Would you join Section 31 (if you were offered a position)?

[Pemmer Harge]

Obviously this has now gone way OT, but but I'm always tickled by the fantasy that guns can be used for self-defence by ordinary members of the public. They can't. It doesn't happen. Best to leave well alone.

It amuses me even more when people raise the entirely invented threat of violent criminals bursting into people's homes and killing them for, y'know, giggles.

Oh, and people, saying gun control works or doesn't work in certain parts of America is meaningless. Without a nationwide policy of gun control, there is no gun control.

 

[Sci]

Q: So...why is there less gun crime in Europe?
A: Because there are less people in Europe.

You don't seem to understand the population of the US (310 million) is less than half the population of Europe (730 million). Also, you don't seem to understand percentages.

Also, again, we say, "Innocent Until Proven Guilty". England says "Guilty Until Proven Innocent". Thus, there is a greater fear of punishment in countries such as England--a fear which is not as extensive in the US.

Wow.

Rush Limborg, you continued insisting that USA has a larger population than Europe, even AFTER I showed you the numbers?
And what's with the non-sense about England having a 'guilty until proven innocent' policy?

What world are you living in?

Don't forget the times when he revealed that he didn't know what The Pentagon Papers was, didn't know what the term "liberal democracy" meant, and didn't know that when the Queen dissolves Parliament in the U.K., that means she's dissolving that individual Parliament in order to have an election, not the entire institution of Parliament.

 

[Mr. Laser Beam]

It amuses me even more when people raise the entirely invented threat of violent criminals bursting into people's homes and killing them for, y'know, giggles.

That has been known to happen. Why do you say it's an invented threat?

 

[Kaziarl]

Obviously this has now gone way OT, but but I'm always tickled by the fantasy that guns can be used for self-defence by ordinary members of the public. They can't. It doesn't happen. Best to leave well alone.

It amuses me even more when people raise the entirely invented threat of violent criminals bursting into people's homes and killing them for, y'know, giggles.

Oh, and people, saying gun control works or doesn't work in certain parts of America is meaningless. Without a nationwide policy of gun control, there is no gun control.

Ok, I found all this to be pretty interesting, but I've got to say something here... Are you saying that if someone had a rifle and was shooting at me through my window, it wouldn't be self defense to shoot back? Cause, you know, I do see that as self defense. (Edit: Although personally, I'd shoot to disable, not kill personally.)

And as someone just mentioned, there certainly are violent criminals who burst into homes and kill people for, y'know, giggles. They're usually serial killers.

 

[Rush Limborg]

Q: So...why is there less gun crime in Europe?
A: Because there are less people in Europe.

Of course we do. There are more people, and more crimes which are therefore commited.

You don't seem to understand the population of the US (310 million) is less than half the population of Europe (730 million). Also, you don't seem to understand percentages.

Also, with our having an Innocent Until Proven Guilty policy, and England in particular having a Guilty Until Proven Innocent policy...I could see your point, in that case.

Also, again, we say, "Innocent Until Proven Guilty". England says "Guilty Until Proven Innocent". Thus, there is a greater fear of punishment in countries such as England--a fear which is not as extensive in the US.

That's completely CRAZY. There is no such thing in the UK legal system, nor in any of the other European countries. I don't know where did you get this, but such ignorance is fucking incredible.

And it's not even the first time I've heard such things. Sometimes I really question some people's connection to reality. I have to say, Rush, your entire knowledge and worldview seems to be composed by tv series, right-wing radio shows, and adolescent fantasies.

My apologies. My assertion was based on a news article from a few years ago. Perhaps my ignorance was due to my focusing on my own country's matters, and as such I did not "catch up", as it were.

To be frank, your assumptions about my knowledge and worldview seems, in itself, rather unconnected to reality.

ProtoAvatar, I didn't see your population numbers. I had a great deal of other things on my mind. After all, you and others seem willing to skip over my own points when they would have answered your questoons. I will assume that too is accidental.

