The Case for the Empire

[Pax]

http://www.jdedman.com/sw-civilwar.htm

[Imran Siddiqui]

Neo-cons don't necessarily believe in spreading democracy by force. They believe in spreading American dominance by force.

You obviously have no clue what neo-conservatism is, even though we've tried to explain it to ignorant people such as yourself .

All they are liberals (in the IR sense) that uses force to accomplish the goals of spreading democratic regimes.

By your measure, the U.S. would be evil because we nuked Japanese cities and firebombed German ones.

Strawman alert. We nuked CITIES, not wiped the entire country from existance. If if we capsized Japan, then we would be pretty damned evil.

[Pax]

http://www.jdedman.com/sw-civilwar.htm

On the scale of the Empire a city would be equal to or smaller than a planet.

I am aware of the goals of the project for a new american century. I get my viewpoint from what I gathered reading documents from, on, or about the thinktank.

[lord of the mark]

heres a link, judge for yourselfhttp://www.newamericancentury.org/globalissues.htm

[Pax]

I've already been there and don't want to go again.

[Mercator]

The episode number and subtitle "A New Hope" did not originally appear in the film's opening crawl. These were added to the April 10, 1981 re-release to be consistent with those seen in Star Wars: Episode V - The Empire Strikes Back (1980)

http://www.brian-oshaughnessy.com/scifi/star-wars.html

[Imran Siddiqui]

On the scale of the Empire a city would be equal to or smaller than a planet.

So are you saying that nuking the same sized city in the US is better than nuking that sized city in Luxembourg, because of the scale of the US?

That's just silly. Btw, there are people living in Hiroshima and Nagasaki today. I doub that even a million years after the blast, anyone would be living on Alderaan .

[Patroklos]

The empire had a "thousand thousand" inhabited systems, most with multiple planets, under its juristiction. And it should be remembered that the Empire did not control all the galaxy.

Alderran, which wasn't even in the core so not one of the most populated worlds, would be more like a small village in Eastern China. Its importantace was souly due to the political savvy of Bale Organa, a famous politician. Similar to Naboo, just another back water world with a few famous politicians.

The attrocity of Alderaan is equivalant to a soldier killing A civilain unjustly in our world taking scale into account. Wrong, yes, but hardly damning by any means. Tell me one political entity on out planet who hasn't had the same happen over and over. Plus, as has been pointed out, it was a time of war.

Now since the Rebellion has all the trapping of a Galactic Al Queda, why do we not see the most certainly present acts of terrorism against the innocent?

Because the movies are made up of excerts from GALACTIC CNN, I want to see the GALACTIC FOX NEWS version, and then the GLACTIC CSPANN version for the truth.

[Dr Strangelove]

Galactic al-Qaeda? In which episode do the Rebellion soldiers resort to suicide bombing? In which episode do they commit atrocities? In which episode do they behead hostages? In which episode do they demand that the galaxy convert to their religion?

[Imran Siddiqui]

The attrocity of Alderaan is equivalant to a soldier killing A civilain unjustly in our world taking scale into account. Wrong, yes, but hardly damning by any means.

Hardly damning? To use your solder-civilian analogy, it's like the government ordered the soldier to kill the unarmed civilian.

Secondly, the analogy doesn't hold. Just because China has a 1 billion+ people doesn't mean that killing 1 million Chinese citizens is something 'better' than killing 1 million Japanese citizens because China has more to lose.

I'm sure Alderaan wasn't populated by one person. You have to take the real number of people killed, not proportional to attach the 'evil' label. The proportional argument is somewhat of an evil justification .

Now since the Rebellion has all the trapping of a Galactic Al Queda

Actually, I'd say the Rebellion is more like the American revolutionaries.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by Dr Strangelove
Galactic al-Qaeda? In which episode do the Rebellion soldiers resort to suicide bombing? In which episode do they commit atrocities? In which episode do they behead hostages? In which episode do they demand that the galaxy convert to their religion?

Use the force

[Impaler[WrG]]

I am reminded of an Article by David Brin that argued Lucas was Ant-Democratic for contantly displaying the old Republic as this inept corupted bloated organization being swept away by a Ceasar like "Emperor". That and the whole mess about the force be from Mitocondra and your just "born" with it which strongly contrasts with the very universal force depicted in ANH. Its all a bunch of Platonic thinking aka "the REAL world that you cant see" all this stuff makes for realy good achetypal theather but is realy not how the world works, mearly how most people wished it worked.

Brin contrasts StarWars with StarTrek (we could probably start a whole new poll on which is better if people are inclined to open up that can of worms). Here is the article

http://www.salon.com/ent/movies/feature/1999/06/15/brin_main/

[Andemagne]

Originally posted by Moral Hazard
Remember when they shot that laser at alderan? Would a laser no matter how powerfull destroy a planet? No, unless they were hiding massive amounts of explosives, somewhere in the core. Remember the Lusitania?

what about Lusitania?


and Good Thread. and Good Links too. (especially that CW-SW-comparison)

[Pax]

Originally posted by Imran Siddiqui

The attrocity of Alderaan is equivalant to a soldier killing A civilain unjustly in our world taking scale into account. Wrong, yes, but hardly damning by any means.

Hardly damning? To use your solder-civilian analogy, it's like the government ordered the soldier to kill the unarmed civilian.

Secondly, the analogy doesn't hold. Just because China has a 1 billion+ people doesn't mean that killing 1 million Chinese citizens is something 'better' than killing 1 million Japanese citizens because China has more to lose.

I'm sure Alderaan wasn't populated by one person. You have to take the real number of people killed, not proportional to attach the 'evil' label. The proportional argument is somewhat of an evil justification .

Now since the Rebellion has all the trapping of a Galactic Al Queda

Actually, I'd say the Rebellion is more like the American revolutionaries.

Bombings of CIVILIAN population centers in Germany and Japan was approved by the U.S. government. The U.S. government also authorized burning down my home city. The idiea behind the U.S. targeting civilians was to win the war. Your statements seem to point that there is some magic number of mass civilian casualties that is allowable. The point I stand by is that a precedent of strategic bombing and destruction has been established and has been going on since Carthage. The destruction of one planet holds no comparison to the destruction of whole cities, and cultures that happens here on this planet.

Once again, by Neo-con standards the American Revolutionaries would have been classified as terrorists who hate freedom and are jealous of the British way of life.

[Sprayber]

And to think I watched the movie to be entertained. I'm so ashamed