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The Politics of Star Trek
smitty_one_each writes: Timothy Sandefur, a lawyer at the Pacific Legal Foundation has written a breezy overview of the politics of the little-known show Star Trek. His thesis: "...the key to Star Trek's longevity and cultural penetration was its seriousness of purpose, originally inspired by creator Gene Roddenberry's science fiction vision. Modeled on Gulliver's Travels, the series was meant as an opportunity for social commentary, and it succeeded ingeniously, with episodes scripted by some of the era's finest science fiction writers. Yet the development of Star Trek's moral and political tone over 50 years also traces the strange decline of American liberalism since the Kennedy era." The article traces through episodes at each phase of the franchise, exploring literary allusions and lamenting that "Star Trek's latest iterations — the 'reboot' films directed by J.J. Abrams — shrug at the franchise's former philosophical depth."
A correction, the majority of people do not have "ever increasing unlimited desires and wants", only a tiny minority.
Yeah, right. Everyone wouldn't want their own starship, if they lived in a 'post-scarcity' Star Trek society. People would just be lining up to be Redshirts, rather than starship captains.
Back in the real world, the left just have no imagination.
The majority will do what they're told, comrade! Because the Party knows best!
Funny, isn't it, that the left used to claim the world would be a much better place, and the workers would be much better off, if they were in charge? Now history has proven what a disaster their policies are, they tell us the workers don't want much anyway, and are quite happy to queue up for six hours to buy a roll of toilet paper... and will be grateful that they got some.
you can understand why there was even communist revolutions in the first place: people don't like being treated as slaves
Right. They want to treat OTHER people as slaves. That's what the collectivist instinct and world view demands, regardless of how diluted it is. Fair-weather socialists are no different than kill-'em-by-the-millions totalitarian communists. They operate from the same place: you are born owing someone else your labor. The "social safety net" is the starter drug for all of the usual Nanny State spectrum disorders, and it always, always, always results in growing dependency paid for by a dwindling number of actual producers. Your "middle road" is just a spineless way of still expecting other people to be your slaves, but to avoid talking about it in plain language. Your social safety net is a mandatory debt you assign to other people. If they don't go to work part of each day to provide you the safety you want for yourself, you use the rules of your benign-sounding middle road to seize their property and send them to jail. It doesn't matter if you only think they should work for you for part of the day, or if you prefer the full-on everyone works for the state model - you're still advocating coerced labor by other people for your comfort. And you wonder why people push back? It's because they don't want to be your slaves, not even for just part of the day.
Don't disappoint your bird dog. Go to the range.