EDIT: I've just checked. Apparently, you gave the population numbers as 800+ Million. This is, of course, a different estimate than iguana_tonante.


Oh, and Sci, don't you think that your obsession with my lack of expertiese on The Pentagon Papers is a little childish?

We all have our strenths and weaknesses in matters of knowledge. To assume that, becasue you know certain things, that everyone should, is most illogical, arrogant, and completely uncalled for.

To be frank, I probably know a heck of a lot more about the principles of the Founding Fathers than you do. That doesn't mean I should regard you as childish and uneducated.





One last thing. What does ANY of this have to do with Section 31?

 

[Sci]

To be frank, I probably know a heck of a lot more about the principles of the Founding Fathers than you do.

Sure, Rush. I completely buy the idea that a guy who thinks that agents of the state ought to be able to violate the law at their whim and throw out the rule of law knows a lot more about the principles of the Founding Fathers than I do.

What makes that assertion especially absurd is that the Founding Fathers did not have unified principles. The Founding Fathers were a collection of political actors whose only major point of unity was that they all eventually decided to declare independence. (And even then, a lot of them took a long while to reach that point!) They were as bitterly divided on political principles as any other collection of political actors in history. They disagreed on the balance of power in federalism, they disagreed on economic policy, they disagreed on slavery, they disagreed on foreign policy, they disagreed on union vs. confederation, they disagreed on every damn thing you can imagine! Just read about the conflicts between Thomas Jefferson and Alexander Hamilton, or between Jefferson and John Adams, or on the controversies leading up to the replacement of the Articles of Confederation with the Constitution. Or, hell, just pick up a copy of David McCullough's John Adams for an account of the very many fights that Adams got into with his fellow Founders throughout his political career.

 

[Rush Limborg]

^Like I said....

Yes. They did disagree on a great deal of issues. It is worth noting, however, that a great deal of consensuss was needed--and reached--as well. That, indeed, was how the Constitution was formed. Consensus was required, before a clause could be accepted.

The points which the Founding Father did agree on are more numerous than you may think, sir.




Oh...and an exaggeration of my POV hardly contibutes to this discussion. As I have pointed out, after the fact, the agent in question must be debriefed, and must accept the consequences of his actions.

This is where I disagree with Section 31--the lack of accountability. You were right in saying that "absolute power corrupts absolutely".


Also...you yourself allow for the necessity of plausible deniablility.

Ideally, Section 31 (or something like it) would simply be a division of Starfleet Intelligence, which whould have the express purpose of being the "black ops" division.



BTW...you seem, once again, to ignore my point that the section 31 of the UFP Starfleet Charter (which, again, was established in the Kirk novel, Cloak) establishes "an autonomous investigative agency" with broad and undefined powers.

So, by claiming that 31 violates the law...well...in this case, the law is the problem.

 

[Sci]

^Like I said....

Ah, yes, participate in a thread's further and further divergence from the original topic until you start to lose the debate. Then, complain that the thread no longer is relevant to the original topic.

How terribly clever.

 

[iguana_tonante]

[Rush] didn't know that when the Queen dissolves Parliament in the U.K., that means she's dissolving that individual Parliament in order to have an election, not the entire institution of Parliament.

My apologies. My assertion was based on a news article from a few years ago. Perhaps my ignorance was due to my focusing on my own country's matters, and as such I did not "catch up", as it were.

And that's the problem, Rush. Your ignorance about the world outside the US is very troubling. It's not lack of knowledge: there is nothing shameful in that, and it can be corrected. It's the willingness to believe absurd assertions about other countries based on nothing else than partisan propaganda. I know nothing about Sweden's legal system, for example, but if anyone would have suggested that they currently burn witches at the stake, I would have called it bullshit, for I would have never believed that a liberal democracy would to do that in this day and age. You, on the other hand, were more than willing to believe that the UK employed a deeply unjust judicial system, or that the Queen had the power to bring back the UK to an absolute monarchy, only because you read it somewhere. It shows a lack of critical thinking about political issues that I find very dangerous.

