Starship Troopers - Neofascist or not?

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blacksmith RE:weapons of the film and book 5/17/2004 10:19:19 PM

Trust the hollywood elite to find the entire book incomprehensible.

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blacksmith RE:Back to Troopers 5/17/2004 11:00:29 PM

mike_golf wrote: "Heinlein....pointing out a fairly reasonable, and simple, ethical code:" "1. Your actions are ethical so long as they bring no harm to another person, physically or emotionally." "2. Loyalty to something larger than yourself, family, town, nation, race (humans, not ethnic group), and a willingness to provide service to that group, is ethical." "3. Service and loyalty to the larger group cannot be ethically compelled, only volunteered." Rebuttal: 1. Wouldn't that make military service inherently unethical since ultimately the military has to be able to break things and hurt people or so convince others of their intent to do so that opponents are compelled against their will or better judgement to comply? Heinlein's heros were never averse to breaking things or hurting people with provokation. His 'code of ethics' were more complicated than 1 would imply. 2. Loyalty to family and local community is the basis of the Mafia and street gangs. I'm am always drawn back to the an episode of Star Trek TNG which coined one of my favorite phrases. "The First Duty is to the Truth." All other loyalties have to be measured against the 'First Duty'. 3. I'll buy that one. Heinlein, in one book or another (I'm not going to go back and read them all) stated that 'duty' could not be imposed, it had to be chosen. Duty imposed was simply another form of servitude.

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mike_golf RE:Back to Troopers 5/18/2004 12:16:11 AM

Blacksmith, I simplified items 1 and 2. In fact, on number 2, Heinlein argued that teenage gangbangers who were loyal to their street gang were actually behaving ethically within the confines of the ethics they had been taught by the larger society around them. Re-read Starship Troopers to find the section I'm talking about. It is in one of the flashbacks to the History & Moral Philosophy classes. As far as number 1 goes, idealistic Libertarians will strongly argue that confrontation and conflict, whether at the personal or national level are immoral and unethical. Heinlein was a pragmatic Libertarian and took the position that sometimes you had to choose the path of least harm or the path of survival, whether that survival was of the individual, the group, the nation or the race. He was a realist and could distinguish between the real world and ideals. He also clearly understood the tension between the ethics of the individual and the ethics of the group.

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mike_golf RAH vs. Star Trek 5/18/2004 12:21:31 AM

Blacksmith wrote: "I'm am always drawn back to the an episode of Star Trek TNG" Star Trek, all variants, has invariably proposed a social order and structure akin to idealized Marxism. Since I neither agree with nor believe in Marxism, idealized or not, this has caused me a lot of trouble with enjoying Star Trek. RAH, on the other hand, continuously proposed the least government possible and social structures that emphasized the individual over a compulsory structure. That I have no problem with. This may sound odd coming from a career soldier. But consider this, I chose, of my own free will, to be a soldier. I accepted the sacrifices I would have to make in my personal liberties, again of my own free will. I'm relatively certain that in a culture that had conscription I would not have made those same choices.

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blacksmith RE:RAH vs. Star Trek 5/18/2004 9:07:22 PM

I also often marveled at how Star Trek painted the future as a galactic social welfare state where no planet in good standing could wipe its own posterior without a Federation bureaucraft advising them on which cheeck to pull. I'm afraid that would be the influence of hollywood. However, ignoring how the Federation managed to allocate resources without money (cows, shells, ??) the TNG series did manage to do justice to many episodes (maybe because it didn't have Shatner rutting through the universe?). The writers actually explored some of the issues raised. Most TV shows are too shallow for that. I can draw a direct relationship between a rather insightful episode of TNG and my going to grad school. The one called "The First Duty" I referenced before was memorable (otherwise I wouldn't have remembered it <:-O>. It was about a polital witch hunt which the good captain stopped. A takeoff of the poem "The Hangman". Even Marxist governments can produce admirable character

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fullamongo RE:Starship Troopers - 1984 5/19/2004 3:30:46 PM

