Post Serenity: Is the Fireflyverse even remotely pro-government anymore?*warning: spoilers*

Finn,

In this string of responses I decided to devote a whole one to your first post here on utopian ideologues.

I can see part of where our earlier spat came from. You've got an excellent understanding of the dynamic at work, you really do. Kudos.

That said, I think you may be missing who really falls into which category.

Most Socialists, as I call them, utopian ideologues as you refered to them, do, yes, absolutely believe in a handful of things:

1. First and foremost they are good people trying to do what's right.
2. They have a workable usually preconceived plan.
3. They can somehow improve human nature.
4. The ends always justify the means.

Okay, here's who fits this best:

Leninist
Maoists
Nazis. Sure, absolutely.

Saddam Hussein is not pure evil. He believes he is doing good. He put a lot of effort into bettering Iraq and life for his people. A detailed study of the subject reveals this. But he is evil. Not because he believes he deserves a healthy share, if he actually did what he believed he was doing, he would deserve it. But He is evil primarily because he thinks any level of human casualty is acceptable to acheive his goals. I don't think, btw, when I say that he, Hussein, truly believes, that I'm doing him any favors. I think it's true. I also think it's not a compliment. Someone who was extremely corrupt such as some of the princes of Saudi Arabia, get more respect in my book, because at least they understand the world.

I also would nitpick on Bin Laden. I don't think this is who he is. Which again, is not meant to give OBL any credit. But I don't think he's a socialist idealist. I think he's more of an anarchist. Everywhere he goes he creates anarchy, and he goes wherever anarchy is. Contrary to what Bush says, OBL hated Saddam with a passion. They were serious enemies. I think that part of the reason OBL attacked us is he knew Bush wanted to invade Iraq, because Bush was PNAC/Clinton, and Clinton had tried it, and PNAC had written about it. OBL probably knew he was giving Bush a justification for invading Iraq and probably felt good about it. He probably thought we'd topple Saddam, and then Al Qaeda could move in and set up shop. Bin Laden is evil for very different reasons. Bin Laden is more like Niska in the Firefly verse. He's a free agent who creates death and chaos that benefits him. If you want to know how this little snippet form Sean Hannity ought to prove what Bin Laden has to gain in all of this:

- on 9/12/01 Bin Laden's populatity in the muslim world was only 2%, today it's over 70% -

That from about a year after we invaded Iraq, so say about March of '04.

I will tell you who else believes in the utopian idealist socialist one world state. Cheney and all the people over at PNAC. They are an absolutely perfect fit for this model. I don't think that Bush, himself, fits this. Bush fits the model of a dupe, who has been duped by neocon socialists who absolutely believe.

The torture policy we argued over, and the patriot act, these are sacrafices of human rights and freedom. This is the sort of thing that are very early steps on the path of "any sacrafice is acceptable."

I don't hold with that. No sacrafices are acceptable to build the socialist ideal state, like the one world state PNAC would build, because it is not worth building. A state in which dissent is impossible, like the Soviet Union, which is essentially what they want because it will bring world peace, is a state which will abuse its citizens without end and have no respect for their lives. Sure there will be no wars, because there will be no countries. There will be internal rebellions a plenty though.

If you are not yet convinced that the Bush administration and it's supporters are exactly the socialist utopian ideologues you have just described, I am willing to convince you. Myself, I am absolutely certain of it.

The reason I'm still Republican is I believe such people are still much more common in the Democratic party, but I feel confident I can recognize it whereever it rears it's

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Another mistake people make is thinking that Joss' work must reflect his personal politics.

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I get this, I often write things which are contrary to my own political beliefs. I am still certain Joss is a libertarian because all of his characters that are remotely sympathetic are always libertarian.