To be frank, your assumptions about my knowledge and worldview seems, in itself, rather unconnected to reality.

I only have your posts to judge, but so far my opinion had been confirmed quite often.

EDIT: I've just checked. Apparently, you gave the population numbers as 800+ Million. This is, of course, a different estimate than iguana_tonante.

That is, of course, because there is no universally accepted definition of Europe. Some Caucasian countries are included or excluded depending on the day of the week. I checked my numbers from wikipedia. And even if ProtoAvatar was just going from memory, it was a quite fair estimate.

One last thing. What does ANY of this have to do with Section 31?

Comparison between real-life right-wing ideologues and fictional rogue secret organizations?

 

[Rush Limborg]

^Like I said....

Ah, yes, participate in a thread's further and further divergence from the original topic until you start to lose the debate. Then, complain that the thread no longer is relevant to the original topic.

How terribly clever.

To be frank...I believe it was you who brought up The Pentagon Papers, and the dissolving of Parlament (which...didn't seem to be a problem at the time...), and the definition of "liberal democracy".

And yes...I was aware of what the term meant. As I recall...I had been remarking on the misleading use of the term "democracy", and how therefore the entire term was similarly misleading.

I...fail to see how that is proof of my inadequacy in this debate.

 

[Misfit Toy]

How about EVERYONE please keep the discussion Trek-related and avoid further commentary regarding individual posters?

I really don't want to close the thread.

Edited to add:

I also really don't appreciate it when someone who is fully participating in such behavior then cries "foul" when things begin to turn.

 

[T'Girl]

the only way to make Section 31 legit is to give it accountability, but then again, you can use Starfleet Intelligence for that.

Which goes to the belief that S31 has no accountability within the Federation government, that S31 isn't a duly authorized arm of the civilian government intelligence bureau (admittedly a covert one). I do take it for granted that the Federation central government has a an intelligent organization separate from Starfleet. Yes, a member of S31 "said" that there no accountability, it's possible that Luther Sloan or some other members of S31 actual believes this to be true. But just as the CIA undertakes covert activities at the direction of the President, the same may be true of S31.

When a member of S31 said that they had someone in the President's office, that might have been a sly way of referring to the ultimate head of S31, the President of the Federation himself.

As a means of insuring the Federation's survival, the President could have directed the "genocide" of the founders, the idea might not have come from S31 itself, but instead it originated in the executive office. S31 was simply carrying out a task. For decades the President of the United States had the power to "genocide" the Russia people (still does), the disease was just another weapon in the Federation President's desk drawer, in a different drawer sit Starfleet, the President's desk likely has many drawers.

In one of these drawer there in the successor to S31, likely with a cute obscure name of it own, the upper level management of the new organization will be the same as the old one, expendable foot soldiers like Sloan will be recruited.

S31 became a little too public and there was a purge, people like Luther Sloan had to take one for the team.

The only way to make lobbying not be corrupt is to make it free (i.e. ban all gifts by lobbyists to politicians)

But the lobbyists would still be able to offer the politicians the ultimate bribe, blocks of votes at election times. The NRA isn't just this tiny cabal of plotters somewhere, it's tens of millions of people, many of whom are not NRA members. The NEA isn't union officials, the AARP has supporters outside the core group. Even if you were to somehow get rid of legal campaign money, the lobbyists will still have something powerful to offer.

 

[Sci]

the only way to make Section 31 legit is to give it accountability, but then again, you can use Starfleet Intelligence for that.

Which goes to the belief that S31 has no accountability within the Federation government, that S31 isn't a duly authorized arm of the civilian government intelligence bureau (admittedly a covert one). I do take it for granted that the Federation central government has a an intelligent organization separate from Starfleet. Yes, a member of S31 "said" that there no accountability, it's possible that Luther Sloan or some other members of S31 actual believes this to be true. But just as the CIA undertakes covert activities at the direction of the President, the same may be true of S31.

