The Enterprise And The Entire Price
I heard a report on NPR about the history of Star Trek. It was actually from a few years ago, dusted off for the new movie. Among others, they interviewed Tim Cavanaugh, who wrote a fine 40th anniversary tribute a few years ago in Reason.
He noted that Captain Kirk and company are neocons, flying through the galaxy, toppling civilizations they don't approve of wherever they find them.
This is true as far as it goes, but what we call neocon today is really a 1960s liberal. It was a proud, patriotic liberalism that believed in basic Western ideas, especially freedom, and wasn't afraid to do what had to be done to defend them.
But with the more radical New Left on the scene, and events like Vietnam and Watergate, the modern liberal became full of self-doubt, and as much anti-America and anti-West (as they existed) as anything else.
This is from JFK's inaugural address:
...the same revolutionary beliefs for which our forebears fought are still at issue around the globe--the belief that the rights of man come not from the generosity of the state but from the hand of God.
We dare not forget today that we are the heirs of that first revolution. Let the word go forth from this time and place, to friend and foe alike, that the torch has been passed to a new generation of Americans--born in this century, tempered by war, disciplined by a hard and bitter peace, proud of our ancient heritage--and unwilling to witness or permit the slow undoing of those human rights to which this nation has always been committed, and to which we are committed today at home and around the world.
Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty.
The Federation couldn't have put it any better.
posted by LAGuy @ 12:28 AM
3 Comments:
That sounds like intervening in Bosnia or Rwanda
Or Gamma Trianguli VI.
Anonymous wrote: That sounds like intervening in Bosnia or Rwanda.
Some of Clinton's military interventions were along the lines of JFK (and were in some cases strongly supported by the neocons).
The big limitation of Clinton was that he only seemed to feel comfortable intervening in places that were 100% humanitarian. Places where the U.S.A. had an actual national interest, either financially or hegemonically, he avoided doing unless he could get the support of a bunch of our allies.
And I think that perhaps he had this, too, in common with JFK. Kennedy was willing to spread Western values even if military force was required. But he seemed quite uncomfortable with having invaded Cuba, where the issue was not "Western values" but old fashioned hegemony. (That word is probably too pejorative, but my point is that any government -- capitalist, communist, monarchist, fascist -- that ruled the territory of the United States would have objected to their European rival establishing a satellite regime in Cuba; it has nothing to do with Western values.)
The neocons, however, are not only willing to support humanitarian intervention but also support old fashioned "American interests" interventions, because they believe that ultimately the defense of America is necessary to the defense of our values.
Paleocons, on the other hand, generally support military intervention only in cases of clear national interest. Which is why the paleocons were mostly isolationist before 1941, and many of them became quasi-isolationist again after the Cold War ended.
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