The Fascist Ideology of Star Trek
POSTED BY: citizen
UPDATED: Sunday, June 7, 2026 16:12
VIEWED: 22000
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"In Fascism people provide for the state, in Socialism it's supposed to be the other way around, the state providing for the people. Things like state provided Healthcare and education are socialist"
But here's the thing with that--those are provided by the government, who then decides what they will teach you, and ultimately, how they will teach it. Forgive me, I haven't read down the rest of the posts, as this is quite an intriguing discussion, so if I am repeating something already said, I apologize.
I think w/the Firefly verse, it seems to me to be implied that the Alliane is Socialist, considering the school River went to. However, there seems to be some contradiction from the tv series, as it seemed that she went there by choice of the parents.
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"In Fascism people provide for the state, in Socialism it's supposed to be the other way around, the state providing for the people. Things like state provided Healthcare and education are socialist"
But here's the thing with that--those are provided by the government, who then decides what they will teach you, and ultimately, how they will teach it. Forgive me, I haven't read down the rest of the posts, as this is quite an intriguing discussion, so if I am repeating something already said, I apologize.
I think w/the Firefly verse, it seems to me to be implied that the Alliane is Socialist, considering the school River went to. However, there seems to be some contradiction from the tv series, as it seemed that she went there by choice of the parents.
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Quote:Joss said quite openly that he never intended to imply whether the Alliance was Socialist Capitalist or etc.
Originally posted by Montanabrowncoat:
I think w/the Firefly verse, it seems to me to be implied that the Alliane is Socialist, considering the school River went to.
Evidence points to the Academy being run by Blue Sun, both on screen and from stuff Joss has said and had to cut from the film. Not to mention River's original pursuers were guys running around in Blue gloves...
Allowing Blue Sun, a big corporation, to run the Academy, as well as other contracts government and otherwise is hardly Socialist.
More insane ramblings by the people who brought you beeeer milkshakes!
No one can see their reflection in running water. It is only in still water that we can see.
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Quote:
Originally posted by citizen:
Allowing Blue Sun, a big corporation, to run the Academy, as well as other contracts government and otherwise is hardly Socialist.
Oh, I don't know... Blue Sun could be owned by the goverment, for all we know. Socialist countries typically contain many nationalised industries.
Or someone could be maintaining plausible deniability.
Weren't the Blue Hands refered to as 'Independent Contractors' by the man who sent the Operative on his merry way?
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Quote:Blue Sun could run the government.
Originally posted by Cavalier:
Oh, I don't know... Blue Sun could be owned by the goverment, for all we know. Socialist countries typically contain many nationalised industries.
Quote:How does independent contractors denote government agent. Describing them as independent contractors actually supports my argument.
Weren't the Blue Hands refered to as 'Independent Contractors' by the man who sent the Operative on his merry way?
More insane ramblings by the people who brought you beeeer milkshakes!
No one can see their reflection in running water. It is only in still water that we can see.
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Okay, spazzoid mega-quote.
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citizen wrote:
Tuesday, September 26, 2006 06:33
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Originally posted by Finn mac Cumhal:
Just because you can identify a chain of command on Microsoft sea going vessels doesn’t make them a military.
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Yes that was my point, thank you for (finally) getting it.
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The rest of us, I think, are interested in some sort of substantive argument.
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As long as you exclude yourself, you seem interested in belittling anyone who doesn't agree with you and calling them a fascist, so don't climb up on your high horse and wag your finger at me.
Finally some form of a substantive argument from Finn:
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What does a military look like? What are the things that define a military? Starfleet looks like a military, and in fact, has been called a military on the show, I believe.
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Starfleet, to my knowledge was only referred to as a military in the TOS films, so we can discount that since when it suited your argument you said we should. Unless what is good for the goose is not good for the gander.
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Fleet is a military term.
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Fleet is not just a military term, a company car is part of the company FLEET. Britain has a fishing FLEET.
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Starfleet is run by “officers” who “enlist” and attend an “academy.”
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Police officers are military? People enlisted into the police who go to police academy are really joining the military?
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Starfleet personnel follow a chain of command.
