Political Correctness.....in what ever form it comes in, is a real cheeser for me. The concept is most easily defined by a Star Trek; Next Gen plot point . In a ep. involving a Fed attempt at a clokeing device, Picard invokes "The Treaty of Algernon"....where in, it is written....the Fed's will NOT attempt to build or field clokeing devices. THATS when i told ST:NG to take a hike into a supernova! WHAT?! Every one else has a device that allows a fleet to sneak into, say, a capital world system, and giveing it minimal warning, take out a vital C3 node as prelude to invasion, and we (The Fed's), refuse to match it, and retain a balance of power? Stupid!....stupid,stupid,stupid,stupid! Look....i under stand the good intention of "Make peace, not war". But good intentions arn't nessarily what work! Some times you have to get tough....and unilateraly giveing up clokeing devices is not part of the survival instinct! I'm sorry....NCC is Naval Construction Contract, and screw the Next Gen producers who say otherwise. Naval! Other wise, the Enterprise would be UN-armed! When the Borg invade, who ya' gonna call, Greenpeace? Sorry....sorry, got a bit cheesed. So....any other examples of P.C. run amuck getting your goat? Or, are B-movies blessedly free, of P.C.?
err... and how exactly is following an out of date treaty imposed by hyperevolved aliens PC? Political Correctness does absolutely infest ST, but of all the examples that doesn't seem like one of them. Theres no "racial sensativity" or "disability concious" efforts in that situation. How about the episode where Worf has to prove he's still a klingon or the episode were laxanna troi falls for an alien sceintist from a planet with a mandatory life duration policy or the one where a "sexually devient" alien falls for Riker? There are so many episodes that deal directly with PC issues like racism and stereotyping it's sickening.
ST: TNG is pretty bad about it, as are all the later series. Voyager had an anti-creationism show, in which dinosaurs didn't believe in evolution (although in many ways I agreed with the premise, it's still pretty PC). Steven Spielburg irks me too. E.G. Jurrasic Park 2: The Lost World. Everyone with a gun dies, while the peace loving environmentalists survive. In real life, it would be the other way around. Ken Begg pointed this out on his site ( http://www.jabootu.com/lostworldnugget.htm ), along with about 90 other things wrong with this film. Oh, I was wrong about one thing: The main hunter of the Lost World survives because he gives up hunting (probably because he ruined his gun when it filled up with water from sticking it straight up in the air all the time in the rain). Yes folks, he saw the light....
WOW! Put down the 'spock ears' and slowly back away.
Your comment about Riker and sexual deviants made me remember an episode where Q showed up, snapped his fingers and created 3 hot babes that started hanging all over Riker. After Riker does the manly(?) thing and rebuffs Q saying he doesn't need his fantasy women. To which Q replies "Oh Riker, you're so stolid. You weren't like that before the beard". At least Q knew how to have a good time. At least BEFORE the ST crew made him come to his senses, settle down and start a nice little family unit.
Wait, you're right. PC sucks.
Flangepart wrote:
>
> Political Correctness.....in what ever form it comes
> in, is a real cheeser for me. The concept is most easily
> defined by a Star Trek; Next Gen plot point . In a ep.
> involving a Fed attempt at a clokeing device, Picard invokes
> "The Treaty of Algernon"....where in, it is written....the
> Fed's will NOT attempt to build or field clokeing devices.
> THATS when i told ST:NG to take a hike into a supernova!
> WHAT?! Every one else has a device that allows a fleet to
> sneak into, say, a capital world system, and giveing it
> minimal warning, take out a vital C3 node as prelude to
> invasion, and we (The Fed's), refuse to match it, and retain
> a balance of power? Stupid!....stupid,stupid,stupid,stupid!
> Look....i under stand the good intention of "Make peace, not
> war". But good intentions arn't nessarily what work! Some
> times you have to get tough....and unilateraly giveing up
> clokeing devices is not part of the survival instinct! I'm
> sorry....NCC is Naval Construction Contract, and screw the
> Next Gen producers who say otherwise. Naval! Other wise, the
> Enterprise would be UN-armed! When the Borg invade, who ya'
> gonna call, Greenpeace? Sorry....sorry, got a bit cheesed.
