Question of the Day

Can you be both a Star Trek fan and a Glenn Beck fan?


I was listening to Glenn Beck on the way home from work this evening and his show was about the impending doom of the one world government, the abolishment of our beloved nation-states and the chaos that will reign, and it dawned on me. You can't like Gene Roddenberry's vision of the future and still like Glen Beck or vice a versa.  The two have diametrically opposed views of the future.


Don't get me wrong, I am all for the good old nation-state.  Heck I've spent my entire adult life earning a living off it, and when called upon defending it.  It beats the bejabers out of what went before it.  In fact, in some parts of the world they are just now coming to realize that nation-states are the in thing to be.   Since the renaissance, states have come and states have gone.  Italy, for example, didn't really jump into the whole Italy as one country idea until late in the 19th century.  In fact, a better part of Europe didn't really separate into their current forms until the end of WWI; and don't get me started on Africa...This whole idea of sovereign nations governed by elected democracies is really still trying to catch on.


For the past 150 years or so we have been pretty much state against state in the struggle for power, territory and the implied wealth there in.  Occasionally you have to throw in the odd civil war but the real fighting has been country against country, or alliance against alliance.  Today we have the new wild card of non-state actors with the potential of causing large scale causalities.  We are still trying to come to grips with how they fit in.


Anyway, back to the question of the day.  In the original Star Trek series NCC-1701 is referred to as the United Space Ship -- Enterprise (a Constitution class starship).  Interestingly when the ID was being developed for the TV show Matt Jefferies the art director  (see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Starship_Enterprise) went back to early 20th century civil aircraft registration N=US C= Civil C=just because).  It represented a unified earth force.  Clearly part of that left wing Hollywood subversive movement.  It and the Earth, were part of the United Space Federation, commonly referred to as "the Federation."  In Star Trek, Earth is roughly equivalent to one nation-state.


Clearly, if we are to keep our nation-states from now until the end of time the whole "go where no man has gone before" is out the window.


Thats okay, I wasn't much for warping faster than light anyway.