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We've already agreed that, that doesn't necessarily mean that it's military.
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Starfleet acts as the principal military defense in times of war.
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So were militias of old.
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And Starfleet doesn’t disband when the fighting is over.
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Neither does the TA.
What's Britain's Territorial Army? The TA's members all have main jobs outside of the TA that they spend most of their time doing. They only give their free time to the TA most of the time, and are only employed in a military role in times of crises. They're more like an organised militia than a standing military and Starfleet is more like the TA than the Army.
Right.
Let's lay down some ground rules:
* The Federation of Planets: This is a non-militant group. Don't think it's been brought up yet, but it will.
* Starfleet: A military organization. I don't think that a large government with Starfleet around as anything BUT the military will let them have warships.
How about you try this as an experiment. Don't tell your local government, or state, or whatever, and start massing an army. Claim to be defending the government.
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May not be smart, and it may not please you, but you're definitely gonna see what I have to say.
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Quote:Right.
Originally posted by Fizzix:
Right.
Let's lay down some ground rules:
* The Federation of Planets: This is a non-militant group. Don't think it's been brought up yet, but it will.
* Starfleet: A military organization. I don't think that a large government with Starfleet around as anything BUT the military will let them have warships.
How about you try this as an experiment. Don't tell your local government, or state, or whatever, and start massing an army. Claim to be defending the government.
Let's lay down some ground rules:
* You saying it doesn't make it undeniable fact.
* The above is neither an argument nor backing it up.
How about you try this as an experiment. Come up with a coherent argument, then back it up.
I'm getting fed up with people laying down the law or trying to paint me as an Orwellian doublethink fascist for not agreeing. Truth is I haven't made up my mind, but by virtue of everyone else having done so I have to play the other side see.
And frankly "I say it is so, therefore it is so" arguments are ones that I personally do not find particularly compelling.
More insane ramblings by the people who brought you beeeer milkshakes!
No one can see their reflection in running water. It is only in still water that we can see.
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Citizen, I have a couple of questions to ask.
First; what exactly do you mean by military and civilian?
I think you use “military” to mean an organisation that exists primarily to fight the enemies of its masters.
I think you use “militia” to mean an organisation that can be used fight the enemies of its masters.
According to Random House (via Dictionary.com):
Military [mil-i-ter-ee]
–adjective
1. of, for, or pertaining to the army or armed forces, often as distinguished from the navy: from civilian to military life.
2. of, for, or pertaining to war: military preparedness.
3. of or pertaining to soldiers.
4. befitting, characteristic of, or noting a soldier: a military bearing.
5. following the life of a soldier: a military career.
6. performed by soldiers: military duty.
–noun
7. the military,
a. the military establishment of a nation; the armed forces.
b. military personnel, esp. commissioned officers, taken collectively: the bar, the press, and the military.
militia [mi-lish-uh]
–noun
1. a body of citizens enrolled for military service, and called out periodically for drill but serving full time only in emergencies.
2. a body of citizen soldiers as distinguished from professional soldiers.
3. all able-bodied males considered by law eligible for military service.
4. a body of citizens organized in a paramilitary group and typically regarding themselves as defenders of individual rights against the presumed interference of the federal government.
It did not give a definition for “citizen soldiers”, but I think that usually means citizens who just joined the military for this particular war e.g most of the soldiers who fought WWII.
By this set of definitions Starfleet is unquestionably a military, as it certainly contains “the military establishment of [the Federation]; the armed forces.”
You could argue that Starfleet has a partly non-military character as it is said to exist primarily for “scientific research”.
First – they can and do fight the navies of the other major powers. That makes them a pretty heavily armed bunch of scientists. If you said you wanted to explore the Amazon basin, and by the way you were bringing an armoured division along for protection, people might doubt you.
Second – there is no doubt that the East India Company was formed to trade peacefully with the Far East. They still managed to find time to conquer a quarter of mankind. You can argue that their army was a militia if you like but really...
In any event, why do you care whether we call Starfleet a military or not?
The original complaint was that we have no evidence that the Federation contains anything at all except Starfleet.
