Yes, that particular explanation in inclusionary (any force that does is) rather than exclusionary (any force that doesn't isn't).
Shouldn’t Areel Shaw have been disqualified?
- Thread starter FredH
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Yes, that particular explanation in inclusionary (any force that does is) rather than exclusionary (any force that doesn't isn't).
Perhaps I wasn't. I'm not commenting on when or the legality of police going military.
The poster's suggestion is it is not possible for an organization to turn "on and off" being military.
It exists today. It's possible.
I have no comment on when and where and how it happens. Just that it does happen.
No. It can turn on and off doing combat-oriented things, but not being a military organization. What it is and what it does are two different things. A military it is still a military as long as it's a government-authorized armed force with ranks and uniforms and military regulations and discipline. That's why the Coast Guard is a military even though it doesn't have a combat mission.
So that same approach the writers took...
This is all correct and irrelevant to my post. When I said cops like to cosplay as soldiers, I think that clearly suggested they are not "real" military.
I think we're stuck on definitions. Being military vs. playing military. Turning "on and off" playing military is clearly within the realm of human ability. If the posers can do it, so can the real deal.
And it's not out of the question that some day such an organization could be chartered to do workaday this and that and while still getting the training and having the authority to jump into military action.
That sounds an awful lot like the Reserves. One weekend a month and one month a year they turn "on" being military then they turn it back "off" and play with their kids and file their taxes and eat too much sugar just like the rest of us.
I'm not stuck -- I'm stating quite clearly that the two are separate things, and that what defines Starfleet as a military in organizational terms is a constant no matter how peaceful its missions may be.
Which is not a good analogy for Starfleet, since they wear uniforms and address each other by rank and follow their superiors' orders on a daily basis. They're active service members full-time, just in a (mostly) peacetime military. Militaries do a ton of stuff in peacetime, including diplomacy, engineering, scientific research and exploration, rescue work -- basically everything Starfleet does (including space exploration, since most American astronauts have been military officers). Being an armed force is fundamental to the definition of a military, but that doesn't mean that using those arms is the only mission of a military. It just means that's included among its responsibilities, to be carried out if and when it becomes necessary.
I have made no comment on Starfleet. I have no reason to disagree with anything you've said about Starfleet.
Almost like Starfleet is lying to recruits. You're promised all these great things, and oh, you might have to pick up a phaser once in a blue moon. Then you get in the door and Starfleet is engaged in like 19 wars.
Gene Roddenberry said and did some things that were inconsistent with other things he said and did. He misrepresented things, and sometimes he flat-out lied, especially to the network. On this particular topic, Gene seems to have been putting himself through some degree of cognitive dissonance, wanting Starfleet to be military for the drama and structure and believability, but also be not-military for the philosophical posture he wanted to portray.
Maybe this all shakes out to Starfleet being military-lite; a kinder, genter military. A new kind of military. Military done right. Whatever you wanna call it, as long as you don't call it "not military at all" because TOS itself contradicts that idea in virtually every episode.
But regardless, none of what GR said and did obligates us to participate in the same cognitive dissonance. Starfleet is clearly a military. It's all over the show from stem to stern, in terminology and practice and situations. Even in TNG, which tried a bit harder to say no, no, we're not military, we promise. We might wish Star Trek had been more military, or less military, or not military at all, but wishing does not make things so. All we can do is take reality as it is and make of it the best we can. Starfleet is a military, and thankfully a pretty darned benevolent one at that. (Most of the time.)
Maybe this all shakes out to Starfleet being military-lite; a kinder, genter military. A new kind of military. Military done right. Whatever you wanna call it, as long as you don't call it "not military at all" because TOS itself contradicts that idea in virtually every episode.
But regardless, none of what GR said and did obligates us to participate in the same cognitive dissonance. Starfleet is clearly a military. It's all over the show from stem to stern, in terminology and practice and situations. Even in TNG, which tried a bit harder to say no, no, we're not military, we promise. We might wish Star Trek had been more military, or less military, or not military at all, but wishing does not make things so. All we can do is take reality as it is and make of it the best we can. Starfleet is a military, and thankfully a pretty darned benevolent one at that. (Most of the time.)
I don't see any cognitive dissonance, because historically, the military has often engaged in exploration and diplomacy. Charles Darwin's Galapagos expedition was aboard the HMS Beagle, a Royal Navy 10-gun warship. James Cook, the first European to visit Hawai'i, was a Royal Navy captain. Roddenberry based Starfleet very much on the British Age of Sail, the era when the Royal Navy was expanding the empire and engaging in exploration and first contact across the globe. Historically, exploring potentially dangerous frontiers has often been a military mission. We've just forgotten that because there's not much of the world left to explore these days.
So I think the bit in the writers' guide about not saluting and downplaying the military discipline and the officer/enlisted class divide was less about philosophy and more about making the characters more accessible to the audience, and about streamlining the dialogue and action by leaving out military protocols and rituals.
I just wish they'd defined the word correctly. I would've been happy if they'd actually been non-military -- if they'd been a civilian exploration ship without ranks and uniforms. But that's not what they did.
I've often thought it would've been interesting if, instead of going with the abortive idea of a battle section that could separate from the habitat section, they'd just had two ships, a large civilian exploration ship led by Picard and its smaller Starfleet escort commanded by Riker. You could've had some interesting tensions between the civilian and military outlooks. And it would've been a less clumsy way of reorienting toward a less military focus while still keeping the military trappings.
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