But you do see a lot of people who are trying to go out to the edges of Fed. control–all the colonists and terraformers. There are also petty criminals (like that chick who keeps stealing archaeological artifacts and making out with Picard … Vash, maybe?). Or Tom Paris, who is a ne’er-do-well ex-con that’s living on govt. assistance and playing billiards all day prior to Voyager’s launch. And there’s a huge conflict surrounding the Maquis, and the Fed’s willingness to leave those planets on the Cardassian border out to dry in exchange for peace with the Cardassians. And think back to the longstanding tension between scientists and the military present in Wrath of Khan, where the Genesis team don’t trust Starfleet and have always feared that the project would be taken away by the military. And finally, in Voyager, the creation of the holographic slave class.
Clearly, not all things go smoothly in the Federation.
Regarding the religion question: I think that, by the time of TNG, Starfleet officers are generally atheistic/agnostic, but they’ve seen enough crazy crap–Q, et al–to realize that they don’t know everything, and many suspect that humans and other humanoids may be on a path to some sort of “evolution” into non-corporeal forms.
I didn’t say it was the only opinion that matters; I asked the person I was discussing this with why his opinion matters more than Marx’s. But since you’ve taken over the discussion, I’ll ask you: why should your opinions on communism matter more than Marx’s? For that matter, why should yours matter more than mine? And please, use your own words — no silly Wikipedia articles about variants of communism. Also, if possible, answer the actual question and not a made-up one, thanks.
The implication being that if a communism wasn’t exactly as Marx had proposed, it wasn’t a “real” communism. Which is both silly and nonsensical to bring up in this thread.
Because my opinions are based on the meaning of the word communism, and the practice of communism, all of which are larger than Marx proposed as his ideal form. Of course, you’re also quite wrong in suggesting that Marx did not recognize other forms of communism as communism, so there’s that, too.
The only thing silly is trying to argue that a red delicious is just a variant of apple, with the implication that it isn’t a “true” apple, in a debate about what sort of apple a fictional character is likely to have eaten.
Christian communism is a form of communism in exactly the same way Marx’s idea of an ideal communism is a form of communism.
It’s hard to tell sometimes if you even read the posts you respond to, so I’ll have to consult with others with actually informed opinions on whether I’m answering your questions or not.
Again, just to pass on some advice: read the threads you are commenting on. We’ve already covered this issue, and you might see why your comment corrects a mistake not made. Russia and China both existed when Marx did, and he wrote about both. Neither were suitable for his idea of revolution, because they were primarily peasant/lord societies, not the sort of advanced capitalisms his theory predicted. Marx even towards the end of his life considered the issue of whether Russia could skip a step, but that would have seriously undermined his own theory of historical development.
I don’t need any advice from you. Your post equated Russia and China with Marx’s idea of communism, not his idea for suitable candidates for revolution. Unsurprisingly, others correctly read what you’d posted as well.
One more allusion - in The Corbomite Maneuver Balok tells them that they can pray to their deity or deities while waiting to be destroyed. No one has any inclination to - Sulu looks at the clock, and Kirk and McCoy argue, giving Kirk his way out.
No, they didn’t as was pointed out. Equating the revolutions that actually happened with what Marx said SHOULDN’T happen is perfectly legitimate commentary, and your correction is based on an error in your own thinking.
I don’t think that’s indicative. I mean, imagine that Aragorn or Peter Pevensie were in command in the Enterprise at that time. There’d have been no invocation of Elbereth or Aslan either; they’d have used the time to think their way out of the pickle, just as Jim Kirk did.
Especially by the end of the last season (IIRC - it’s been awhile since I saw that episode). The epsiode where the Enterprise is running around the galaxy collecting DNA samples to crack the code on a barren planet. It turns out that all the major races of the gallaxy were seeded on their planets by one race. More ‘proof’, in Roddenberry’s world, that there is no God as described by human religions.