> So....any other examples of P.C. run amuck getting your goat?
> Or, are B-movies blessedly free, of P.C.?
As regards to STAR TREK: TNG; give me a break, guy!
The UFP dosen't have any cloaking devices aboard its ships because said ships are EXPLORATORY vessels with a small defense component. The people of Starfleet are science minded explorers who don't 'sneak around' because Starfleet, except in times of war, is mostly a non-millitary fleet.
Gene Roddenberry put those rules down a long time ago, Berman, Piller, & Braga have enforced them, and that's all there is to it. If you don't like the so-called 'PC' that you claim Star Trek is, then don't watch it at all; also, please stop talking about it on any forum.
Dear Neville.......you are wrong on this. In a hostile universe, a "Small defence Component" is usless. Heck, aginst the Borg, a LARGE defence component is useless! But, that deals with relitive technology. I'm sorry, but your response is so P.C. in it' s self. Okey, the Enterprise is the Calypso.....and that does what, when you meet a race or political entity that dosen't think like you? Your comment about not "Sneaking around" is off center.That is how the Fed's think....but does that not sound like a comment that a Romulin or Klingon would find offensive? They might conciter it both an insult, and an expression of blind arrogance. "We in the Federation don't sneak around like you do." "Oh", replies the other," So you'll give us the first shot, just to prove your moral superiority....how convinent". I'll agree with Funk.E, i could have used a better example, but the sheer foolishness of that plot point still gets to me. Your comment about Roddenberry, Brage, et all, is immaterial . So, they can do what they, want, its their show, but i still have the right to disagree. Oh, BTW...that means i can still talk about it on any forum....just as you can. And should. If Andrew says "Can it", fine. It's His board. But, if you don't like my opinion...don't read it. IMHO, StarFleet is just that . A Fleet! A Naval Fleet. And its rank structure and Combat Power is there for a reason....to deal with beings incapable of peacefull co-existance.....and if you still don't get it.......REMEMBER NEW YORK!
Okey, okey,....sorry is i got mean. But, dang it, Neville, you live in Spain, is that right? if so....don't you have a Terror problim with the Basque? Can you imagin what a wake up call it is, to loose 3.000 of your own people? Not everybody in the world(Universe) wants to get along! A clokeing device is a tool, good to have around if you need it. If you need it. Just like Shields, Photon torps and Phasers. You use them when you have to, not willy nilly. I'm sorry....but i just can't buy the Roddenberry premise that Starfleet is a bunch of Calypsos wandering the universe. It just don't match reality. And if you wander too far from that....your fiction looses a firm foundation on which to build. Diden't mean it personaly.
On the subject of the Borg, I think that is where the PC slant on TNG bothered me the most. Until they arrived, there were so many episodes in which the Enterprise is stuck in a situation with no peaceful solution, and having such a solution conveniently materialize in the last ten minutes. I imagine we were supposed to feel relief that they didn't have to resort to blowing anyone up. Diplomacy is just so exciting. Yeesh!
Then, along come the Borg to fill the void. Somebody went to great lengths to create a society with such radically different values and such an agressive nature that there could be no reasoning with them, and such power that the only way to defend against them is by hitting them with everything and/or infiltrating their ship in an exciting fashion. Diplomatic solutions would not work, because their reasoning was so thoroughly inhuman. Wonderful, and long overdue.
Then came Hugh, in an attempt to put a human face on the Borg. Suddenly, they can be infected with individuality by one member who got a brief taste of it. Whole societies of lifelong individuals couldn't do this when they were assimilated, but it suddenly works when the Enterprise crew want to avoid a more aggressive solution. The Borg have rights, after all. The next time we see the Borg, they're objects of pity. What crap.
Thankfully, the Borg managed to retain most of their original nature in the movies and on Voyager, but they were never quite the same. The addition of the Borg queen was a mistake, although she was introduced for dramatic reasons, not PC.
