum game such as population growth vs. planetary resources.
I firmly disagree. Liberty is not a zero-sum game.
Your propagandist approach is fundamentally no different from the one where black helicopters descend to pick up infants to be fed to dogs. It is always a matter of the needs of the society being placed ahead of the needs of the individual, via assorted sanctions (of which education can be argued to be one of the more effective ones, coming in close second after direct material rewards and third after direct threat of force). The end result is the exact same: taking away the right to reproduce according to the biological urges that aim at population growth. Whether via brainwashing or black helicopters, it is preposterous to argue that "freedom" is being served when society imposes its will to ensure its survival.
I'm confused. How is providing people with education to make choices, and then stepping back and allowing them to make whatever reproductive choices they want, the same as actively using force to deny them their reproductive choices?
"Constitutional liberal democracy" may be one way to attain a well-running society, but whether the Trek society is one of those remains a matter of debate. Whether our Trek heroes find value and worth in constitutions, liberties and democracy is another intriguing question.
We hear numerous references to civil liberties and civil rights being derived from the Federation Constitution ("The Drumhead"'s reference to the Seventh Guarantee protecting people from self-incrimination, "The Perfect Mate" refering to everyone aboard a Federation ship being protected by the Federation Constitution) or Federation Charter ("Accession" refering to caste-based discrimination as being barred under the Charter). We hear in "The Best of Both Worlds" that Federation society is built upon the principles of freedom and self-determination (which the Borg dismiss as "ireelevent"). We hear of the President of the United Federation of Planets being elected in "Homefront"/"Paradise Lost."
Sounds like a constitutional liberal democracy to me.
But certainly it is possible to assume that effective population control is being practiced on Earth, given that few families witnessed have more than two children, birth control is spoken of in positive terms, and there is governmental oversight of the populance in somewhat more "sinister" respects already, such as the anti-criminal screenings spoken of in "Justice"...
You are no doubt referring to this line:
PICARD (Cont'd)
(waits; gets no answer)
Yes, some people then felt it was
necessary. But we've learned how
to detect the seeds of criminal
behavior... Capital punishment
is no longer justified in our
world as a deterrent.
That's an incredibly ambiguous statement that could mean anything from, "We subject everyone to intrusive telepathic scans once every six months from ages 2 to death and ergo forcibly restructure the brain so as to ensure docile behavior" to, "We are capable of recognizing early symptoms of anti-social behavior and have effective therapies that provide people with the insights, empathy, and information that they can use to make better choices for themselves, though, unfortunately, some people still choose to commit crimes since we, of course, do not, could not, and would never choose to remove the capacity for personal freedom and choice."
