The Star Trek Conundrum...

Ok...I admit it...I am a fan of Star Trek (but only the original series). I grew up on Star Trek and have about half of the original episodes on Tape/DVD. I was a big fan of Spock whose superior logic almost always had a hand in the final outcome of each episode. There are more than a few pictures of me dressed as Spock for several Halloweens and at least one "Miners and Trappers Ball"

But Star Trek presents a conundrum to me. As I re-watch the episodes I loved as a kid, I am amazed at the socialist implications brought forth in the "adventures". I suppose I was more taken with the Sci-Fi nature of the show than the philosophical one. But, since learning that most of what I was taught as a child, was wrong, I have started re-analyizing a lot of things.

Jay P Hailey, over at The Libertarian Enterprise, explains his view of this very same problem.

"From a Libertarian perspective, Star Trek sucks. It's a space fantasy rooted in a brain damaged little atheist socialist utopia. The writers as a general rule are either inhabitants of the political left wing or arguably outright sociopaths.

How can I watch that?"

....

"I can filter the entertainment from the ideas. And I don't have to accept the ideas.

Show me a story where the protagonist must face an exciting and engaging question of right and wrong, and I am there. That's the product I want. I am a sucker for explorations of the nature of right and wrong in the actions of protagonists and their friends and foes.

Sometimes Star Trek manages this. Firefly managed it in every episode (It clearly is a superior product), James P Hogan manages it in his books and so does L Neil Smith. (and Charles Sheffield, and Robert B Parker and so on, and so on.)

Whether I am a "good" libertarian is another question, and perhaps one open for discussion.

I am not going to filter my entertainment for "political correctness" from any angle. If a liberal, gay, transvestite astrologer writes a good story set in Plato's Republic, and it happens to catch my attention, I'll give it a shot."

More here...


I am a "small" L libertarian. I am not a party member because I realized the error of party politics when I discovered my libertarian leanings and stopped voting Republican. A lot of people don't understand what libertarianism is. A lot of libertarians (more than you would think) try to mold the philosphy into either a socialist or conservative version of what it really is. Then there are those who should know better but either don't or they are trying to discredit the philosophy for people who are trying learn. Robert Locke falls into the later catagory.

Vox Day takes him to task for both intellectual dishonesty and outright propagandism.

"One might not quibble with Locke – a good conservative name if there ever was one – if he were content to assert that libertarianism is a purer form of conservatism in the same way that Marxism is a more refined form of the democratic socialism that is now dominant in the Democratic Party and the "strong government" branch of the Republican Party. But Locke instead asserts that libertarians are not mirror-images of Marxists in a metaphorical manner, but in a very real and legally binding sense."

Vox goes on to slice-and-dice this neo-conservative into fruit salad. He also has an outstanding, additional critique on his Blog...

"I've already pointed out that ex-socialists have gravitated to the Republican party, where they call themselves neoconservatives, not the libertarians. Libertarianism simply has nothing to interest a socialist, (who requires a vehicle he can use to control other individuals), which is why ex-socialists are known to become Fascists (Benito Mussolini) or neoconservative advocates of "strong government conservatism" instead. Locke confuses legality with a clear conscience here, but legality is not and has never been synonymous with morality, although some fortunate societies may be blessed with a legal system harboring a basis in it."

Much more here...

"The legacy of Democrats and Republicans approaches: Libertarianism by bankruptcy." - Nick Nuessle