The worst, I mean worst, PC in Star Trek was on DS9. It was an episode about a woman from a low-gravity environment. The gravity is so low, in fact, that her people literally float around.
Never minding that her body couldn't even function in earth-like gravity, she rides around in a wheel chair. Get it? She's a metaphor for the disabled. GET IT? GET IT? (I'm trying to be as subtle as the episode was. Unfortunately, to do that, I'd have to beat you about the face with a 2x4 with "Metaphor for disabled" written on it.)
Ok, look, why not just have an actual, disabled person (human, Bajoran, Vulcan, whatever) instead of this bad metaphor. It's bad on several levels. First, she really IS disabled; she'd frickin' DIE if exposed to gravity about 10X what she was born into. Second, why is she in a wheelchair? You think they'd have something better than that in the 24th century. Oh, wait, later they come up with an exo-frame for her. So why the wheelchair in the first place? I guess they were afraid we wouldn't GET IT if we didn't see that.
Later, she uses her inherent ability to move around in low-gravity to defeat a mean, ugly alien kidnapper. (Start Trek has always taught us that ugly=evil.) Ok, look, he's still be stronger than her in low gravity and they're in a confined space. Even if she is used to moving about in low-grav, he'd still have the advantage.
But, at least it taught us that disabled doesn't mean helpless.
But WAIT! What does this woman do, now that she's realized she has no limits? She goes back home because she just can't hack it in this world of big, bad, high gravity. So, the actual message of this episode was that disabled people should just sit at home and not do anything, even (especially) after they prove that the only limits they have are imposed upon them by others.
F@#$ you, Star Trek!
This was already touched on, but my stand on things is that we are here to discuss movies or entertainment. Sometimes we will like them, sometimes we will not. That is a good thing. Flangepart didn't just say, "'Star Trek' sucks because of PC." he gave some examples. Honestly, you can little hope for a better opening to a good discussion than that.
If you want to check out an episode that had an interesting "PC" slant on warfare, see "A Taste Of Armageddon" (1967).
Andrew
Hey Flang, Glad to see you back off on ripping Neville a new one. I did that once to a b-movie reviewer and felt really bad about it when he called me on it. You were more mature than I was.
Neville obviously really likes ST and the ethics that it tries to expouse and to be honest so do I, but lets face it between the PCisms and the "convenient Duex ex Machina" solutions to difficult situations does that ethical standard an injustice by implying it wouldn't hold up when faced with real delimas. It's unfortunate. The original Star Trek at least bit the bullet from time to time STTNG pretty much backs off everytime except on issues have already been addressed or resolved Like Data's rights etc.
I think Nev is a little nieve to thing that STARFLEET is a s**tload of peaceful exploration vessles. If that were the case they would have virtually no armorment at all. When was the last time you saw a weapon on Jacques Cousteaus vessles?
We've established that the Federation has been in and has fought wars before and that the Enterprise is a flagship.
The whole cloaking device forbayance as stated before was externally imposed and if the forces that imposed them in the first place were to "insist" then it makes sense that Jean Luc might have vested interest in preventing StarFleet from engaging in metaphasic research, but that's a lot of ifs.
Anyways, it's a fun debate as long as everyone breaks clean and doesn't hit below the belt.
PS. Sart Trek is basically a weekly Sci Fi b-movie just like Xena's a weekly Fantasy b-movie so I think we should be able to banter about it.
Just like a Yank to use patriotism to justify and win an argument-especially since his nation's patriotism and millitary philosophy is what was one of the causal effects behind 9/11 in the first place!
Starfleet and the STAR TREK idology are all about peaceful exploration and DEFENSE, NOT attack. Starfleet DOES NOT go around imposing its millitary will on any other race, except when that race harms Starfleet or Federation citizens, and Starfleet DOES NOT sink to the enemy's level by using the enemy's devices of deception onboard Starfleet ships. To use such devices would mean that they are just as unprincipled as that enemy, and that any peaceful concepts that they have to convey is false.