Except that there's no evidence of this. Hell, if anything, the canonical evidence that we have indicates that Section 31 tries to control the civilian government, not the other way around. "Extreme Measures" revealed that Section 31 had an agent of theirs in President Jaresh-Inyo's Cabinet. They were spying on the President!

And if we expand our pallet to include the novels?

Spoiler: A Time to..." Miniseries and "Articles of the Federation

In "A Time to Kill," Section 31 forces the President to resign at gunpoint and then assassinates him in secret. In a subsequent novel, Admiral Ross muses to himself in his internal monologue that if the new President were to ever learn that Section 31 assassinated her predecessor, she would be assassinated as well.

Either way, it seems pretty clear that Section 31 does not answer to the Federation President.

When a member of S31 said that they had someone in the President's office, that might have been a sly way of referring to the ultimate head of S31, the President of the Federation himself.

Except that a "member" of Section 31 didn't say that. Bashir was reading through the "files" in Sloan's mind that had objective memories, and discovered that they had an agent in Jaresh-Inyo's Cabinet. There's nothing "sly" about it -- Bashir is reading Sloan's mind, in effect.

As a means of insuring the Federation's survival, the President could have directed the "genocide" of the founders, the idea might not have come from S31 itself, but instead it originated in the executive office. S31 was simply carrying out a task.

1. "Just following orders" wasn't accepted as an excuse for the Nazis. Why would it be for Section 31?

2. There is absolutely no evidence that Section 31 answers to the President whatsoever. You are literally making stuff up.

For decades the President of the United States had the power to "genocide" the Russia people (still does),

And that's wrong, too. Every country in the world should sign and obey the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, which requires signatories to disarm themselves of all nuclear weapons.

The only way to make lobbying not be corrupt is to make it free (i.e. ban all gifts by lobbyists to politicians)

But the lobbyists would still be able to offer the politicians the ultimate bribe, blocks of votes at election times. The NRA isn't just this tiny cabal of plotters somewhere, it's tens of millions of people, many of whom are not NRA members. The NEA isn't union officials, the AARP has supporters outside the core group. Even if you were to somehow get rid of legal campaign money, the lobbyists will still have something powerful to offer.

And, frankly, they should. Lobbying is just a form of petitioning the government for a redress of grievances. If you ban lobbying, you are in effect banning the ability of the citizenry to demand that their government adopt new policies -- and that would fatally undermine the entire concept of democracy.

 

[neozeks]

Which goes to the belief that S31 has no accountability within the Federation government, that S31 isn't a duly authorized arm of the civilian government intelligence bureau (admittedly a covert one). I do take it for granted that the Federation central government has a an intelligent organization separate from Starfleet. Yes, a member of S31 "said" that there no accountability, it's possible that Luther Sloan or some other members of S31 actual believes this to be true. But just as the CIA undertakes covert activities at the direction of the President, the same may be true of S31.

When a member of S31 said that they had someone in the President's office, that might have been a sly way of referring to the ultimate head of S31, the President of the Federation himself.

As a means of insuring the Federation's survival, the President could have directed the "genocide" of the founders, the idea might not have come from S31 itself, but instead it originated in the executive office. S31 was simply carrying out a task. For decades the President of the United States had the power to "genocide" the Russia people (still does), the disease was just another weapon in the Federation President's desk drawer, in a different drawer sit Starfleet, the President's desk likely has many drawers.

In one of these drawer there in the successor to S31, likely with a cute obscure name of it own, the upper level management of the new organization will be the same as the old one, expendable foot soldiers like Sloan will be recruited.

S31 became a little too public and there was a purge, people like Luther Sloan had to take one for the team.

Well, that's a whole lot of speculation without any evidence to back it up. And I'm pretty sure that's not what the writers intended.

But the lobbyists would still be able to offer the politicians the ultimate bribe, blocks of votes at election times. The NRA isn't just this tiny cabal of plotters somewhere, it's tens of millions of people, many of whom are not NRA members. The NEA isn't union officials, the AARP has supporters outside the core group. Even if you were to somehow get rid of legal campaign money, the lobbyists will still have something powerful to offer.