Eh, no. The whole point in 1984 was that the socioities, despite being called different names and claiming to have different philosophies were the exact same. It's doublespeak. Three states existed so that fear of an outside force could be instilled in a population. The states had invioable borders and vioable ones. Therefore they sent thousands to die in africa yet the eurasians, despite it being made clear that they could easily do so, never took over Airstrip one (Britian). Also the rocket bombs that land daily on London never hit any government buildings (despite they being HUGE megaliths). The future of 1984 is not a resolved socioity a la starship troopers but as O'Brian says "A boot stamping on a human face, forever." 1984 teaches us that the most important thing of all is the truth. Read it again, great book. One note: While Heinlin predicted the whole small, professional army thing, Orwell went one better. He predicted the widespread future use of helicopters in war and the helicopter gunship. Thats a pretty bold prediction to make in 1948!

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ilpars RE:Starship Troopers - Warrior democracies in world history specifically Turkish clans. 5/24/2004 8:31:37 AM

The idea of only persons who served in military can vote is not new. In history, Germanic Tribes of Roman time or Turkish clans were also warrior democracies. In Turkish clans: Clans had several boys (sub-clan). Every boy is ruled by a kurul, which includes every warrior of the sub-clan. This kurul selects 1 Bey (leader of sub-clan generally for life) for the sub-clan and members (Bey is also a member) for Kurultay (governing council for clan). Kurultay generally (but not always) have equal number of members from all sub-clans. This Kurultay in return has the right to select the new Khan if one of the Khans had died. Most of the clans had 2 Khans. The elder is the decision maker. Younger is the warlord. If the Clan is a member of Clan Confederacy than Clan is represented there by its Khan and Beys. And confederation has 1 or 2 Ilkhans. Every important decision including war, property rights, migrations must be decided by one these councils. Only in wartime Khans is the sole decision maker for a clan or IlKhans for a confederation.

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mike_golf RE:Starship Troopers - Warrior democracies in world history specifically Turkish clans. 5/24/2004 11:23:02 AM

I suspect, based on what I know of Heinlein, that he was fully aware of the Germanic and Turkish history of this when he was writing Starship Troopers.

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Vulture Orwell - Helicopters 5/28/2004 3:57:24 PM

Well considering the Key West agreement occurred in March 1948, I don't find it very oracular. It specifically stated fixed-wing aircraft were the province of the air force. And the army were to rely on rotary-wing systems.

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Advocate Of REason fascism 5/29/2004 5:19:20 PM

I think the poeple who call starship troopers fascist dont truly understand what fascism really is. Fascism is a system in which only one political power is in charge and holds absolute power over the state. In the ook it does not say that all the citizens belonged in the same party it merely said that they all served in the military (makes plenty of sense to me), so there can still be different political parties and they share power. so starship troopers cant be fascist simply because fascism implies one faction controlling everything which is simply not what the book describes. After reading the book i found myself wishing for such a political system.

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Heavycamper On Conscription as by 2/9/2004 7:54:31 PM 5/30/2004 1:47:23 PM

I'm all for an all voluntary military in peacetime. But in times of trouble it might indeed be allright to draft from the able-bodied population. I have three historically backings for that: 1. The French Levee �n mass during the revolutionary wars. This largely conscript army kicked ass on all the proffesional armies of Europe. This was the first real conscript army of Europe. 2. A conscription period of more than a year gives the proficiency needed to work togethe with proffesional troops. 3.As MilesDei mentioned the sheer moral of a conscript army in a hardpressed country is unbeatable. E.g. USSR in WWII and the current Israeli army. Sorry for being grossly out of line to the subject but I needed to comment on conscription. Regards Heavycamper

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mike_golf RE:On Conscription as by 2/9/2004 7:54:31 PM 5/31/2004 10:31:37 PM

HeavyCamper wrote: "Sorry for being grossly out of line to the subject but I needed to comment on conscription." I don't see it as out of line. One of the key philosophies espoused by Heinlein in Starship Troopers is that conscription is always immoral. A point I happen to agree with him on. I posted several comments and reasons for my position on that earlier in the thread. So, debating this point is very important to understanding the book. Since the book happens to be one of the most accessible looks at politico-military theory written in the past 50 years it is very applicable to the general purposes of Strategy Page.