To make this clearer I will compare DS9 to the most similar show, Babylon 5.
Both shows feature a semi-military station commanded by an officer with some political responsibilities. The B5 commander deals with Earthforce superiors, a Senate oversight committee, a dockworkers union (who strike in one episode), a television news channel (ISN), visiting bigwigs from Earthforce Intelligence, PsiCorps etc, and so on. One characters wife worked for a private exploration company, another worked was an independent prospector and so on. An alien ambassador was explicitly surprised to discover the concept of an independent press, and used it to keep tabs on what her superiors back home were not telling her. She had to be warned that a TV interview might be hostile, and that there was nothing the Earth Alliance government could do about it.
On the Federation side of things, the DS9 commander dealt only with Starfleet. If there was an independent media, or a civilian branch of the goverment, we never saw them.
Both societies had severe internal political difficulties. In DS9, the Federation suffered an unsuccessful coup. The EA had a full-scale civil war, ending with a bloodless coup as the rebel fleet reached earth.
This is interesting. A coup tells you a lot about a society, because everyone looks to
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Citizen: You’re whole argument lacks any substance because you are not providing any kind of valid point to support your claim. Instead you are simply defining the issue to suit what you want it to be. You have defined Starfleet not to be a military, because you think, evidently, that if you claim that it is not a military that there will be no argument about whether Star Trek is militarist. You justify such a definition on the claim that any ONE characteristic of a military cannot be used to define something as a military. This is a purely duplicitous and manipulative argument; because Starfleet does not represent only one characteristic of a military, but many and in fact, all in most cases. It’s a pretty pointless argument, because even if I was to accept it, it is self-defeating. As I’ve already pointed out, twice, such a definition essentially requires Star Trek to be militarist.
Quote:A citizen soldier is a soldier that is recruited into the military when war is required. It is not generally considered a characteristic of modern standing militaries, but a draftee might be considered a kind of citizen soldier, and certainly the distinction between a citizen army and a standing army was heavily blurred by the huge number of recruits mustered for World War II. The Romans and the Greeks used citizen armies until around the second century BC, when Gaius Marius enacted what would later be called the Marian Reforms, which created a standing Army. Prior to that, armies were mustered from the pool of citizens, which is where the term comes from. Before anyone seizes on this definition, it should be pointed out that the citizen armies were a product of very militarist cultures. The Romans and Greek citizens were extremely militarist in their civilian life. Young men were expected to begin training for military ventures very young. They were expected to provide their own supplies including weaponry/armor. Both citizen armies and standing armies are militaries; the former is usually representative of much greater degree of cultural militarism then the latter.
Originally posted by Cavalier:
It did not give a definition for “citizen soldiers”, but I think that usually means citizens who just joined the military for this particular war e.g most of the soldiers who fought WWII.
It could be that Starfleet represents something similar to this, where young men and women who are citizens of the Federation are expected to enter Starfleet. That kind of thing was used by Heinlein in Starship Troopers, where young men and women had to complete two years of “federal service” in order to become citizens. It’s quite possible, even likely, that Roddenberry would have been influenced by Heinlein.
Nihil est incertius vulgo, nihil obscurius voluntate hominum, nihil fallacius ratione tota comitiorum.
Nothing is more unpredictable than the mob, nothing more obscure than public opinion, nothing more deceptive than the whole political system.
-- Cicero
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I agree with Finn, Starfleet is definitely a military organization. Flat out it's a Navy. It performs Naval operations, it follows Naval ranking systems, and follows Naval procedures.
Historically, diplomatic missions and exploration were part of the Navy's role. For example, I believe the Beagle was a Navy ship and ships like the Hood]/i] and the Constitution were sent on long cruies to visit foreign ports.
Starfleet's ranking system includes naval ranks from corpsman, chief, ensign, Lt.Junior Grade, all the way to Admiral (all ranks I've heard mentioned on the show).
Isn't the second pilot Spock's Court Martial? Don't characters plan on a career in Starfleet? All these are indications that Starfleet is a military organization.
Also I'd point out that organizations like the police and the state police are referred to as paramilitary because while part of civilian government they follow a military organization.
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