I know Joss worked some democratic fundraisers in '04. I don't think that proves anything. I posted before I worked briefly for Dean because I was so appalled by Bush. I had been a supporter of John Buchanan, but the GOP primary was a joke, which is to be expected with an incumbent (unless that incumbent is LBJ.) Anyway, Dean and his people appalled me, and kicked me rigth again, though I did work for Nader. I essentially strongly disagree with a lot of what Nader has to say, but I do agree with some of the things he does say, and I couldn't work for Bush. But anyone could have taken one of these Nader or Dean, plucked them from my resume and said I was a liberal and be extremely wrong. To me Bush is a flaming liberal and I sought basically any way to oppose him. I couldn't stomach Kerry, but clearly Joss could. I thought I had read earlier it was a Dean fundraiser, but it doesn't matter. I pretty much think DailyKos is dribble so I find it hard to take stock in the conclusions they themselves reach. The rather bold casual claim "Jefferson is a liberal" seems completely absurd to me.

Many people pointed out that Joss went and hired a well known right wing extremist stand up comic and put her in Buffy, and let her get up and make right wing extremist rants and put them in the show. That doesn't seem like a very left-wing thing to do.

I'm certainly not making the counter argument that Joss is a right wing republican. But I stick by my placement of Joss in the libertarian center. If the big out of countrol govt. was a democrat, as I suspect it soon will be, you might find Joss working for a gop opposition, but that wouldn't make him any more republican. He hates big govt.

Unlike other people I do not expect to see a lot of sympathy for the alliance over time. I expect to see both sides of the story, and a lot of rationalizations of alliance action, but not a "good side."

I also didn't think that Buffy and Angel were particularly shades of grey. I'm very fond of shows with shades of grey, and I was very fond of those shows, but I didn't find them that way. Particularly I thought the demons and wolfram and hart were mercilessly portrayed with the possible exception of one or two bleeding heart (or bleeding hart) angel eps written by former star trek staffers.

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I see the characters as almost uniformly conservative (at least the conservatives minues the religeous right) as are the movies themes and messages. Sure there's a mix of liberalism for flavor, but the lets face it, the crew of Serenity would have a lot more in common with Ronald Reagan and George W. Bush then with LBJ, Jimmy Carter, or any Democratic Senator/Presidential candidate.

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I basically agree. But I can't accept this Democrat=liberal Republican=conservative. I don't see Jimmy Carter as a flaming liberal, or George W. as a staunch conservative. But y'all know that by now. There are some decent conservative Democratic Senators. Not many, but some.

But to the characters:

Mal, he'd vote for a sort of take no prisoners southerner, probably a republican. Jayne would vote for the libertarian candidate or possibly whoever mal voted for. They might vote for Barry Goldwater or Ross Perot.

Kaylee I'm not so sure of, she might vote for a democrat. She's vote for Jimmy Carter of maybe Iacocca if he was running. Is he a democrat or a republican does anyone know?

Inara is upper crusty, but pretty conservative. She'd vote for Bill Frist, but she might vote for Kerry or Bush.

Book would vote for a believer, possibly Dennis Kuccinich. Someone who believes in what they say but also has faith. We know Book's politics to be far left extreme. He sided with the alliance and he has that ultrawhipped feminist line about a special hell, and some of the stuff he says to River, we know he's left wing looney land.

Wash might vote for a democrat, he's got that kind of wacky sense of humor. He might vote for John Edwards. He might even vote for Bill Clinton, Clinton's got a sense of humor (I credit Clinton with that and a decent financial sense, I still think he's evil)

Simon wouldn't vote for Frist, he hates bad doctors. He'd vote for someone with a decent plan to reform healthcare, which would be no one who recently ran on a major party ticket. He'd probably vote for Nader or Badnarik.

River would vote for Simon.

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Citizen,

The Nazis ran on the left wing ticket, it stands for National Socialist, which is short for National Socialist Workers Party, a splinter group of a left wing fringe party called socialist workers party that some of Bush's cabinet were involved in decades later, and is still around. Basically the Socialist Workers Party philosophy is that Leon Trotsky had all the answers. Since Trotsky was a marxist, that pretty much bonifies this as a left wing movement.

I understand the left's desire to disown them, though.

The right wing candidate btw in that election was Hindenburg, who won the election for those who don't know, in a landslide. Unfortunately he got very sick and died. Fortunately now in this country we have a rul whereby the party that won the election stays in power, but in the 19th century this sort of thing happened in america, the random death party flip thing, not the psycho thing.

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