That's what makes the United Federation Of Planets /Starfleet something better than the present day United States; that it does not use the law of force as a primary justification for action, nor does it do underhanded things while claming high ideals (certain events[epsiodes] on DS9 excepted). The character diffrences that Roddenberry, Berman, Piller & Braga came up with were put there to MAKE THE CHARACTERS DIFFRENT, and also to make the world of the future diffrent from the s**tty present-especially with warmongering idiots like you in the ruling legislatures of this planet.
If you don't get Roddenberry's 'one world/exploration/peaceful conflict resolution except when attacked' idea (BTW, several NGO's have come up with this idea world wide and are trying to use it to teach kids-look it up on the 'Net and elsewhere), then maybe you shouldn't be watching STAR TREK in the first place, and should stick to whatever purely warlike show/movie/PC game that you obviously love so much, and derive much enjoyment from.
As well, try to learn how to spell: your letter looks like that of a retarded redneck member of the KKK and the John Birch Society.
Also remenber-imperial bulls**t from powerful nations causes weaker ones to respond in kind-REMEMBER THE ROMAN EMPIRE!!!
Neville, your response was meant to degrade Flangepart, but it is offensive on a basic human level.
Any more idiocy in this thread and I will just delete the post. If you want to make a reasonable argument - go ahead, that is exactly what should happen.
Making light (and it is making light of their deaths) of a few thousand innocents being murdered because you like or dislike Star Trek is reprehensible.
Andrew
Dear Neville. You have gotten it wrong agine. I never said that Starfleet was Offensive. Starfleet does not impose it's will on others, except in the "Mirror" universe. I never said, or implyed, that it did! And, agine, "Sinking to the enemys level" is an egotistical expression, not a logical one. I grew up watching the original series. So you have no cause to say i "Don't get it."Your second paragraph is Political Correctness in form and substance. Idology run amuck. I never said Starfleet was, or should be, agressive....except when it had to! You call me a warmongering idiot. You don't know me, but jump to the conclusion that i am ....because i'm an American. That, sir, is self serving P.C. arrogance. You said i should "Stick to what ever purely warlike Show/movie/PC game you obviously love so much." Realy? And, how would you know? You jump to conclusions that puff up your self image as a better man. In truth, you are unwilling to read what i actualy said, and throw me into a box labled "American". Funny, that, since Roddenberry was a yank too......no. no, this is a fall into the realm of politics....and i hate going there. Oh, and the "Retarded Redneck " comment, regards my spelling....how loveing and kind of you! Oh, i'm not the perfect speller.....but you should address my ideas, not my imperfect excicution thereof. You sir, are not adverse to hate....you just hate "The right people". Oh, BTW....If we were Imperial....you'd not have the freedom to say such thing. You are a jelous European, who forgets....we learned about Imperial Excess from the "Old country". Remember the Spanish empire....and others. Your only an imperfect human like me, and everyone else. Don't be too proud. I know from expericnce....it will come back to bite you.
Wow! They were right... never discuss politics or religion at the dinner table. Hey Nev... a word of advise... it's probaly not a good idea to put down the American military on a site run by a U.S. Marine... and calling someone a fascist because they don't like PC is, well, fascist.
Thanks Funk. E. You think i did a better job of responding then i do! Well, i've posted a response to Nev's resoponse....dang, i need spellcheck! I never expected him to be so...well, so mean! Sounds like he has no compassion for what happened to the U.S. How else should i respond? Did Al Queda do something he hoped would happen? I don't get it. If something like this (Sep 9/11) had happened to his country, i'd expect him to be angry about it. Do other nation hate us with some reason? likely, but diden't the Great Bird of the Galaxy think reasoning out a problim better then rage? He calls me a "warmonger". He has no idea how many book by soldiers, sailors, Marines, and airmen i've read. By reading thier experiances, i've learned much of the horror of war, without haveing to live it. I conciter myself luckey. War sucks.....can i say iot any plainer? War should ALWAYS be the last resort. How could he miss that? Want a book title? "DEATH TRAPS" by Belton Cooper. Cooper ran a tank repair unit for Patton's third in the ETO. Conciter the effect on your humanity, haveing to clean out the brains,and guts and blood of men your age. Every day. before you could fix a broken Sherman tank. Warmonger? Neville....you are Soooooo not with it.