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stim RE:On Conscription as by 2/9/2004 7:54:31 PM 6/1/2004 5:17:35 PM

heavycamper said: "in times of trouble it might indeed be allright to draft from the able-bodied population. I have three historically backings for that" Your three historical backings indicate that conscription can be USEFUL and EFFECTIVE, not that it is ETHICALLY right.

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Warhammer Starship Troopers 2 6/2/2004 12:22:13 AM

I don't know if any of you have seen ST2 yet. It just kind of snuck up on me when I saw a commercial for it, and then I saw it in the store and bought it. Didn't play in any theaters that I know of, and probably a good thing, since the movie had some of the worst acting I have seen in some time. The movie had some suspense, unlike the first movie, but overall it seemed to lack the grand scale of things the first one had. Maybe it was the fact that they only played like 2 FED propaganda commercials,(the ones from the first movie made me laugh, but not only that, they put a homefront perspective to the story)or the fact that the entire movie takes place on some crap planet with almost no daylight, where a general, and about 10-20 troopers are forced to hole up in an outpost against the onslaught of bugs, meanwhile, there are bugs taking over the minds of the troopers from the inside. Much of the first half of the movie shows a conflit between an Psychic Lt in PsyCorp,(funny they call it that, since Babylon 5 has a PsyCorp that seems to be just as "facist" as this Lt) and a former Hero Captain who killed his Colonel for making bad decisions and getting his troups killed. The Capt. is rather anti-state after his experiences in the service, while the Lt. seems more or less brainwashed by the state. Anyway, after watching the movie I decided to check out some of the special features, to help explain some of the motives of the movie. Also, I was sitting here reading through these posts so it all kind of fell into place somehow. The director/producer/editor/whatever mentioned that, at least in the movies, it wasn't a portayal of the state as facist that they were bringing to the table, but the media playing the facist role. Spitting out propaganda to encourage the masses to do their duty, sign up, and kill stupid bugs for the empire. I think heinlen wrote his book at a time just after WW2, when people were reflecting on the war and the future. Think about America in the 1940's. I wasn't around back then, but after pearl harbor, what happened to the media? Full tilt to the right. 100% support to the government to facilitate and ease the pain of mobilization. Amercia voluntarily entered it's own "facist" state and went all out to the war effort. Voluntary facists, now that is a novel idea. What is a voluntary facist anyway, a patriot? The media had quite a bit to do with it back then, they have a lot to do with it in the ST world, and the media has a lot to do with it post 9/11. In the first 1-2 years after 9/11 the media was pro-war, pro-america, pro-dowhateverittakestokickassandregainthepride, no questions asked. Well, there were questions, most of which were ignored, at least until later, and the american war machine was pulled out of the garage to smash the enemies of empire, much as in ST. In ST the media was still in lockdown, and seemingly in this state long after war, perhaps something that was held for so long, it just didn't die off(or simple monopoly on the media by a single company might do it), and it was there when the bugs attacked. In America today, this voluntary facism is the driving force behind our willingness to join up and go to war for out country. After Afghanistan, long after 9/11, and even after the supposed "quagmire" in Iraq, the volunteers are still flooding the gates to military service. Recruiters are filling their quotas at the fastest pace in decades. We have our freedom, our toys, our money, and all we could ever want, yet we gladly put it all on the line to serve our country. Facism? No need for conscription and no need for a police state. Just a nation of patriots willing to rough it, and risk it all for the preservation of our nation and way of life. Exactly like the story in ST.

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Xenograg RE:Starship Troopers - Alternative Suffrage 6/2/2004 3:28:23 PM

I have not read the book in over a year, but I recall that suffrage required two years of government service. Anyone who wanted to become a full citizen was given the opportunity to serve and qualify. The government chose what you did for those two years, though. One of Heinlein's anthologies contains non-fiction pieces that discuss several alternate suffrage methods, with wit and humor--one being "Only women can vote. They could not mess things up any worse that the men have."

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