Well, there is nothing that we know about Starfleet's regulations that you can't beat up an inferior officer.
Or drunk, out numbered townies apparently.
If you think about the chain of command when you see somebody strangling another person working in Starfleet is the wrong occupation.
and
Trained Starfleet personnel shouldn't stand around gawking while one officer nearly kills another.
Quite right and, including the bar fight, they did that sort of thing twice! But that’s the way we do things in today’s civil society. Nobody wants to get involved any more (Thank goodness ST was created in the 1960s). No wonder so many can identify with the characters in this movie. However it is encouraging that a number of people here still have an issue with such behaviour.
He was throwing his first officer off the ship for just disagreeing with him and trying to persuade him to take another course of action.
Not quite. He removed him from the bridge for doing that excessively. He threw him off the ship for assaulting security personnel.
Kirk was being no more adamant and unreasonalbe about his position than he was when he rushed onto the bridge and convinced Pike they were going into an ambush. At that time, Spock said Kirk's logic was sound. And at that time, Kirk had no rank on the ship and could've justifiably been "shown the exit" instead of being listened to and taken seriously.
Spock listened to him this time as well, but in the end made his (correct) decision which wasn’t just based on Pike’s prior orders or he wouldn’t have allowed any discussion. Kirk wouldn’t accept that decision and became disruptive.
Then this time, when it's obvious Nero is heading for Earth to destroy it, Spock throws Kirk off the ship because he thinks he must obey an order that can be justifiably belayed by the new commanding officer under the circumstances. Does Spock really think that if Pike were still in command of the Enterprise he would've gone to the Laurentian system after what just happened and what they knew was going to happen?
Why not? We are given every reason to believe Nero could destroy the Enterprise at will and Kirk didn’t even have a plan. This is supported by the fact the later solution relied on technology supplied by Spock Prime.
A wholly separate issue is that attacking other Starfleet personnel for fully justifiable reasons is a fairly common occurrence in Star Trek, especially in circumstances where the justification is not obvious to the bystander. For all the sidekicks knew, Kirk was responsible for the loss of Vulcan and had just murdered Spock's mother.
I would be interested to know where such attacks happened in similar circumstances and where those who would be expected to intervene didn’t do so? The "bystanders" this time had reason to believe that Kirk was overly determined to stop Nero, not assist him in destroying the Federation. There was zero reason to suppose he was now supporting Nero! None of which has anything to do with letting the fight continue of course. That just shows the personal ethics of the new universe are based on emotional bias, not principles.
As far as opposing Spock goes, I think everyone on the bridge opposed Spock's decision to follow Pike's last order. But who's going to lead a mutiny? McCoy? Chekov or Sulu? Uhura? Kirk may have gone back onto the Enteprise as someone now opposing Spock (or more precisely the orders Spock insisted on following even though he didn't have to), but I'd say he spoke for everyone on the bridge. After all, no one called for his arrest after he brow-beat Spock and showed he was unfit for command. Instead they followed his orders.
Those on the bridge just did their usual stand by and do nothing routine, justifiably this time however. In fact they may have (hopefully) agreed, however reluctantly, that Spock had no choice but to do what he did given the apparent certainty of their destruction by Nero if they went after him. Spock’s only "bad" choices (both of which were due to Kirk’s provocation) were clearly at the behest of the plot, not his (unprovoked) character. Aside from those, he was doing well with the information available. In fact it was Kirk who lost control of himself the first time but no one worries about that. Never the less, I’m sure they would have been sympathetic towards Kirks goals, even thought the realised he was just being a hot head. Again, they had no reason to believe he was evil in some way. But they should have stopped the fight regardless.
First, I would hardly think anyone believes Kirk is complicit with Nero considering he killed Kirk's father and everyone knows that.
Agreed
Kirk isn't in the wrong in anything. There's nothing shady about him or his motives. He's just espousing other options for dealing with the problem. To Spock, he's just an annoyance. He's getting in the way.
That’s partly true but he does cross the line on at least two occasions. Assaulting starfleet personnel and later, insubordination towards Spock.
I've watched two petty officers (noncoms; one an E5; the other an E4) get into it. The fight was broken up within a few seconds after the shoving match started (I think someone would have thrown a punch if it hadn't) and both of them were talking to the Senior Chief not long after, but fights do happen. I have no doubt that commissioned officers throw down every once in awhile too.
Thanks. This supports a similar comment made a few years ago and my own opinion regarding poor behaviour in STXI and by the Star Fleet organisation in particular. So Star Fleet standards are now (well the "new" 23rd century) far lower than exist even today? So much for the optimistic future.
Objections to these kind of changes are expanded on
here.