Dear Andrew. I',m sorry this happened. I never thought this would happen. I never ment it to happen. I was just trying ...well...to throw a rock in the pond, and see where the ripples spread.
If I were to attempt to put on an "objective" POV there are a great many people all over the world who have not benefited from America's foreign policy. I for one do feel not that we deserved the attack, but that we have p**sed off enough people that we kind of asked for it. America is truly the land of spoiled children in a sense. Our relative lack of having to live with terrorism on a daily basis makes the event far more shocking to us than perhaps it would seem to be to the rest of the world. So:
A) It is reasonable to expect a foreign person to be less than sympathetic about the act and
B) to take the act somewhat more casually than we might think appropriate.
Though I still think Nev flew COMPLETELY off the handle there is a reason why his point of view, though it might seem callous to an American, is none-the-less justifiable.
I never thought a discussion on ST would cause so much trouble. Interesting conversation though. Nev just needs to cool it a tad.
Thanks for the rational response, Andrew and Funk.E . on the question: Has the U.S. made bad calls in international affairs? Of corse. People screw up, and all goverments are made up of just people. All the aspects of human nature affect the decisions made, and when our negitive traits doninate......well, stuff happans. And, sadly, even our positive traits can cause negitive resaults. That was the point i was trying to make. I don't disagree with the ideals of Trek, it;s just that good intentions don't nessarily gurrentee right resaults. In the B5 movie...."In the beginning?" ...the one about the start of the Earth/Mimbari war....The Mimbari fleet approached the Earth fleet with "Gunports open", which to them was a show of respect....but, the Earthers took it as a prelude to attack. Hence, they fired first, and pushed the Mimbari, with Deleins anger driveing it, to all out war. Peace happens when all sides want peace, and are unwilling to risk looseing what they have, and are in agreement that human life is valuable. When someone feels other wise........you get Empire building. Remember the Roman Empire? Oh, i do, and i fear we, as a nation ,are falling to rot from within. But....can that ever make the resault good? Fair? Or preferable? No....i love my country, and i do feel pain at our loss. I wish it on no one. Yet, look at Afganistan. We've done war to the best of our ability....but innocents still get hurt, along with the warmongers. I prefer peace. But, i've been around too long to expect it to last long. I'll be glad when this life is over, but thats because i expect something better in the next. For every one. From this point on, i have nothing more to say. it is over. Thank you for reading.
Wow. Hot Topic. I agree with you Scotty Xtreme, I never thought Star Trek could cause such a ruckus. And Neville, you are way out of line. Saying that Americans deserved what happened on 9/11 is a) War-like, and b) an example of what a callous human being is capable of. The only thing Flangeport did wrong was disagree with you about the obvious politics on a TV show. Oh my! Horror of horrors! So much for people being open-minded about things. It was no cause to call him the things you did and it was CERTAINLY no cause to say Americans deserved 9/11. No one on this planet deserves such an act, and yet I have heard others similar to Neville say the same thing. It amazes me that people who claim to believe in peace, fairness, and dignity seem to be the most violent human beings I have ever met, and believe me, Neville, what you said makes you far more violent then most people I've known. I sincerely hope that when you said that you were merely having an emotional reaction and not your true belief on the matter.
It's been said that citizens of countries outside the US are less sympathetic because terrorism is more of a reality for them. I think this idea of accepting terrorism as a part of the world is a reason why it continues. No one does anything about because "that's the way it is." We had one terrorist attack on our soil and we went to war over it. For Americans, it is not "the way it is." It is sick and wrong and it must be stopped, period. This comes around to one of the points Flangeport originally made: Peace works only if both sides want it. If one side is bound and determined to destroy you, you can either let it happen or fight back, i.e. go to war. War is a terrible thing to be avoided at all costs, but it can't always be avoided, and sometimes, it shouldn't be avoided. If we left the terrorists alone, do you really think they would never make another attack again? Is attacking them, "provoking" them? History has shown they don't need provocation. It's only a matter of time before they try it again, unless they are stopped.
