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Section 31 poll

Does Section 31 underpin or undermine Federation values?

  • Underpin

    Votes: 19 34.5%
  • Undermine

    Votes: 36 65.5%

  • Total voters
    55
  • Poll closed .
It undermines Federation values, yes, since those are entirely fantastical. Section 31 is some writer thinking "There isn't enough piss in this pool for my taste"
 
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It doesn't underpin those values, it creates spaces were those values can prevail in large part whilst violating those values in the creation of those spaces.

It doesn't undermine those values in large part because Section 31 remains unknown, its operations are covert and the vast bulk of the Federation and Starfleet are none the wiser about these 'violations'.
 
It undermines Federation values, yes, since those are entirely fantastical. Section 31 is some writer thinking "There isn't enough piss in this pool for my taste"

That's right! When are these shitty-assed writers going to understand? Don't piss in STAR TREK, Trekkies don't swim in your toilet ...
 
It doesn't underpin those values, it creates spaces were those values can prevail in large part whilst violating those values in the creation of those spaces.

Violating values always undermines them. Section 31 is a perfect example of this.

It doesn't undermine those values in large part because Section 31 remains unknown, its operations are covert and the vast bulk of the Federation and Starfleet are none the wiser about these 'violations'.

Ignorance is no excuse.
 
Most of the time, it's a case of violating the letter of the law to uphold its spirit. Section 31 is not one of those cases.

We have Pressman ("The Pegasus"), Kennelly ("Ensign Ro"), Daugherty (Insurrection) to name a few who aren't violating the letter of the law nor upholding its spirit. It seems Starfleet has long-running institutional problems.
 
We have Pressman ("The Pegasus"), Kennelly ("Ensign Ro"), Daugherty (Insurrection) to name a few who aren't violating the letter of the law nor upholding its spirit. It seems Starfleet has institutional problems.

All those cases were called out as illegal and punished.

The argument that "You have to break your values in order to create places where your people can ignorantly live by them" is a poor one. That's saying "It's okay to benefit from mass murder as long as you see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil". It's the same argument people are using to ignore millions of people dying in foreign countries as long as it helps us get the oil we need to preserve our comfortable lifestyle.

It's not ambiguous, it's not "There must be evil to protect good", it's just endorsing evil because you benefit from it. It's just evil.
 
All those cases were called out as illegal and punished.

But how many don't get caught? And we have no idea if Dougherty would've been punished had he lived, and we don't know the ultimate fates of either Kennelly nor Pressman. For all we know, both ended up being cleared for any wrong doing.

There is obvious long running institutional problems within Starfleet. An obvious, long running theme of "the ends justify the means" thinking. Section 31 just seems to be more openly honest in what they are about.
 
We have Pressman ("The Pegasus"), Kennelly ("Ensign Ro"), Daugherty (Insurrection) to name a few who aren't violating the letter of the law nor upholding its spirit. It seems Starfleet has long-running institutional problems.
To many bat shit cray human admirals...(add reboot Admiral Marcus)
 
And the Prime Directive seemed to become a convenient catch-all for anything the Federation/Starfleet didn't want to deal with.

The Federation seemed to become more and more corrupt as time went on.
 
And the Prime Directive seemed to become a convenient catch-all for anything the Federation/Starfleet didn't want to deal with.

The Federation seemed to become more and more corrupt as time went on.
My impression of the righteous Federation came from how Picard sang its praises, I suspect he was drinking the kool aid of Terran privilege.
 
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All those cases were called out as illegal and punished.

And were probably all Section 31 anyway. Pressman surely was.

The argument that "You have to break your values in order to create places where your people can ignorantly live by them" is a poor one. That's saying "It's okay to benefit from mass murder as long as you see no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil".

Indeed.

How can principles have any meaning if they are not absolute? Think about it.
 
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