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Learning About Constitutional Law With Star Wars
An anonymous reader writes: In an upcoming paper (PDF) for the Michigan Law Review, scholar Cass Sunstein draws on Star Wars to make a couple key points about how constitutional law evolves. He writes, "Human beings often see coherence and planned design when neither exists. This is so in movies, literature, history, economics, and psychoanalysis—and constitutional law. Contrary to the repeated claims of George Lucas, its principal author, the Star Wars series was hardly planned in advance; it involved a great deal of improvisation and surprise, even to Lucas himself. Serendipity and happenstance, sometimes in the forms of eruptions of new thinking, play a pervasive and overlooked role in the creative imagination, certainly in single-authored works, and even more in multi-authored ones extending over time. ... The misdescription appears to respond to a serious human need for sense-making and pattern-finding, but it is a significant obstacle to understanding and critical reflection. Whether Jedi or Sith, many authors of constitutional law are a lot like the author of Star Wars, disguising the essential nature of their own creative processes."
It could be worse, you could be trying to learn Constitutional law from the average elected official, especially the last few presidents.
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I thought the political message of Star Wars was clear: a powerful executive gradually demonizes, marginalizes, ignores and then disbands a representative body, while using force to intimidate and even kill anyone who resists or speaks against the central government.
Now where could we find a parallel....hmmm...
It isn't like the partial law from Star Wars isn't based on the well documented Roman System of governance.
You know the idea that there was a Republic system of government with a constitutional rule that will grant someone emergancy full authority in times of war. Which was abused by Julius Caesar to allow him to create the Roman Empire. Or was it Senator Palpatine who created the Galactic empire?
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
The Communists were less Evil...
Tens of millions of Chinese & Russians along with other eastern European & Asian countries might disagree. I wonder why communists always seem to get a free pass on the tyranny train?
Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.
I was thinking more inline with the Reichstag fire. Especially since both events were fabricated by those who sought to gain power (and no, for anyone who is thinking it, 9/11 was not done by the US government). While most of the prequel trilogy is laughable, the one line Natalie Portman says about liberty dying to thunderous applause is probably one of the stronger lines of all 3 movies.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
I know that the Ewoks are controversial among the original, older crowd of Star Wars fans. I watched the movies as a kid and I thought that anything with spaceships and lasers was awesome. However I also thought that the furry buggers actually make sense in the context of the story.
Emperor Palpatine could foresee almost everything, he does claim so a couple of times himself. But the furry little natives of Endor probably seemed so insignificant to him that they didn't even register on his radar. Which ultimately tipped the balance of power to the Rebels and led to his doom.
Oh and knocking down sufficient trees to provide clear lines of fire around important facilities.