Ahem. Sorry for the long post. I'm just an American standing up for what he believes in.
Okay, okay... now that everyone's blood is boiling and the sabers have been rattled can we get back to make loving jabs and Star Trek. We all like the show and we all know it has problems. Lets make fun of them! 8-D
Come on, you can do it! Here I'll start:
Why didn't they ever do an episode about Kirk getting some alien STD?
......I'm sorry fror all the s**t I've just spoken. I did not mean to offend anyone, and I don't intend to comment on political matters for a while. I most sincerley apologize for offending anyone over 9/11, and I won't do so again; not over STAR TREK, anyway.
Funk E., that is wayyyyy messed up!!! Do you really think the network would let them get away with that if Gene brought it up? If he did bring it up you have the answer. lol
Dear Lee:
Dude! it's true though. He bagged every alien chick he could get his *cough* on!
};->
Fair enough. Lets just let this die a quite death. Emotions are powerful, and have to be mastered, or they bite the hand that feeds them....if thats any kind of a metaphore!
Did you two ever hear "Banned on Argo", by Leslie Fish? Its a famous filk song about ...why Planet argo won't let a certian starship crew have R&R there....Funny song! For example....."Our doctor is gentleman, his privet life is quiet-The shore police arrested him, for inciteing whores to riot-we found him in the city jail, locked on and beamed him free- intact except for hickies, and six kind of V.D!"...."And we're, banned on Argo,every-onennnnnn,Banned on Argo, just for havin' a little fun-"......look for it under Leslies name, and under "FILK". Wonder if Vermin Boy's heard it?
That's hysterical! how did you find that song?
Seriously I think it'd be funny if they had an episode with Kirk illin' looking like the rabbit in Meet the Feebles. Or better still has to go into surgury because one of the aliens had unique anatomy. "I sware doc, she LOOKED human enough..."
"Dammit Jim, I'm an actor not a doctor!"
Nope, haven't heard that one, but I'll keep an eye out for it on Morpheus. The only Filk bands I'm really familiar with are Ookla the Mok and Luke Ski (whose "Mystery Science Theater Picture Show" would be of particular note to the denizens of this board), though Fish's name does ring a bell.
Funk E. does have a point. Have you ever wanted to know how some of those aliens *ahem* do it?
And one other thing, didn't DS9 have their first lesbian kiss on the show? How's that for P.C.?
I met Luke Ski! At the Marcon sci-fi con some years age, here in columbus. I bought his first two cd,s there, and This year, three years running, Dr Demento will be at the con! Cool beans! another Filker is Tom Smith, and he's good too. I have all his tapes. Hey, i'm demented....what can i say?
All I can say about the whole TNG-cloaking issue is that the treaty must have been incredibly broad in it's definitions of cloaking tech. Remember when Riker's old caotain, who is now an Admiral comes aboard so they can find and salvage the reminents of phasing tech? I'd hardly define that as a cloak. Cloaking tech seems to just bend e-m around the ship rendering it invisible. The phase tech seemed to render a ship intangible. Perhaps it made the ship invisible too, but it's not the same thing. I would have told the Romulans to stick their pointy ears up their collective asses, because it doesn't violate the cloaking agreement. What the hell else did the treaty tell the Feds they couldn't do? Could they not paint their ships with radiation absorbing paint that would render them hard to locate? How about holographic cloaks that make the ships look like something else? Did the Romulans use Ferengi lawyers to negotiate this treaty to be so damned broad?
As I recall the original treaty was the direct result of a conflict between the Federation and the Klingons in the original series. The Organian's imposed it when Kirk and Spock were stranded on their planet. I forget the title of the episode. Anyway the point being the Romulan's were not directly involved. The whole treaty was very amorphously defined in the show though I think (don't quote me on this) There is a copy of the treaty in the first Star Trek Technical Manual.