That's very different. In that case, the amount of influence you have is proportionate to the number of voters that agree with you (as is the point of democracy) and not to the size of your wallet (as is presently the case).

EDIT: Sci beat me to it.

 

[The Badger]

I voted no for joining Section 31. It's not because of their goals or methods. I'm idealistic enough to disapprove of what they do and how they do it. But I'm pragmatic enough to recognise the occasional necessity.

My opposition to the organisation comes down to the fact that, as portrayed in the show, S31 is not accountable to anyone. In James Bond, M sends 007 to carry out acts that are normally illegal, including murder (the double oh status is only given to those who have killed at least twice in cold blood). Yet Bond has a licence to kill, a legal framework is in place that means his actions are allowed by law. Even so, Bond, M, and the SIS are all still accountable to the British government.

For S31, there is no such accountability. It answers to no one. It does not report to or follow the orders of the Federation government. As such it is a criminal organisation that chooses to act in, what it considers, the Federation's best interests.

 

[Sci]

My opposition to the organisation comes down to the fact that, as portrayed in the show, S31 is not accountable to anyone. In James Bond, M sends 007 to carry out acts that are normally illegal, including murder (the double oh status is only given to those who have killed at least twice in cold blood). Yet Bond has a licence to kill, a legal framework is in place that means his actions are allowed by law. Even so, Bond, M, and the SIS are all still accountable to the British government.

Exactly. Hell, in Casino Royale, we even saw M being brought before a Parliamentary oversight committee because of Bond's actions at the Nambutu Embassy in Antananarivo. M bitches and complains about it, but acknowledges that even she answers to the Prime Minister.

 

[Ensign_Redshirt]

I fully agree on the accountability issue.

Just imagine that every real-world intelligence service would operate fully independent from its respective governments. Aside from the many terrible things they'd do if left unchecked, could they even be considered government agencies anymore? Or would they be more like terrorist groups? They'd pursue a certain ideology and certain political goals, they'd claim to act in the name of a certain nation, they'd use violence to achieve their goals and they'd operate without knowledge or authoriziation from their countres' governments. Sure sounds like terrorism to me.

Section 31 is a terrorist organization. Of course, they'd claim otherwise. But which terrorist group doesn't? The only difference is that most terrorists claim to be a resistance movement or something like that, while Section 31 claims to be an intelligence service.

In order to be a legitimate organization, Section 31 has to take its orders from the Federation president and there probably should be a committee of the Federation council which provides oversight.

 

[stj]

Obviously this has now gone way OT, but but I'm always tickled by the fantasy that guns can be used for self-defence by ordinary members of the public. They can't. It doesn't happen. Best to leave well alone.

It amuses me even more when people raise the entirely invented threat of violent criminals bursting into people's homes and killing them for, y'know, giggles.

Oh, and people, saying gun control works or doesn't work in certain parts of America is meaningless. Without a nationwide policy of gun control, there is no gun control.

Quite true.
I wish I was philosophical enough to be amused.

The grotesquely exaggerated fears of violent criminals are closely tied to apocalyptic fantasies. Some of the people who are desperate for guns are preparing to go out and kill the rampaging Jacobin/Communist/liberal mobs, or the Zionist Occupation Government goons, or the (theological) liberal minions of AntiChrist, or African American hordes gone mad with pillage and rapine. I've never quite figured why the hunters and target shooters are so comfortable in that company.

 

[Rush Limborg]

A word:

First, I must apologize for carrying on unfortunate acts in this thread--including, but not limited to, my leaping into the dark without looking, in such instances as my hasty guesswork concering policies abroad; as well as my engaging, out of sheer frustration, in the very actions I had simultaneously condemned.

As many have seen, such hastiness has resulted in unfortunate incidents in previous threads. While said incidents were not completely caused by me--nonetheless, it takes at least two to argue.

I take full responsability for these actions, and will give my all to hold myself to a higher standard of civility than I have recently held.

Thank you, and good night.